114. Rules for Success with Robert Indries

Friday, September 22, 2023

Smooth Operator/114. Rules for Success with Robert Indries

114. Rules for Success with Robert Indries

CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT / HTML

Have you ever thought that your business was unique and had its own special challenges?

I think we all have.

But the truth is, the more businesses that I work with the more I realize that the most common problems and obstacles are similar from market to market.

Which is why I’m excited to have Robert Indries with me today! Robert is a serial entrepreneur who has generated over 500,000,000 in 19 different sectors.

We discuss:

1. How systems and stability have enabled rapid growth in the companies that he works with

2. That “We” is one of the most important words in growing his empire. Nothing has been done on his own

3. How never starting a business alone gives you the accountability that will enable rapid growth

4. Why creating rules around his business and personal discipline are key to his success

I was truly amazed to hear someone with this level of success providing real solutions that we can all implement today. This is an episode not to be missed!

Connect with Robert: https://robertindries.com/

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

Discover how to work with me: https://www.adamliette.com/work-with-me

The Greatest Opportunity Of A Lifetime

20 Business Owners Lives' Will Change in 2024

​​... And I'm Personally Inviting You To Be One Of Them!

The Greatest Opportunity Of A Lifetime...

20 Business Owners Lives Will Change In 2024...
​...And I’m Personally Inviting You To Be One Of Them!

Transcript

Adam Liette
What's up smooth operators Welcome to this week's show, I have another special interview for you, I, when I found this guy online, I should say he found me, which is really cool. When that starts to happen. I was immediately intrigued because one of the things I found in my clients and the people I speak with, is this idea that my business is different. My business is special, I can't operate the way that you say you can operate business because this is how we do things. And I have to tell you, I've worked in multiple different sectors in my daily life, I work in everything from elearning, to oil and gas generation, like that's the breadth of different businesses that I'm working with. And let me just tell you, businesses, businesses, businesses, business, and people are people, systems, work processes work, all these things. They're the slight nuances we have to make to our businesses. And that's where the the art comes in. But the actual aspect of having systems having things that run your business for you having processes, these are all universal skills, they're all universal traits from business to industry, it doesn't matter. You can study this yourself, I went deep into that rabbit hole in business school. But that's a whole nother subject for a whole nother day we don't have to go into. So I was immediately intrigued by the guests that we have coming on. I have Robert enrich. Yeah, he's a serial entrepreneur that has generated over $500 million in revenue in 19. different sectors, obviously, he's speaking my language on the fact that this stuff works no matter what business you're in. So his goal is to set new standards in business ethics and performance to show the world that it is possible for corporations to grow rapidly and generate billions whilst also being driven by ethics. uncompromisable ethics as he likes to say. So he's traveled the world. And that's given him a ideal vantage point to observe common mistakes and successes in business on a worldwide scale. So I'm really geeking out for this. Robert, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Robert Indries
Thank you so much for having me. I feel amazing with our new puppy right here next to me.

Adam Liette
That's gonna say it's like the best co host I've ever had on this show is your is your little puppy.

Robert Indries
Yeah, bringing a lot of joy to the conversation.

Adam Liette
Looks like six, eight weeks old, or how old is the puppy?

Robert Indries
And he's a few months already already so young, because we literally just caught his hair the other day.

Adam Liette
Fantastic. Robert, I'm so looking for a dry conversation. But before we dive in, if you could just give the audience's a brief introduction of what business you're working in, what businesses you're working in, I should say, and how you came to this place in the world?

Robert Indries
Sure, sure. Um, so at this point in time, I own eight businesses. I used to own more, but we sold a few. Last year, for example, it can start with that. We had the business and it was called tapeo. Anyone can check it out was tap leo.com. So all of this is public information. So it's not like, you know, anything's a secret. We worked on tap Leo for a few months last year. And then we launched it around middle of the year, in two months, we grew it to a quarter million. And by the end of month three, it was already sold. Right? So we at the end of month two, we got a strategic acquisition offer. Very, very good number multiple, seven figures. And we're like, well, at this point, we made, you know, million a month, so let's just call it today. And and move on. So that was a very good, very good offer for that EBITA that we had. And especially the company was just two months old, right? So it's not like it was it was very, very reasonable. It was out out, let's say outstandingly reasonable from our perspective, right? Because we knew we can get this to seven figures easy and we can keep growing it and so on, based on the first few months and how people love the company and the offer. At the same time. If someone comes with such a sweet deal, you just don't turn about so we accepted that. And then we moved on to other things. So that was one for example that left my portfolio last year And then other than that, I own a company in engineering, we build systems for people. So anyone that wants to scale, you know, we just build everything. We have one company, for example. That's where that's working with two of our entities. On one of them, they're working on systems on the other, like building like actually building the systems like hands on. I like to say that some of my companies are like the answer society, right? You have amazing people like Adam telling businesses what they should be doing. And then my team actually helps implement on those strategies on their overarching strategies and advice we are actually we are where the rubber meets the road, right? Because people like Adam will never just, you know, write down what you need to do in a procedure, but then my team will take that and then actually build it. So I think that's the would be probably the main differentiator of how we do things. And then on RN, that business, for example, they were at around 25,000,020 to 25 million when we started working with them. We've been working with them on systems and on growth on marketing for two and a half years. Now they're at 50 million, right? So they literally double the company, the owner told me, Robert, it took me 20 years to get to 25,000,002 years to get to 50. So, he is he is outstandingly happy. So again, another company does marketing and then another company is in HR. So and these are various different places. So the engineering company is in Europe, UK, and offices Europe, UK and the US in Wyoming. Then the marketing company has the headquarters in Florida. My recruitment company is in Rotherham in the UK. We have another one other companies and Airbnb for luggage. So we have started a few years ago, and we have 75 locations in the UK. And we started this year to go to the US and we have around 15 locations until now, if everything goes well, this year, we'll pass 100 locations in two countries 1000s and 1000s of bags being left at our locations, we're very happy with that. After that we have another company is a card game for couples that we invented. You can literally it's a real game. It's not like we the reason we invented it is because my my wife and I love spending time with one another like dedicated date nights, and so on and so forth. We've been doing this for over five years. It's what is keeping us so strong, I think as a as a relationship as a partnership as life partners, right? And we didn't find any game we could play as a couple. The only games we found online were like just questions printed on paper. And they're useless because they're like, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream? I mean, how many times can you ask that? You know? before it becomes old, right? So yeah, just ask it once and you never played again, our game, you can play it literally every week, because it's it's a real real game with rules. And you can win it and it has certain questions like for example, when's one time last week when you needed the most? Right, or that's one thing next week, you're really excited about and you would like my support with, right. So it's like all of these things that really matter these conversations that never happened, right. And they this game helps you actually play play it and have have those conversations as a game. And we obviously love it. However, we are biased. But what's not biased is math. So we have 10s of 1000s of people playing our game in 176 countries. And we have sold physical versions of the game in over 18 countries 1000s and 1000s of units. And last week, we have won the most innovative Game of the Year award in the UK. Right. So we might be biased, but all of that is not. And so those are a few I can keep going on. But my businesses are very varied in different industries, different sectors. And as you said at the beginning, one of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking you're unique in some way that you do not abide by the same rules have the same math the same, you know, principles and foundations of how business should run. If you believe you shouldn't abide by those, you're already in danger, because that belief system will not take you where you need to go. Right. And that's basically

Adam Liette
that's basically like the lesson of Silicon Valley from the last five years and then the 90s believing that they didn't have to abide by business rules, right?

Robert Indries
Yeah, spin spend spend much more than you make, you know, get credit for everything that you don't make and you need right. And then just hope and wish that you're going to make money sometime in the future. What are you talking about? But how is that? Like? What are you 15? You know what? It's not business, you know, how are you a sane adult, saying, oh, I need to spend $100 million before I'm going to start making money come on, grow up, you know, no, that's not No, it doesn't doesn't work like that. You know,

Adam Liette
you're not I love I've, I caught on to one particular phrase you you kept using, and it was we, we, we everything was we? I think he said I like once in that entire discussion about what you're doing. And so is we you and your wife? Or is it when you're sorry? Is the royal way? Is it you and your business partners, but it was always we. And that was just an interesting thing. I caught on to

Robert Indries
so very few things I've done myself almost nothing I've done myself. Everything is done with others, right? If we're talking about the the cards, the card game, and you know, the relationship company that we have with my wife that yes, it's with my wife, that's the only business we have together. And she's running that as the MD, the general manager, and in every other case, there are always other people and I never alone, not even on day one. I never start a business alone. I don't believe in that. People think that it's the entrepreneur, or is the person the one person that it's in looking history, just please trust the data, the biggest companies on the planet, the most successful companies are almost never alone, there is no one person there is always multiple people, right? Elon cannot take credit for his achievements, right? He can take credit for being the leader and the visionary of those achievements, but not for the achievements themselves. It's always we who built the Tesla engine, there are probably 1000 engineers that build the Tesla engine, right? Who did the marketing for SpaceX, or who raise the capital, it wasn't just him. There are so many people building, you know, the, the contracts, that everything you know, that you need to build, in order for all of those things to happen. Right? So basically, at the end of the day, you're in a place where you can say, it's always a joint effort, right? So that's why I say we I, I didn't even realize I do it until you just mentioned that. But it just for me it just common sense, you know that that's what I should do?

Adam Liette
Absolutely. And I find it's so often when I'm speaking with people, they they've glorified the idea of the solopreneur, like the hero on top of the mountain all alone, and I'm just I'm in the same boat, where I've always benefited more from working with others and having that relationship. And if nothing less, is having that gut check against your own bad ideas. Sometimes, you know, you have to defend your own ideas, which is actually really effective, I found. And I think, for both of us, it part of that is coming from more modest means coming from that place where we had to depend on other people earlier in our lives. Now we know it was survival, but at the time, it just felt normal, I think, right? Yeah,

Robert Indries
I mean, at the time, that was your universe. And when and we do this now, when raising our little puppy, you know, many puppies stay at the table and expect you to give them something and they just stay there they beg or they whatever, you know, so on. We never give him anything. And we intentionally said with my wife never, not even once he he has, he has to know that whatever's being eaten on the table is just for the humans and not for him. And he doesn't even try. He doesn't like we've been with him for a little while now. Nothing, nothing he doesn't he knows that we're eating, he just leaves us alone and plays with his bowler with whatever he has, right. And that's it. So that's his universe. And so, now, if I were to go back to living like I used to, I would probably get out of that universe in a week, right at this point in time. And, you know, my wife and I are very, very grateful for everything that we've done so far. Because at this point in time, if I lose everything, everything and we lose everything that we have, we have nothing. I can still make a call today. I can make 10 calls a day, but I can make a call today to someone I know anywhere on the planet, right in New York in Chicago and doesn't matter like, I need a six figure job right now. Right and like Robert to have you full time no problem in the price. Literally, it's no problem. Like I can get a six figure job at any point in time and six figure jobs means you're in the top 1% of society immediately, right? So obviously, I'm not interested in those jobs now because I make much more than that. Right? So it's for me, it's not the not tempting to do that maybe for others, you know, others would, you know, in quotes kill for, you know, six figure job because they're making 30k. And they'd love to make four times that much. Right? Right. But the reality is that we just know that we never need to go back to that, as how we've grown so far right, we never need to go back to we will always have an abundance. And we're just wake up grateful every morning, and you know, are grateful every day, even if something bad happens, right. And I just want to touch on one final point with what you said, with regards to, you know, not doing business alone, and so on and so forth. I'm into certain extent, I don't only believe that, but it's a rule of mine, that I do not go into business alone. And I just have the conversation with someone. Because I'm raising capital for another venture right now. I already extrapolated the business model, I've put everything together, you know, it's all there for the next five years. And I've already done this successfully 10 times. So by now it's like, it's almost like, I can just foresee everything I need all of the expenses, all of the challenges, everything I just put, and I put the plan together. And that's it. And I showed it to a friend that's already has been an investor and so on. And he's smart money, because he's done this before already successfully, right himself. And so I showed it to him. And I showed him the numbers like Robert, this is conservative. And I guess I know, because that's how I run business. I always run conservative as long as like, Okay, how much do you need is like, I told him 150 grand? And then he wasn't shocked? And like, What do you mean, you're gonna give me 10% of this for 150? Grand? Like, yeah, you're gonna make around 5 million from that 150 grand, right? And then, but I just want you to join me or someone, I want someone to join me in this venture? And like, why don't you just put the money yourself? Like, because if I am in anything alone, I just postpone it or, you know, I don't have any accountability. People do not understand how valuable that is. Right? They don't they? They think they do, right? They think they understand the value of accountability. But if you're alone in your business, like you're literally the only thing you don't need to report to anyone, I kid you not, it's so much at least for me, it's so tempting to just, oh, let I'll not send that email today. You know, I don't need to send it today. You know, I'll send it tomorrow, right. But when you have an accountability partner, like someone that owns a stake, and you use their money to build this, like now you have your have a responsibility, that at least one other individual that you respect, and accountability partner professional needs to be someone you look up to, or you respect or your peers or whatever, right? Not any random person on the street, obviously. So I'm looking to raise that right now. And so I told them, because like they they asked why and said, because I want that, because that helps me succeed in ways that most people don't understand. Because guess what, I'll need to send you a report of how the business is going, I will need to spend money based on a plan. And if that plan changes, I need to tell you that, hey, I need to spend an extra 5k Because XYZ and then I'll think twice about right. And so this is so helpful. It's so helpful in business, these are called control keys. And so if you don't have control keys in your business, have them Don't be and there's a determined finance, the same person that right that writes the checks shouldn't be the person signing the check, right? One person writes on other person signs, you need to have a control key, you need to have someone else checking, right, that doesn't have the exact same interest in mind, obviously. So it's, it's very useful. And so that's why I'm, I'm raising for that if anyone knows any investors, obviously, they can, you know, just let me know. The, I believe anyone would enjoy 15 to 30x returns on their money, so they could just let me know.

Adam Liette
Email, I'll be honest, I'm doing the math in my head right now. Like what do I have in liquid

Robert Indries
i It's a beautiful business model. And it was very, very conservative in putting it together. And they showed it to one person, he loved it so far. But he's in a place where now some things happen in his family and, you know, some unfortunate things, let's say, you know, and so on. So he needs to be mindful there and spend a lot of time there. So he's, he said, Give me some time. At the same time. He said, Yeah, if you find someone else that's fine, because my I add 123 new businesses to my portfolio every year. So it's not like you know, this, this boat is just going to sail right but this one specifically is going to So, I'm right now looking for that. And then you know, taking it one step at a time.

Adam Liette
That's so fascinating. I love the adage. And those little rules you set for yourself. Those are like your own control keys for yourself. I mean, and it's just been this way you've lived your life.

Robert Indries
Because think about it for a second, if you're the only person at the helm, who do you report to? Really, really who no one, no one you report to know. And that's so dangerous, Adam, and I'd read I have no ego in this stuff, right? I'd rather give someone 10% And not only give them 10% of the company, because they're like, Robert, why would you give away so much? I don't understand, I would personally never do this. Like, yes, because we are different. And this is where uniqueness of people, you know, starts to, let's say, say it's more, but in my case, specifically, if you have 10%, I will not only give you percent, but I will give you minority stakeholder rights above mine, because you're a minority stakeholder. So when I need need to make a decision, you need to approve it. And if you don't improve it, and so on is like I have very clear legal documents in place so that you are protected. And and I can do bad things, right? I can never go out and buy myself a Ferrari or whatever with the money. And guess what, this is what people need, like they need this. And you would say like, why would I give away my freedom, you have freedom, the only thing freedom gives you by the way, the more freedom you have, the more discipline you have to have. The more freedom the more discipline the reason why society is crumbling, because we have levels of freedom today that we have never had in, in society. And in our history, we've never had so much freedom. Up until now, you had to be disciplined, because otherwise you would die, you would have to hunt because you wouldn't have food, you'd have to go feed the chicken because you wouldn't have chicken right now you just go to KFC, you spend $3 And you have the ready made the chicken, it's fed, caught prepared, fried, you know, served everything for a few dollars, right? This level of freedom, we've never had to, you know, need to do anything. And the more you do not need to do, the more you need to step up your discipline. So our freedom has grown as a society much quicker than our discipline. So this is the problem is my everyone says I'm not disciplined, I am not putting in the processes in place. Guess what, you have no one to be accountable to. No one. And that's the reality. You're already a millionaire, you're you're doing well for yourself, blah, blah, blah, right? You go home, your your your family only knows what they need to know, right? You don't really need to be accountable to anyone. That's that's the that's the reality. Right? And when you have like leadership team. You say like, I'm accountable to my CFO, the CFO wants to keep their job, right? It's not real accountability. Not real. And yeah, exactly. So again, that's why I have this rule. I never start a business myself. Whenever I start a business, it's always with the smart partner with someone that is smart money, right? They can count on them to call my BS to tell me like to play devil's advocate, right? Because I don't like drama. And I go away from it. But you can have very polite conversation with someone and say, I think we should do this this month. Like why would we do that? Well, because x, y and Zed. Okay, but did you think about a, b and c and like, Oh, I didn't think of a, b and c, let me prepare a better strategy. So that I can get x, y and Zed without the negative effects of A, B, and C? Because you can you can improve your plan. Right? Your original plan is just you. Your new plan is two brains, right? Two business brains, they're together, right? Higher quality, everything goes well, or better. Sorry. And so that's part of my secret sauce. Let's say I'm always in partnership.

Adam Liette
The level the conversation goes up so much higher when it's, yeah, it's that actual relationship. It's that stakeholder mentality. Versus I hear it so much. I need an accountability buddy. And, but it's still some just some guy on a Facebook page, like it's not really at that level of ownership. And, like ownership has always been a big thing I've really professed is when I'm working with my team. It's one thing to like, put someone in charge of something, it's a whole nother thing to give them a level of ownership. So if we if we think one step removed from actual money on the table ownership that you get with the partnership, but how do we instill that level of ownership down even further into the team? So that they have that commitment as well, even if they might may not be stakeholders?

Robert Indries
So the main ways I do it, and I have many ways we We have hundreds and hundreds of SOPs, literally hundreds in all of our businesses. It is my, let's say, another KPI manager. Another rule I manage is that from the moment I start the business, up until the moment I can completely remove myself anyway, but anywhere anywhere between six to 12 months, right? So let's say maybe eight months, right? So from the moment the business starts up until I don't need to be there anymore, it's like eight months, right? And then I can do something else, I can do something else, and so on. So I see my involvement in a business as me not succeeding, I haven't succeeded, as the business owner, if me as the founder have to be there. That means there's a problem. Because why do I have to be there, I want to be there different. And maybe with one of my ventures, maybe right, this next one, I will want to be there for next 50 years, even you never know which one you will fall in love with and say, oh my god, this is something I want to put in effort in myself and so on. At the same time, there's a difference between having one, right so in most people in most businesses, they have to be there, if they leave tomorrow, it's going to crumble. And that's the reality is maybe it won't crumble in the first week, give it three, six months, and it's going down, right. And so you don't want that you will not want to be in that place. So on on my end, some of the things I do is number one, I make people understand from the very beginning that they control their salary, they control their income. And and people are not used to this employees are not used to this. And entrepreneurs are not used to this business owners are not useful. However, because this can go very, very weirdly, like I've started with someone, for example, that started at 3000 a month. And one and a half years later, they're making 12,000 a month. They themselves. They were calculating their own salary themselves, sending it to finance just for checking right, one person says and the other person checks, finance will check if all of the numbers are accurate, they will be they will get paid. They would literally calculate their own salary.

Adam Liette
So when you say in control of their own salary, you mean this literally? Yeah, not the wallpaper. No corporate speak.

Robert Indries
No, no, they literally tell me how much I should pay them. My employees tell me how much they get paid at the end of the month. I know this is weird, but it's a system that works.

Adam Liette
It's breaking every business rule. And I love that it is breaking every rule that has ever been taught in any MBA program. And I love it so much. I'm just calculating in my head. How soon do I get to this now? Yeah, and and I think that there was something you said there where you are rarely in a business for longer than eight months, eight to 10 months, right. So there's always I think, from your own standpoint, there's always a sense of urgency like it has to be now. And I think that's opposite of what a lot of entrepreneurs do. When they start thinking, well, that's like two years from now, Mike brother, you don't know what two years from now is like, you got to do this like but this quarter matters. This 90 days sprint matters. And I think just having that end goal is what's driven that? Or is there. Is there any other secret sauce to that that you can share?

Robert Indries
Yes, I can tell you something. So the rule of if I have to be there, something's wrong. Is is there from day one? Right? If I have to do something now, right now, then there's a problem. So let me tell you a venture I started with, again, a partner because I always do that. And you never really know how someone's going to be, you know, until you actually do business with them. The beauty is you can start 10 businesses, like many again, many people take themselves too seriously. I think we said that before the record recording, but way too serious, like, Oh, this is this is my house forever. This is where I'm going to live forever. This is, you know, my job for my business forever, whatever. No, nothing is forever. Stop it, you know, just don't take yourself so seriously. Right? And understand that things change as as life progresses. And so I started a business with a partner. A couple of partners, actually three of us so they wanted to use Slack, which I never care what tools people use, because at the end of the day, I won't use them. Doesn't matter. You use whatever you want to use, you know, I'm not going to use it. I haven't used my inbox my email inboxes for like four years now. Right? I have a team and I admin team, they are multiple assistants, they check my inboxes they check my slack, they check my everything, anyone that, you know, messages me or emails me or whatever they deal with it. And I just hop on a call like this one. Right. So you, you mentioned earlier that I reached out to you. And maybe it was me, but someone else was doing that.

Adam Liette
Right? So no, it was it was your assistant. Okay, yes.

Robert Indries
Even if it would have come from me from my email, I wouldn't have written that email, right. So of course, everything is managed, everything is delegated. Right? I hop onto the call, and I get the contact before the call, I get the brief, you're talking with Adam is the podcast, it's about this. And this is what he said, This is what you said, go. And that's it. I read that, you know, a few minutes before, that's how I actually, you know, hopped on because I was reading that, like, let me check the calendar event. And then I hopped on. And so basically, all of this goes in a direction where if there's isn't a procedure for it, then that means you're going to be asked, right? It's as simple as that it's going to go up the chain up until someone tells someone else what they need to do. Okay, so I went into this business with these two other people. And they're in Slack. And they're messaging each other in Slack, and so on and so forth. And I, because it's a new business, I was, I made it a habit to check slack once a day, right, because it was a new business. And so by the time I will check it, there'll be like 30 notifications of everything that was discussed until now. I'd read through it. If I would disagree with anything, I would say if I agree with what what was discussed, I would just give thumbs up, thumbs up thumbs up and then call it the day and then move, you know, for the next day, and so on. So at one point, I kid you not there was a discussion. months ago, there was discussion by the leadership team by the two other guys. They're like, Robert, we feel you're not involved? Like what, why? What are you talking about? Well, whenever whenever we're on Slack, it's always myself and you know, our colleague and everyone else, but you're never there. Do you mean I'm not there? I am always there. Look at all of the thumbs up and everything. You know, like, everything. I've read everything. It's all there, right? What do I need to say anything necessary? Like, okay, like what they expect the thumb up is like sending a message, it takes the same amount of time, right? So like, well, yes, but you're not involved in so instead of like, wait, wait, wait, what are you saying like, well, this other person whenever I write replies in five minutes, okay. So do you believe that we, as the owners of this asset, need to be on guard at five minutes distance from any query? Do you really believe that this is the level of slavery? We need to, you know, put ourselves in that something's burning right now? And in five minutes, I need to answer. How is that good business? You tell me? How is that good day? Is that what you want to build? I thought we were in agreement, that we want to build something that's self sustainable, and does not require us like, well, yes, but that's in the future. What do you mean, that's in the future, you need to do that now, that future will be will never exist, if you don't put in place what you need today. If you if you say that that future is in the future, and you postpone the activities that you need to do in order to make it happen, that future will never come, you need to understand you need to be smarter than that. You need to put yourself in a place where okay, that future? Yes, it's in the future. However, right now, today, this person asked this question, instead of just answering their question, write the procedure on how they need to do it and just send them to that procedure is direct them to they're like, here's the procedure on how to do that. Right? And so on and so forth every single time and you won't know all of the procedures you will not and that's why people like you, Adam exists because you look outside of the box to their into their business. And you can help them see things that they do not see, right, because they have blind spots. Everyone does. I have you have everyone does. But it's very easy to not have a blind spot when you're talking about someone else's business, right? Because you can see their issues, their blind spots. And so you add tremendous value to them. And so you tell them, hey, this is wrong in the business. And so fix this now today, and then that won't be wrong in the business tomorrow, there's going to be something else wrong, and then we'll fix that tomorrow, right? And so on and so forth. So we've had that discussion with them. And then guess what, since then, they don't care if I reply or don't reply. They know contracts are being done. You know, negotiations are being held people know what they need to do product does what they need to do. Everything just happened. Everything I was responsible for happens. And guess what, I don't need to be there. Because if I'm there what's the point of me owning a business? I just have a great Rifai job at that point, right? I just I'm the self entitled, CEO, right of this entity. But that's not the point. I don't want to be the CEO. I tell people all the time, I'm looking for great CEOs, if anyone wants to apply, let me know. I'm always looking for great managers, great operators, right? I need great CEOs. Because I don't want to do that I want to I want to envision the future, I want to set the culture and set the parameters of expectations of what's going to happen and how, and then just roll it because a CEO will be very happy knowing that they have someone to run their ideas by someone to have a true accountability partner, and so on and so forth. Right. And I love the CEO, because now they they can be happy doing what they actually love doing, which is operating. Right. Yeah.

Adam Liette
That is so fascinating. And I just accidentally discovered that early on when I was still in an operations role before I was a business owner, was if I would tell my team, hey, I'm on slack from nine to 10. If you need something nice your window, then I'm shutting the dang thing down. I'll check it again by the end of the day. And I noticed how much more efficient they got. And then the next level was when I said, Hey, by the way, y'all can do that, too. And they, we can I'm like, Yeah, of course, I think slack and all these tools have made us it's like worse than in office work. Everyone's like remote work so much better. You have freedom, not when you're tied to slack. It's worse than an office because but in office, you at least had to make the effort to walk to the cubicle. You can do this off your butt now, and just bother someone. So now now I'm thinking of my Oh, I know I've gotten good at it. But I now I want to get better like starting not tomorrow. I think that's what I'm getting most out of this Robert is not tomorrow, today. Now fix it.

Robert Indries
Let me tell you something that everyone should ingrain into their brain right now. It's the best way to predict the future is to create it. You want to predict your future, create it now create the you can only create now, by the way you can create tomorrow you can create yesterday, you can only create in this second, right? And so if you want a predictable future, you need to create that future. And that's

Adam Liette
it, I find the best lessons are the ones that you hear them. And it seems so obvious. Like why haven't we been doing that even even something as simple as SOP creation on the fly? Like, like you said, your businesses have hundreds of SOPs that are operating at all times. And instead of answering the question, just create the SOP and be done with it. Because it takes the same amount of time. Versus we put that magical date on the calendar three months from now where we're going to create SOPs today. And it's like, that's not your you're going to create a bullshit SOP that's not based in anything tangible and real. Because you're doing it from a place of I got to do SOPs now. Versus in the moment, I just find it so refreshing. And I just want to Okay, I'm going to be writing SOPs like everyday now. And that's what is what's going to happen. And Wow, so cool. I'm just I'm blown away by the little insights that we don't have to be at 100 million a year or even a million a year to start implementing right now, Robert, that's tremendous. And as as you, you're always looking to transfer yourself out. And I think all of these are helping you do that. Is there any other particular things that have you found that help you remove yourself from the day to day or any other tricks that you found that enable that ultimate end goal?

Robert Indries
Yes, I feel that another belief that I have, this might sound a little bit woowoo. But another belief that I have is I am the steward of the people in my companies, right? I am responsible for them, I am responsible for their growth, for their work for their livelihood for everything, I am responsible. Right? And it's, it doesn't necessarily come from a religious background, but I do believe in in the act of creation and creating and being responsible. Anything you create, you need to understand you have to be responsible for that if you create just just I don't know like if you're just winging it, that that's that will not help society too much right. But if you if the act of creation is intentional, you will see that you will care about everyone in your company because you will care about you know the janitor making sure that you know everyone's happy at the office you will care about the person you know the designer creating cool ads you know, for whatever it is you do. You will care about the developer, that you know, the quality of the code is great and it's modular. And you know, you don't need to worry about it breaking, and so on and so forth. All of this matters every single little bit matters. And so the only way to rally people to words a common goal in a future, and in the present where there's complete freedom, any developer can find another job, any marketing person can find another job, anyone can find another job, they have complete freedom. And the only way to rally people towards a common goal in this world is to is for them to feel that you have their best interests at heart. That the only way is the is the thing that you say, oh, Douglas, you feel sick today, please take the day off. Right? Don't don't even work hard come tomorrow, right? Or don't don't do that. Right. I cannot remember the last time someone asked me if they can take a day off. And I said, No, I can't remember. Right. It's literally or someone just recently said, Robert, we've I believe we've done great for these and these and these and these reasons. And I believe we should get the $3,000 bonus, I looked at the reasons I agree. Give yourself the bonus. I kid you not in another company. Before that, business has grown this understand this much, you know, I was responsible for A, B and C, you know, can I get this bonus? And yes, you can. Right? They don't even mean they will negotiate this. They come they present facts, because this is what I taught them presented me the facts. Why should I have this conversation? Right? And then they come they already say this is how I've grown, this is what happened, this is what we've done. And this is what I believe I should be paid. And if I agree, I say yes, but 99% of that. I don't remember saying no. Right? Very rarely. Maybe I said no once this year, but even then we negotiated a little bit, right? Maybe $500, or whatever. So that's it. And so these people know that I'm their mentor, I'm their friend, I'm their coach, right? They can come to me if they have a problem. You cannot know how many hundreds of hours of therapy I've done. Over the course of these years, people coming to me with their deepest things because they can't share it with anyone. They don't trust anyone to tell them. Like Robert, I'm really not feeling it today. And like why what's happened? There's something happened? Oh, yes, something happened. But I didn't know if I could talk about it. Well, if you want to, if you want to a free space where you can, no judgement, have a discussion about whatever it is that's going on, let me know I'd love to have that. I was having conversations, and I still do if I need to, you know, to am, you know, Sunday morning, you know, because I had an 11pm conversation with someone that had an issue in their life. And it lasted for, you know, three hours. Until 2am. I was in conversation, I went to bed with my wife. And then the next morning, she asked me where what happened? Well, you know, this happened with this person, you know, it was just there for them. And it's talking about Amazon, guess what, that person made us a quarter million in the next few months. You know, because because they couldn't vent to anyone, they couldn't talk to anyone, like we didn't feel attachment. So this is what you do. And I don't do it for any means other than to actually be there for them to actually help them right. This is this is not so that I have any financial gain of any sort this is because I actually believe that I am the steward of everyone I have the opportunity to be with if someone for example, invest in one of my companies, right? And they put in their hard earned money, right? I'm like, I am even more driven because it's not my money I lose if I lose this is their money. And then if if I lose their money, I feel intrinsically in need to pay them back, right for some in some other way. Right, I literally like I started another venture, I give them even better off and even better offer whatever, or I do something, I still give them the money back at the end of the day. Right? So this is this is something that has helped me and if everyone starts thinking like this in business, I believe all of our employees will be so much happier. So just don't Don't be taken for a fool that's different. And I can you know, we can talk about that as much as you want. I have been taken for a full dozens of times. And and and you just learn you just you know, smell it a little bit. You know, like you get to that point in which you you can tell but I've haven't taken for a fool. So there there is this is a double edged sword. You need to be careful, but when it works, it just, it's crazy. You make so much

Adam Liette
it's it's super cool. You're speaking my language in so many ways. And I love that mentality towards it. And I think for our listeners out there if you're not beating down the doors after this episode, I don't know what to tell you because I'm like this is just been really inspirational, motivational, a lot of tangible things that we can start doing today. And like I wasn't kidding when I'm saying I'm Doing the mental math on, on how I can get in business with your brother because it sounds like an amazing opportunity. So where can the listeners find out more about you?

Robert Indries
So they if they just Google my full name, the first three pages of Google should be me, including like a mini documentary entrepreneur.com did at one point a few years ago. And but the first link should be my website, Robert index.com. And if they want to speak with me, they just need to let me know that they are from your podcast. And i It's me at Robert index.com. And if they mentioned the podcast and everything, my assistants will just schedule a call, so you don't have to worry.

Adam Liette
So awesome. Brother, thank you so much for joining us. This has been an absolute pleasure. And I look forward to staying in touch and keeping my eye on what you're doing and continuing to level up my own contribution as well. Just very awesome stuff, man.

Robert Indries
Thank you as well.

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