Fix The Biggest Problems In Your Business - Mike Michalowicz - #165

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh yes, hello friends. Welcome back to the podcast on a Saturday for the first time. This is not a singing podcast, but it is a very good one. My guest today is Mike Michalowicz, and we are talking about how you can identify and fix the biggest problems in your business. He has this brilliant quote, is an entrepreneur's biggest problem is they don't know what their biggest problem is, and oh boy, is that true after 13 years of trying to run my own business. So yeah, today we get a really cool framework that you can use in your own business, or just generally to assess how other companies are operating as we move through sales, profit, order, impact, and legacy, which is like a rework of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but it's applied to a business. It's all really logical. From my experience, it actually matches up with how the reality of running a business works, which is fantastic. So yeah, get ready for that. And now we're going to learn how to make your business not fall apart because the entire world is crazy at the moment. And if this framework can help you to stay afloat, then we have done our job today. Please welcome the wise and wonderful Mike Michalowicz.
Michael Michalowicz in the building. How are you doing, man?

**Mike Michalowicz** (1:39)
I'm in the house, I'm doing well, mate. How are you?

**Chris Williamson** (1:42)
Yeah, very good, thank you. Nice use of mate as well, I like that. Completely anglicized everything, haven't we? Yeah, it's good, man. So we're talking about business today. We're talking about how businesses can upgrade and uplevel themselves. We've got a period of entrepreneurial turmoil at the moment.

**Mike Michalowicz** (1:59)
Gosh, yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (2:00)
Big challenge. Let's forget the current situation that we're in. Why can operating a business be so difficult? Because you've got your product or your service.

**Mike Michalowicz** (2:11)
Yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (2:11)
And there's customers who need it. So why does chaos ensue? Why is it not just plain sailing?

**Mike Michalowicz** (2:17)
Yeah, because there's a million moving pieces. And I don't know if that's the exact number, but there's so many different elements that we need to do. So it's a prioritization problem. When everything comes at you equally, I think many people come to work with a vision or plan for their work, I do.
And yet, you open email and there's this incessant, unstoppable chain of questions and direction and demand along with your vendors and clients. So it's about being pulled in all these different directions. We don't prioritize, we don't know how to prioritize what we need to do. And therefore, we try to do everything with equal urgency. So, you know, most business owners, it's just this circuitous circle of not making progress, but there's also this relentless need to do something, anything, you know?

**Chris Williamson** (3:02)
Yeah. You use a term in your book about putting out fires. And it's funny that you say that, because that's what me and my business partner constantly feel like we're doing. It's just like, you know, that game of whack-a-mole?

**Mike Michalowicz** (3:17)
Yeah, oh, that's exactly what this is. You can never win, right? But the funny thing is in whack-a-mole, you get points every time you hit the mall.

**Chris Williamson** (3:25)
Yeah, I get it.

**Mike Michalowicz** (3:26)
And so in our business, you know, every time we accomplish something, we give ourselves that conscious or subconscious pat in the back and say, ah, another thing down, superhero swept in, saved the day yet again, but then the next mall presents itself and you're whacking again. So this is actually human biology. We put extraordinary significance in recent emotion and wins. So completing something feels good, but we don't, we're not good at considering the long-term consequence. So we get this little endorphin release, completed a task, got that done, but we're not considering how that task will serve us in the long-term. So it just becomes this perpetual series of just whacking things down.

**Chris Williamson** (4:05)
I mean, perfect example of this is people that will be working from home at the moment for the first ever time. I've had a lot of messages from people saying, mate, I have no idea how you do this on a daily basis. They're used to working in an office, perhaps with more structure, with a boss who's some combination of giving them a direction and breathing down the neck. And they're struggling. They go to work and everyone that's listening will know this feeling. It doesn't matter. You can even be someone with a very prescriptive job, like an engineer and not just a knowledge worker working in the chaotic kind of mental space. You go to work, you're busy all day, you're adamant that you've done things, and then you look back at the end of the day and you say, what did I do today? I don't know. I know I was busy and I know that I did some stuff, but upon reflection, I feel like maybe actually I didn't do anything.