Navigating Financial Planning: Essential Insights for Small Business Owners with Griffin Gaughran

Griffin Gowran: 00:02:07

Griffin Gowran is a full service financial planner with a passion for helping families, businesses, and the individuals who drive them to achieve their financial goals.

Griffin Gowran: 00:02:18

Leveraging over two years of experience in the field, Griffin brings a unique perspective.

Griffin Gowran: 00:02:24

Having transitioned from a career in healthcare operations after graduating from the University of California, Davis, Griffin understands the specific financial needs of families and businesses and the often intertwined dynamics of family businesses.

Griffin Gowran: 00:02:41

He is adept at crafting personalized financial plans that cater to the unique challenges and aspirations of these groups.

Griffin Gowran: 00:02:48

Furthermore, Griffin holds a special interest in working with first responders, educators, and healthcare professionals like doctors, veterinarians, nurses, firefighters, police, paramedics, teachers, dentists and hygienists.

Griffin Gowran: 00:03:06

He recognizes these professions, dedication and specialized needs and tailors his approach accordingly.

Griffin Gowran: 00:03:13

Through clear communication, comprehensive planning, and a commitment to ongoing guidance, Griffin empowers his clients to make informed financial decisions and navigate the path toward a secure future.

Freddie: 00:03:27

Welcome Griffin, to the Business Superfans podcast this afternoon.

Freddie: 00:03:31

How are you Griffin?

Griffin: 00:03:33

I'm doing very well Freddie.

Griffin: 00:03:34

Thank you for having me.

Freddie: 00:03:35

We're excited to have you on a show.

Freddie: 00:03:36

So tell me a little bit your story of how you evolved from where you started to where you are today in helping businesses in a financial and helping them grow their business and helping businesses create super fans for themselves.

Griffin: 00:03:53

Absolutely.

Griffin: 00:03:54

So I suppose this journey started back in college.

Griffin: 00:03:57

I was trying to decide what I wanted to major in.

Griffin: 00:04:02

At that time I was pre med.

Griffin: 00:04:04

I had been told many times over I would be a good doctor, relatively personable, always liked helping people, pretty good with math and science, but my mother actually worked in healthcare marketing and client retention.

Griffin: 00:04:19

She had told me for many years that one of the things that most doctors struggle with is business management and growing their own practice efficiently without needing to divert a large amount of their time away from what they do.

Griffin: 00:04:32

So I went into school as a pre medical student but majored in Business, Economics and Management finance.

Griffin: 00:04:40

of and my graduation year was: 2020

Griffin: 00:04:52

Essentially had my volunteer opportunities, my internship opportunities, all of these different items that I had lined up, research even all stripped away completely once I had finished school.

Griffin: 00:05:03

I basically had to start from scratch and after a handful of volunteer opportunities and shadowing items here and there, I started working in dental operations.

Griffin: 00:05:15

I got a job as a benefits coordinator.

Griffin: 00:05:18

So I was already in the healthcare window or healthcare framework.

Griffin: 00:05:22

Helping people understand the options that they had, helping them weigh the different scenarios and different treatment plans, and then helping them plan financially for how they can actually afford it and get that treatment that they needed without breaking the.

Griffin: 00:05:39

Lo and behold, two years later, I came to realize that corporate dentistry is a tough nut to crack.

Griffin: 00:05:45

Made a couple of moves, but none of them really getting me where I wanted to be.

Griffin: 00:05:48

But I did notice that I had a propensity for helping people, educating them on their options, providing guidance, especially in that financial aspect.

Griffin: 00:06:00

So I went and looked all over the Phoenix Valley for opportunities, project management, comptroller, financial professionals.

Griffin: 00:06:09

And I ended up landing a interview through a connection that I had with a financial planning firm and this firm.

Griffin: 00:06:18

After a few interviews, a good word from that gentleman that got me the interview.

Griffin: 00:06:23

They took a chance on me and reimbursed me to get fully licensed.

Griffin: 00:06:28

Series seven, series 66, life and health.

Griffin: 00:06:31

And then about six months of paid training where I was then to develop a book of business.

Griffin: 00:06:37

Come about eight months into the industry, my team ended up transitioning to a new firm.

Griffin: 00:06:43

I transitioned with them because I was beholden more to them.

Griffin: 00:06:47

And in my mind, I valued loyalty over the tenure of the company.

Griffin: 00:06:52

So I moved with the team that took a chance on me and then at the new firm had my own struggles with developing markets and learning sales in that framework of needing to basically kill what you eat, essentially a hundred percent commission, very little support beyond knowledge and mentorship.

Griffin: 00:07:13

And it was tough.

Griffin: 00:07:14

It was a harrowing moments in my life.

Griffin: 00:07:16

It was something that I will look back on with mixed emotions.

Griffin: 00:07:19

I will look back fondly for what I had learned and the growth that I had achieved, but also with a bit of distaste because that was very difficult and led to a lot of turmoil in my life.

Griffin: 00:07:29

But through all of that, I got connected to Evergreen, which is the little logo on my background.

Griffin: 00:07:35

Here on the left, which is a smaller firm or smaller team within said firm that essentially looks at things from a long term framework of relationships.

Griffin: 00:07:47

First lead with education.

Griffin: 00:07:49

People will come to you for what you offer if they know that you care.

Griffin: 00:07:55

Because right when I was shadowing that doctor back in the day, that was something he used to say easily once a week was, nobody cares how much until they know how much you care.

Griffin: 00:08:06

And that is something that I believe this team has really embodied.

Griffin: 00:08:10

And so they have put me on a track that allows me to develop relationships how I would like to and still be able to provide this type of guidance and advice through a framework of a longstanding relationship and really developing that trust and value through providing that and not just being able to say the right things on a sales call.

Griffin: 00:08:32

So that's my story in a nutshell.

Griffin: 00:08:34

And here I am doing financial planning for families and businesses using my backgrounds in both.

Griffin: 00:08:40

I typically like to focus on helping first responders, which I have a lot of in my family, and healthcare professionals, since that's where my background comes from.

Griffin: 00:08:48

And my wife is about to become a veterinarian.

Griffin: 00:08:51

So I'm still very much a part of all that science and healthcare world, but nevertheless very excited to be on here.

Griffin: 00:08:57

And yeah, thank you for giving me an opportunity share my story a little bit.

Freddie: 00:09:01

We're excited to have you.

Speaker D: 00:09:02

Griffin.

Freddie: 00:09:02

You got a great story.

Griffin: 00:09:03

Thank you.

Freddie: 00:09:04

What are some of the things you've run into, especially talking about first responders and businesses and stuff like that?

Freddie: 00:09:11

What are some of the mistakes they're doing?

Speaker D: 00:09:14

Financial.

Freddie: 00:09:15

That a few tweaks and adjustments could really change the financial outcome?

Griffin: 00:09:21

Absolutely.

Griffin: 00:09:22

I would say the one that is probably most common, especially in these early stages.

Griffin: 00:09:28

I'll mention my first item which comes to mind for businesses more particularly, and then I will mention another item that's a little bit more towards people in that other niche area for businesses.

Griffin: 00:09:39

I do believe that most small businesses have a grandiose idea of how every aspect of their business should go or should be, and they lose sight of the fact that they are usually a single individual or a small couple of people, or a team of four or five that only have so many hours in the day and only have so much bandwidth.

Griffin: 00:10:00

There is a lot that can be accomplished with a small team, but I think the first and foremost decision that a lot of these young business owners and businesses make is failing to delegate early.

Griffin: 00:10:12

They typically believe that if you need something done right, you have to do it yourself.

Griffin: 00:10:16

But at the end of the day, that's just not true.

Griffin: 00:10:18

You wouldn't see a takeover of Apple or Amazon or Boeing happen by anybody who doesn't have an army of talented and knowledgeable individuals behind them.

Griffin: 00:10:34

And even if it's just something as simple as offloading your administrative tasks to somebody who may not be as qualified as you, but as detail oriented and has warranted that trust from you, it's amazing the amount of productivity that can be increased just by removing a few hours of paperwork from your week and offloading that onto somebody who might be a great partner for you in the coming years as they learn and develop the business.

Griffin: 00:10:58

But not only would they never get the opportunity to learn and grow, but you would never get the opportunity to make those extra Steps to increase the business.

Griffin: 00:11:07

Because you're bogging yourself down with tasks that are theoretically beneath you.

Griffin: 00:11:12

When you are the visionary who should be out providing, producing, inventing, creating, whatever it may be.

Griffin: 00:11:19

I typically like to get people on that ship that if something is so easy that you shouldn't be doing it, don't do it.

Griffin: 00:11:26

Find somebody that you can pay to do that.

Speaker D: 00:11:28

Yeah, I just got done listening to.

Freddie: 00:11:30

An audiobook called Buy back your times and one of the things he talks about is empowering other people to do the things that should be done by other people.

Freddie: 00:11:41

It may not be a hundred percent like you'd want it to be, but 80%, if I recall his folk correctly, 80% is pretty darn good considering you didn't do it and you were able to focus on something else.

Freddie: 00:11:56

So you can start focusing working on your business versus working in your business.

Freddie: 00:12:03

Because if you're in your business, you can't see where you're going.

Freddie: 00:12:06

So if you can work on your business and you empower your team to be able to make decisions, be able to solve problems or anything else, they're empowered, they feel the responsibility that you trust them to have.

Freddie: 00:12:21

The majority of people will set, fund and help grow that business enables the business to scale at the same time.

Freddie: 00:12:30

They're now creating super fans of their team because wow, John just elevated me to run this apartment.

Freddie: 00:12:41

Wow, I'm excited.

Freddie: 00:12:43

But more importantly, I gotta run this apartment because it's now my department and it changes the whole dynamics.

Freddie: 00:12:50

This is surprising.

Griffin: 00:12:51

Absolutely.

Griffin: 00:12:52

People getting the opportunity to take pride in work that they do, even if they aren't necessarily qualified on paper, just provides an opportunity for them to step up to the plate and actually deliver.

Freddie: 00:13:04

And you'd be surprised in how many people will exceed your expectation because they were given that opportunity.

Griffin: 00:13:10

Absolutely.

Griffin: 00:13:10

That's the thing about expectations is you can only expect based off of what information has been given to you.

Griffin: 00:13:16

And if they've never gotten the chance to prove themselves, how would they ever.

Speaker D: 00:13:20

That's really important because that person, sometimes you may think that's not the right person for the position, but it actually is the right person for that position.

Griffin: 00:13:32

Absolutely.

Speaker D: 00:13:32

When I listened to the book Unreasonable Hospitality, that was one of the things that happened is was the 11th Madison park was a restaurant in New York.

Griffin: 00:13:42

Yes, I love that story.

Speaker D: 00:13:44

And he placed some people that didn't think were right for the position.

Speaker D: 00:13:49

All of a sudden they stepped up and out of nowhere they exploded.

Speaker D: 00:13:54

The department that they got put in to levels he'd never even Imagined because they got empowered.

Griffin: 00:13:59

Exactly.

Griffin: 00:14:00

It's a very good point on that.

Griffin: 00:14:02

And then to finish, the point that I had on first responders and individuals who I like to think of, that camp of people are people that are doing difficult or high level or high volume work.

Griffin: 00:14:16

Policemen, firefighters, surgeons, teachers, where they are so engrossed in their job, but because they usually either work for the state or they receive a high income or receive certain benefits, they don't think about the future because they know that they're going to be okay in a general sense.

Speaker D: 00:14:35

Mm.

Griffin: 00:14:35

So my mistake that I see for those types of people is typically allowing goals of theirs to be ethereal or to, to not have any sort of anchor.

Griffin: 00:14:47

And what I would say is my immediate form of advice to them is just put a date on every single goal that you have.

Griffin: 00:14:55

Even if it's a timeframe of three or five years.

Griffin: 00:14:58

Giving yourself a date and putting aspects to said goal brings it into reality.

Griffin: 00:15:06

I, I don't know who coined the phrase, but I like this one a lot.

Griffin: 00:15:10

It's a dream only becomes a goal when you write it down.

Speaker D: 00:15:13

Yep.

Griffin: 00:15:14

So that's something where you'd hear a firefighter and they'd say, I have a pension.

Griffin: 00:15:18

I'm not gonna think about retirement, I'm not gonna think about my kids education.

Griffin: 00:15:21

I should be just fine, I'll be making plenty of money.

Griffin: 00:15:24

But if you just say, okay, I have 10 years to do this, or I have 20 years until retirements, you can break up year by year, exactly what you need to reach that goal.

Griffin: 00:15:34

And then it's not a matter of, oh, I should be fine.

Griffin: 00:15:37

You can go and check for yourself if you're on track, behind, ahead, and.

Speaker D: 00:15:42

And you can tweak, you can make.

Griffin: 00:15:43

Adjustments, you can make adjustments.

Griffin: 00:15:45

You could say, I was meant to retire in 20 years with this amount of money, but because I realized that I needed to do this each year and that ended up being easier than I thought, I could retire five years earlier, or I could now retire at the same time with twice as much money, or I can get this aspect of my life taken care of so much faster and know that it's taken care of years ahead of time and then remove all of those late nights of stress or concerns if my car breaks down and I have to spend $10,000 on it, knowing that, no, I've got my specific fund set aside for my specific goal, already set.

Griffin: 00:16:23

And now this money that I have to draw from a different item is so far down the line that I can, can Separate those in my head.

Griffin: 00:16:31

And I think that's really powerful for a lot of people.

Griffin: 00:16:33

And for especially those people who are usually very selfless, people that are running into burning buildings or putting their lives on the lines for others or taking it upon themselves to be liable for the outcome of a surgery are usually people that are doing amazing things for people that they have very little to no connection to.

Griffin: 00:16:52

And all they would need to do is put those items in a calendar.

Griffin: 00:16:57

Even sometimes is enough.

Griffin: 00:16:58

And then they could look back at those and say, you know what, everything is going on track or everything is going to plan or oh, we're not going to make it if we go this way.

Griffin: 00:17:07

I need to make a minor adjustment.

Griffin: 00:17:08

And once again, it just removes stress.

Griffin: 00:17:10

It brings everything into perspective.

Griffin: 00:17:12

And I think again, it's really powerful.

Speaker D: 00:17:14

So can you share, Griffin, a story of how you've helped some business owner redirect their finances in their business that helped accelerate their goals?

Griffin: 00:17:26

I think in particular there is one story that comes to mind.

Griffin: 00:17:31

I wouldn't say that this one's quite as much about accelerating the business as it is about identifying what it is that they do best and making sure that they understand that there are a thousand different ways to go about the wide world of business and development and innovation.

Griffin: 00:17:49

There is a client of mine who is an inventor.

Griffin: 00:17:52

So he had spent the past couple of years of his life dabbling with a couple of big ideas of inventions and came to one invention that he felt was going to be the end all, be all.

Griffin: 00:18:03

I won't mention what it is just because that I don't, I don't want him be notified or targeted or anything like that.

Griffin: 00:18:09

But essentially the invention was going to open up an entire market of service that was previously brick and mortar and was now able to bring it into a mobile and self service capacity.

Griffin: 00:18:24

And he had enormous grandiose ideas of I'm gonna be the CEO.

Griffin: 00:18:30

This company is going to be worth multiple billions of dollars in the next 30 years.

Griffin: 00:18:34

I just need franchiser, I need franchisees, I need seed funding, I need this, I need that, and then it's going to make it there.

Griffin: 00:18:42

So I went through this with him multiple times.

Griffin: 00:18:45

We discussed the difference between a franchising approach versus an equity crowdfunding approach.

Griffin: 00:18:52

The difference between providing people with a lease agreement versus an equity agreement, understanding what aspects of the business he would need to hone in first and foremost before he would transition into additional items like getting operations developed before developing marketing because you'd hate to have an influx of clients and not be able to service them and have it badly on the brand.

Speaker D: 00:19:15

Sorry, it would kill the brand.

Griffin: 00:19:17

It very well could, yes.

Griffin: 00:19:19

So we went through lots of iterations of ways that we could go about this.

Griffin: 00:19:22

And then he came to me one day and said, I was speaking with one of my operations partners and connections and he has a connection that instead of onboarding or leasing my invention to the company, they offered to buy the IP of the invention itself or even buy the patents for 10 to 20 million dollars.

Griffin: 00:19:47

He backpedals.

Griffin: 00:19:48

And I sit down with him and I said, why would you backpedal on this?

Griffin: 00:19:50

So tell me what you're thinking.

Griffin: 00:19:51

His initial, initial thought cycles back to that original thought of this company's worth billions of dollars, or at least it.

Griffin: 00:19:58

It will be.

Griffin: 00:19:58

I had to settle him down and have them realize you are so personally attached to this, that you're looking at this from a grand scheme of everything going absolutely perfectly to your favor.

Griffin: 00:20:13

But at the end of the day.

Speaker D: 00:20:15

You are told that way.

Griffin: 00:20:17

You are not a businessman, you are not a marketing director, you are not a CEO.

Griffin: 00:20:22

You are an inventor.

Griffin: 00:20:23

And essentially what you have done is marketed your invention to the point where somebody's buying that invention off of you for multiple millions of dollars.

Griffin: 00:20:31

And then what would you get to do immediately after doing that?

Griffin: 00:20:35

Create another invention, you pass along the patent and you work on a brand new one.

Griffin: 00:20:39

And that is your passion.

Griffin: 00:20:41

That is what you should be doing.

Griffin: 00:20:42

And at the end of the day, if you in your late 20s or early 30s, get a injection of $10 million to your financial plan, especially as an inventor who's got a host more ideas, you should focus on what you do best, which is honing your craft, developing more ideas and sharing them with the world.

Griffin: 00:21:04

You're not in this to be a businessman.

Griffin: 00:21:06

And at the end of the day, if this is your end all, be all, you would never, essentially never get to invent again.

Speaker D: 00:21:11

Correct.

Griffin: 00:21:11

So that's at least a bit of business direction and running through the types of work that I do with people, because I'm essentially not aiming to tell people what they should do or what they shouldn't do.

Griffin: 00:21:25

My goal is to ask you the questions that's going to bring those thoughts forward in your own mind and then guide you into making decisions that are most closely aligned with your goals and not most closely aligned with your fantasies or dreams.

Griffin: 00:21:39

Understanding that doing exactly what you want to be doing every day of your life is enormously more valuable than locking yourself into a venture that essentially could eat up the rest of your life and you may still not be happy at the end of it.

Griffin: 00:21:54

And it's difficult to put a price on that.

Griffin: 00:21:57

But at the end of the day it's easy to put a price on the time that you spend doing what you like versus the time you spend struggling over things that you thought would be easier.

Speaker D: 00:22:08

Hopefully takes the advice because to me that's very solid advice.

Speaker D: 00:22:12

And he should become really your super fan because you put anywhere from 10 to 20 million in his pocket and now he's got the money to be able to work on some other inventions and his life is pretty stress free because he's financially solid and as you mentioned, he invests that money.

Speaker D: 00:22:32

So now he can quadruple that money, live off of the interest, never spend the money because he can't spend it fast enough unless he's foolish.

Speaker D: 00:22:42

There's a trifecta win for him on that decision.

Speaker D: 00:22:46

Hopefully.

Speaker D: 00:22:46

I don't know what the outcome of the story is, but hopefully follows your advice because that's sound advice.

Griffin: 00:22:52

Thank you.

Griffin: 00:22:53

The outcome is yet to be seen, so I will keep you updated on that.

Speaker D: 00:22:56

I don't want to talk about how important is it because you and I both have seen this time and time again the small to mid sized business owner not paying attention to their net income and their P and L statement.

Speaker D: 00:23:12

And a lot of times you'd be shocked and I'm sure I'm not surprising you, but people don't even know how to read their P and L statement.

Griffin: 00:23:21

Yeah, it's back to the basics of business financials.

Griffin: 00:23:24

And again, lots of people that get into creating businesses are not business people.

Griffin: 00:23:31

They're not classically trained.

Griffin: 00:23:33

They're not understanding the nuances of their commercial roofer.

Speaker D: 00:23:38

They're a landscaping guy.

Griffin: 00:23:40

Yeah.

Griffin: 00:23:41

Tech consultant.

Griffin: 00:23:42

Or they're an at home IT service professional.

Griffin: 00:23:45

Or they're a web trainer.

Griffin: 00:23:46

Web designer.

Speaker D: 00:23:47

Web designer, yes.

Griffin: 00:23:48

So they typically get into the business because they want to do that item full time.

Griffin: 00:23:54

And when they finally get the results of having a business that's generating revenue and profits and losses and expenses, it's very easy to become bogged down with the fact that you're producing revenue.

Griffin: 00:24:08

Even if you at the end of a fiscal year have a net loss, you could be making $3 million a year in revenue.

Griffin: 00:24:16

But if you're spending three and a half million a year in expenses, you're going to fail.

Speaker D: 00:24:20

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker D: 00:24:21

You gotta track that stuff and you gotta track your margin and does it make sense and you're covering your Costs.

Speaker D: 00:24:27

Are you making a profit?

Speaker D: 00:24:28

Because like you just said, if you're just trading dollars, why are you in business?

Griffin: 00:24:34

Exactly.

Griffin: 00:24:35

I have another example of a client that I was working with where he was having essentially contract work and he was charging a flat rate.

Griffin: 00:24:45

He was charging this flat rate though, before going out and gathering the material and personnel needed for this specific contract.

Griffin: 00:24:56

And then he would come back at the end of the contract and say, that contract was Great, we made $10,000 or we made $50,000 on the contract.

Griffin: 00:25:04

And I would say, great, how much of it do you have left over after expenses and everything?

Griffin: 00:25:08

And he would say about $500.

Griffin: 00:25:10

About a thousand dollars, I would say.

Griffin: 00:25:12

I decide you need to understand that the number that you get as far as the contract price is great, but you need to think more of what is the end of the entirety of the project.

Speaker D: 00:25:27

Yeah.

Speaker D: 00:25:28

What's the cost?

Speaker D: 00:25:28

What's the cost going to be?

Griffin: 00:25:30

Yes.

Speaker D: 00:25:30

If someone needs subcontractors helping, what's their cost, what's their hours is going to be involved.

Speaker D: 00:25:35

What.

Speaker D: 00:25:35

How's that factor in?

Speaker D: 00:25:37

And then you might find out that, okay, your profit margin that you quoted the project on is not high enough.

Griffin: 00:25:43

Exactly.

Speaker D: 00:25:44

So you either need to have a higher profit margin, which means that you need to a higher dollar amount that can be justified by providing the proper value so that you can justify this.

Speaker D: 00:25:55

Okay, this is.

Speaker D: 00:25:56

Instead of quoting at $30,000, this needs to be $50,000.

Speaker D: 00:26:00

So I walk away with, let's say a 40% profit margin, which means that after my 20% costs, I end up with a 20% profit on the whole deal versus a 2% profit.

Griffin: 00:26:13

Exactly.

Griffin: 00:26:14

I've laughed with other advisors about this for a while because as complicated as business and personal finances are, there are at the end of the line only two ways to improve cash flow or to improve your bottom line.

Griffin: 00:26:29

And that's either increase the amount of money that you bring in or reduce the amount of money going out.

Griffin: 00:26:34

As far as expenses, at the end of the day, there is no other secrets and tips and tricks to improving the amount of money that you have left over at the end of contracts.

Griffin: 00:26:44

At the end of a fiscal year, at the end of a standard cost of living month, you really either need to increase the amount of money that's coming in through.

Griffin: 00:26:54

There are multiple methods of getting that.

Speaker D: 00:26:56

Sure.

Speaker D: 00:26:56

Story.

Speaker D: 00:26:57

When I was running an interpreting and translation company, they hadn't raised prices in years because all our customers are used to expecting this and blah, blah, blah says, you know what we're putting a $5 increase across the board.

Speaker D: 00:27:10

And this thing is a high demand ticket.

Speaker D: 00:27:13

So we're going to add $40 to it says the market will bear it.

Speaker D: 00:27:17

I did the homework and so I put the $5 increase and it's nominal from $85 an hour to dollars an hour.

Speaker D: 00:27:26

Most had a couple of pushbacks from some customers.

Speaker D: 00:27:30

That says why the final increase?

Speaker D: 00:27:32

This is there's an inflation going on, et cetera.

Speaker D: 00:27:35

And if you think about it, it's just a modest five bucks.

Speaker D: 00:27:37

Oh, you're right.

Speaker D: 00:27:38

No problem.

Speaker D: 00:27:39

Thanks for the explanation.

Speaker D: 00:27:40

Well, guess what happened to our bottom line?

Griffin: 00:27:42

Improved immensely.

Speaker D: 00:27:43

Improved five bucks.

Speaker D: 00:27:44

It was just $5, but $5 times 40 hours of multitude of different individuals providing interpreting services to hospitals, municipalities, the court, law firms, et cetera is a lot of money.

Speaker D: 00:28:04

It is.

Griffin: 00:28:04

And it's exponential at the end of the day.

Griffin: 00:28:06

It's usually boils down to a math problem.

Griffin: 00:28:08

And if you can increase the numbers without decreasing the volume or one of those two items up or down, that's really the only ways that you're going to make those needles move.

Speaker D: 00:28:18

Yeah, that's what we did.

Speaker D: 00:28:20

It grew that company by a million bucks in a year.

Griffin: 00:28:22

Have I told you the Tater Tot story?

Speaker D: 00:28:24

No, go ahead.

Griffin: 00:28:25

I believe it was Orisa, the french fry company.

Griffin: 00:28:28

Are you familiar they've got products promote the company?

Griffin: 00:28:30

Yes, I was told the story recently and I love it because I've used it a lot for these types of business conversations.

Griffin: 00:28:36

They made french fries for decades, probably almost close to a hundred years or so before they got to this point.

Griffin: 00:28:44

They were realizing that you only have so much of the potato that you can use to make french fry.

Griffin: 00:28:51

But there's going to be inevitably waste with every single potato that you use because it just doesn't fit the shape or it's, you know, the ends are rounded so you can't get all of it.

Griffin: 00:29:00

That could be yada yada.

Griffin: 00:29:01

So they had a contest company wide and said if anybody can come up with a way that we can package and monetize the scraps of these potatoes, they will get a raise or a bonus or some sort of recognition.

Griffin: 00:29:17

So they went around a couple of different ideas.

Griffin: 00:29:19

And the one that they ended up deciding to go with was a gentleman had said, let's shred them up, mix them with some salt, pepper and garlic powder and make them into little barrels and deep fry them.

Griffin: 00:29:29

We'll call them Tater Tots.

Griffin: 00:29:31

And they said, okay, great.

Griffin: 00:29:32

French fries.

Griffin: 00:29:33

I don't remember the exact numbers, but let's say French fries are $2 a pound.

Griffin: 00:29:37

These are scrap food.

Griffin: 00:29:38

So let's make them $0.10 pound.

Griffin: 00:29:40

Nobody bought them.

Griffin: 00:29:41

And you think, why would nobody bought them?

Griffin: 00:29:43

I've had Tater Tots, they're delicious.

Griffin: 00:29:44

Like, why would nobody buy them?

Griffin: 00:29:46

And they scrapped the idea completely for what I think was years.

Griffin: 00:29:52

But then they came back again and had another director of operations or manager or something along those lines say, why did we scrap that idea?

Griffin: 00:29:59

And they said it wasn't selling.

Griffin: 00:30:00

And they said, okay, tell me more about it.

Griffin: 00:30:02

And they go, this is how we made them, this is how we packaged them.

Griffin: 00:30:04

And they were priced at 10 cents a pound.

Griffin: 00:30:06

And he goes, I think that's your problem.

Griffin: 00:30:08

Let's make them the same price as french fries and stop calling them scrap food or leftovers.

Griffin: 00:30:14

This is now a product of ours.

Griffin: 00:30:16

Let's take pride in it.

Griffin: 00:30:17

Let's sell it as if it was something that we developed and are marketing as just as valuable as of an item as the french fries are.

Griffin: 00:30:24

And now to this day, Orison Potato company Tater Tots are their second largest selling item.

Speaker D: 00:30:31

Packaging.

Griffin: 00:30:32

It's embracing a perception of how valuable is this work to you and that will reflect to the public when you're presenting them.

Griffin: 00:30:42

If you truly find value in what you provide, in the service that you give, in the products that you have, then it will resonate with far more people than you would expect.

Griffin: 00:30:52

That's again where it circles back to if you truly find value in having an expert, in having somebody to cut through the red tape to simplify and summarize things for you, or even just to be an accountability partner.

Speaker D: 00:31:07

Let me repackage that a little bit.

Griffin: 00:31:09

Yeah, of course.

Speaker D: 00:31:10

Because I think that it's not if you find value, I think the person needs to display value.

Speaker D: 00:31:18

So it's to where that the recipient sees the value.

Speaker D: 00:31:23

Because if they don't see the value, they don't understand the value, they can't appreciate the value.

Speaker D: 00:31:29

If they do all that, then the price becomes secondary because the value is there.

Speaker D: 00:31:35

So I think that what's important here is that the seller of the value needs to make sure that the value is understandable, makes sense, and the recipient sees the value and appreciates the value and goes, oh, I can see how this can benefit me.

Speaker D: 00:31:53

And now they'll justify the cost because they'll say, okay, even though it's 500 bucks an hour for somebody, for example, someone that's a well known mentor, that's got a track record, help these people grow and triple their business.

Speaker D: 00:32:08

500 is a very reasonable price per hour for that value.

Speaker D: 00:32:14

Where if they sold themselves for a hundred bucks an hour, people are going to go, I'm not sure, why is this selling it for a hundred bucks an hour.

Griffin: 00:32:21

I used to do this thought experiment with people when they would ask about billable hours for something like I would do, where they'd say I could go on and do it myself.

Griffin: 00:32:30

Why would I pay you to do that for me?

Griffin: 00:32:32

There's actually two funny stories that I like about this.

Griffin: 00:32:34

First of them is the one I used to say, which is if I were to take you out of the middle of your work day and say, okay, go figure out exactly how to put together a retirement plan or figure out exactly how to train a onboarded individual in exactly what you do, how long would that take?

Griffin: 00:32:52

Usually one hour, two hours, three or four hours maybe.

Griffin: 00:32:57

And how much more valuable to your bottom line would you be if you spent that exact amount of time doing what you do best in your job?

Griffin: 00:33:07

Now think about that from the of, if you just pay someone like me or, or a professional to do said job for $500 an hour for one hour or two hours, but you would theoretically lose out on the opportunity to make three or four thousand dollars in that same hour, two hour period.

Griffin: 00:33:25

It puts a very much into perspective of how valuable that really can be.

Speaker D: 00:33:29

That goes back to the book, buy back your time.

Speaker D: 00:33:31

Because that's one things he talks about.

Speaker D: 00:33:34

Exactly, exactly what he talks about.

Griffin: 00:33:36

The other one was a good friend of mine who you've met.

Griffin: 00:33:38

Ryan likes to say that he had an interaction a while back where he was talking with a plumber friend of his and the plumber said the same thing.

Griffin: 00:33:45

Why would I hire you to do these types of services for me when I could do them myself?

Griffin: 00:33:51

And he looked at him and smiled and said, why would I hire you to be a plumber at my house?

Griffin: 00:33:55

I could fix a toilet, couldn't I?

Griffin: 00:33:57

And the plumber looked at him and shook his head and said, okay, that's a very good point.

Griffin: 00:34:02

You could in theory do it yourself.

Griffin: 00:34:04

Does that mean it's going to get done as quickly, as efficiently, as thoroughly?

Griffin: 00:34:10

Not at all.

Speaker D: 00:34:10

That reminds me of a story when I was selling manufacturing software to tool and die shops and stuff like that.

Speaker D: 00:34:17

They would get into how much is this going to cost me?

Speaker D: 00:34:20

And I'd say, let me ask you a question.

Speaker D: 00:34:22

If it was free or $5 million and doesn't do what you want it to do, does it matter?

Speaker D: 00:34:29

The answer would always be, now that you put it that way, no.

Speaker D: 00:34:32

So let's take a look and see if this is going to help you get to where you want your company to go.

Speaker D: 00:34:38

And then we'll figure out if we can justify it or not.

Speaker D: 00:34:42

But until then, cost is irrelevant because if it doesn't work, it's irrelevant.

Speaker D: 00:34:48

And if it works, then now we got to take a look at it and see is there enough value to spend that kind of money and when can I make that money back and make a profit out of my last.

Griffin: 00:34:59

Point on that is another mentor of mine has a saying that he still says probably monthly.

Griffin: 00:35:04

It's that if the person who's paying for or buying said service or product doesn't understand the general concept, the details and the price don't matter.

Speaker D: 00:35:16

Totally just like I said, just different packaging.

Speaker D: 00:35:18

Exactly the same thing.

Griffin: 00:35:19

Exactly.

Speaker D: 00:35:20

And most of the time those people ended up buying and they became my super fans because now they understood the value of their investment.

Speaker D: 00:35:31

And they would in turn refer me to other manufacturing companies because a lot of times these guys would do overflow work for one another because they're in the same business and yeah, they're competitors, but at the end of the day, you landed a big project, you can't handle it yourself, you got to team up with some other tool and die shop down the street or down in another town to help with the overload because otherwise you can't deliver it timely.

Speaker D: 00:35:53

And those people really were my sales team.

Griffin: 00:35:57

Yeah, exactly.

Griffin: 00:35:58

That super fan concept of yours is one I really like and subscribe to.

Griffin: 00:36:02

A book that was recommended to me by the CEO of the first planning firm that I worked for is called Winning on Purpose.

Griffin: 00:36:10

I don't recall the author at the moment.

Griffin: 00:36:12

It essentially referenced companies that made sure that the customer experience was paramount in everything that they did.

Griffin: 00:36:22

Particularly companies like Chick Fil A Costco Chewy, that are absolutely dominating their respective markets right now because they don't care how much money they lose on servicing customers.

Griffin: 00:36:35

Because the customers are so ecstatic with the service and the products that they get that they don't care.

Griffin: 00:36:42

They continue to refer people to them, they continue to sing their praises and they continue to promote and be super fans.

Speaker D: 00:36:50

To take it further on Costco, let's use them as an example.

Speaker D: 00:36:53

Because my approach on super fans is more than the cx, which is customer experience or people talk about the ex employee experience.

Speaker D: 00:37:03

My whole approach is really the whole stakeholder experience, which is it starts with the management, which Costco's got Great management.

Speaker D: 00:37:13

Number one, they empower their employees.

Speaker D: 00:37:15

So their employees love working at Costco.

Speaker D: 00:37:19

So that transcends you.

Speaker D: 00:37:21

Stop somebody, ask for help.

Speaker D: 00:37:22

They'll walk you through the whole store to help you find something that creates a great customer experience.

Speaker D: 00:37:28

Because the employees have got the right attitude.

Speaker D: 00:37:31

Now for them to have the kind of pricing and the quality of product, they gotta be taking care of their suppliers, which nobody ever really talks about.

Speaker D: 00:37:38

But that equation comes in.

Speaker D: 00:37:40

So you got their suppliers or distribution networks, their delivery personnel, usually sometimes contractors.

Speaker D: 00:37:46

And so that whole stakeholder experience is really important.

Speaker D: 00:37:52

That's really what I'm about.

Speaker D: 00:37:53

It's not just one component.

Speaker D: 00:37:55

It's all of it has to be working together to create super fans out of the whole equation.

Speaker D: 00:38:02

That's what propels these business to the levels that they're at.

Griffin: 00:38:06

Wouldn't agree, Mark.

Speaker D: 00:38:07

Great.

Speaker D: 00:38:07

As we get close to the end, Griffin, what do you have for our audience is a free offer and they can learn more about you and your services and stuff like that?

Griffin: 00:38:14

Yeah, what I have to offer for our listeners today is a free financial consultation and review essentially without diving full bore into their entire situation.

Griffin: 00:38:28

I love to sit down and do what I call a connect meeting or an introduction meeting where I provide, I give a little bit, tiny bit of insight, what it is I do and then allow the individual to unload any thoughts, questions, concerns that they've had over their financial path.

Griffin: 00:38:45

I provide overviews, general insights and best practices into those, and that format is something that they resonate with.

Griffin: 00:38:54

I would be very happy to move into deeper conversations with them.

Griffin: 00:38:58

But if they just want someone to look over what they have and say, you are off to a great start, or I would tweak this and that, or speak with your financial professional.

Griffin: 00:39:09

I am a big believer that everybody should have people in their corner.

Griffin: 00:39:12

As I said before, delegation is key to making sure that you're being as effective as you can be.

Griffin: 00:39:19

I am offering a free introduction and connect meeting with anybody that would like to just sit down and review what they have, see if there's major adjustments or changes that would be needed.

Griffin: 00:39:28

And if so, I would love to continue that conversation further.

Griffin: 00:39:31

If they're just looking for a quick second opinion or a litmus test to see if they're on track or if they're doing well for someone at their age and situation, I would be more than happy to sit down with them over a phone call, over a zoom call, or over a meeting in person.

Speaker D: 00:39:45

How can people find you?

Griffin: 00:39:47

So if anybody would like to reach me.

Griffin: 00:39:49

-: 1349

Griffin: 00:40:11

I'm usually able to get back to people within a business day just about any time of the year.

Speaker D: 00:40:16

Okay.

Speaker D: 00:40:17

Griffin, it was great having you on the Business Superfans podcast.

Speaker D: 00:40:21

Great conversation, great nuggets that you've provided to our listeners, and we're excited to have you on the show down the road again.

Griffin: 00:40:30

Absolutely.

Griffin: 00:40:31

Freddie.

Griffin: 00:40:32

I really appreciate you having me on.

Griffin: 00:40:34

It's been a great time, and I very much look forward to a return appearance.

Griffin: 00:40:38

So thank you again and.