0 (2s):
Boom. Shake the room. Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Content is Profits. Today, we're pulling a timeless EOFire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active and we'll be breaking down functioning failure disorder, what it is and what you can do about it. To drop these value bombs I have brought Ben Butler into EOFire Studios. Ben is a founder of Top Hat, the seven year old 11 person creative agency with offices in Pittsburgh and St. Pete. Fun fact, they once did a project entirely in exchange for beer in Fire Nation. Today we'll talk about functioning failure disorder, how it's not being able to recognize that perhaps you are not getting into your goals as an entrepreneur.

0 (49s):
We'll talk about finding a way to break yourself free to achieve the lengthy you want and so much more. And the big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ben and our sponsors. Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals, business made simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business. Listen to Business Made Simple. Wherever you get your podcasts, did you know that most leaders waste up to 70% of their time on tasks they shouldn't be doing in the first place? It's time to delegate those routine tasks to a BELAY va. Learn how to make the most of your time and maximize your results today.

0 (1m 30s):
Text Fire, that's FIRE to 5 5 1 2 3 to download your free guide to a productive work week. Ben, say What's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

1 (1m 47s):
What's up? Fire Nation? So excited to come to you wherever you are in your car, in your home, in your bed, wherever. Hello. Something interesting about myself, this was, this is a hard one to think of. I know some people are like, Hey, you know, I actually play Warcraft or something like that. For me, it, you know, most things you can find are on the internet. So I had to really, you know, think about this one. I would say my age, most people don't know how old I am. And that was, you know, started as a business technique where started my agency Top Hat when I was still in college. And I didn't tell anybody that I was still in college because that wouldn't have been a good idea. And you know, even to this day people are like, Ben, how old are you?

1 (2m 27s):
Okay,

0 (2m 28s):
I wanna guess I'm gonna guess that you're 74 years old,

1 (2m 31s):
74, you're dead on, man. I got that young voice recently. I was, I was in a, a publication and they put my age and I got about five client calls that day. They said, Ben, I thought you were 35 years old. I thought you were like, you're mid thirties. But I'm, I'm actually 28, so I, I look old, I sound old. Maybe it's the wisdom, who knows? But yeah, my age is something that people don't know, but now they do. Maybe

0 (2m 56s):
You're doing a little Benjamin Button on us, who knows for sure. But Fire Nation, as I mentioned in the introduction, we're gonna be talking all about functioning failure disorder, what it is and what you can do about it. So before we dive into the symptoms, and there are a total of four, so hold on, tight Fire Nation, break it down for us. Ben, what is functioning Failure disorder?

1 (3m 19s):
Yeah, so this is, you know, this is something that came to me. I've been, you know, a partner in many businesses past, present, and future. And so I've, I've seen this play out and it really dawned on me as I was thinking about a former business I was involved with in a venture capacity functioning failure disorder. You know, the, the real feel of this is as entrepreneurs, we know we need to sacrifice. We know that we're gonna put in long hours. We know that we're gonna have to give things up and work really, really hard, but no one really tells us when that should start to taper off or when that should stop, or when we should have some semblance of normal and functioning Failure disorder at its core is not being able to recognize that maybe you're not getting to your goals, maybe you are in a bad spot as a business owner.

1 (4m 6s):
And so I like to assign it with, you know, hey, are you're, are you about eight to 10 years into your business and you're still working 20 hours a day, not making the money you want, not able to see your friends and family not achieving your goals, not having that breakthrough. Well, you might be a functioning failure who, you know, you look really, really attractive on, on the front. Your business is written up about, it has a good, you know, presence and brand and a lot of people respect it, but behind the scenes there's a lot of nastiness going on. And so, you know, it's important to realize that so that we can correct those things. So that's really the crux of, of what that, that moniker I termed is

0 (4m 44s):
Functioning Failure disorder. I mean, when I first saw those words, I was kind of getting the vibe and I, I'm gonna have to go and look and see who actually quoted this, but he said that so many people are living quiet lives of desperation. Is there any connection with those, with that quotes and functioning failure disorder?

1 (5m 3s):
Not directly, but I, I can definitely see that and I think that's a, a great way to put that. Absolutely. You know, these people are, again, they might, they might look like a rockstar and I think everybody says, oh, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a rockstar. You're only gonna hear about the good stuff. But they might go home and go work nonstop hours, be sleep deprived, not see their family, not be making enough money, being tremendous amounts of debt. And so they could be silently desperate. But you, you may never know.

0 (5m 29s):
Fire Nation, we're gonna go through the symptoms of functioning failure disorder. And I know there's a total of four, so let's just start with number one and let's have a little back and forth on it. So let's talk about wanting freedom but never actually finding it.

1 (5m 45s):
Symptom number one is probably the most prominent where again, you know, you know you have to sacrifice, but at some point most people desire some semblance of a normal life. You know, some, I I would say the disclaimer, if you're an entrepreneur, you're never gonna have a fully normal life. It's either gonna be extreme work or something more extreme where you're managing and and benefiting from your business. You know, the semblance of normal is, is comparable ish to an eight to five. And so, you know, people who are, again, I like to use the 10 year, eight to 10 year mark as, as a benchmark for this where, you know, maybe you are not quite working normal hours and you desire freedom, you're burned out.

1 (6m 27s):
Oh man, I wish I could shut down at 4:30 PM but because of your workload and the things you're doing, you can't, because the business will die if you don't keep your foot down on the pedal. And so really wanting freedom, but never finding it is, is the most prominent again. But, and it, you know, really it's key as a business owner to move out of the weeds. And I know there's been a lot of people on the podcast who talk about building processes and people and people with processes to support the business and take over those things for you. And people with functioning failure disorder, they can't hire the help and because they can't hire the help, they never think of the processes because they've never been necessitated to train anyone else to do it in the business.

1 (7m 10s):
And there's a couple reasons why people can't hire help. One is the classic, well, we can't afford it. And I always have to ask these people who I, I consult and I meet with both in a consulting capacity and an agency capacity. Hey, why are you doing the job of two to three people 10 years in your business and you can't hire two to three people to do that job for you? That's a really big red flag. And really the solution to that is a simple supply and demand balancing. It's amazing how many entrepreneurs forget to look at the supply and demand. You know, as you go on and you get more prestige and you get more recognition in your business, you're gonna have more demand, but your supply is based on your people, it's based on your processes.

1 (7m 54s):
And eventually you have to balance that equation until you have either the income to hire those people or the ability to, you know, have a more balanced lifestyle. So, you know, the, we can't afford it. If you're saying that you're, you're probably in a spot of trouble if you're 10 years in your business. Oh, big red flag there. The second reason that you can't, you know, break free and have freedom is nobody does it as good as me. And there was a, a very, you know, a recent podcast episode with James Friel that talked about the genius paradox. Yeah. And that is really applicable here. And I, I was really excited to hear about that because it's these people who says, no, nobody who can, nobody can do it as good as I can.

1 (8m 38s):
And because of that, they never hire anyone. And to that, I say you have to reevaluate, reevaluate your recruiting. Where are you getting these people, how much you're willing to pay them? And sometimes you have to get creative cuz I guarantee you, if you think you're the smartest person in every room you walk into, you're going to the wrong places. Guaranteed. Love this.

0 (8m 53s):
So symptom number one, Fire Nation wanting freedom but never finding it. And I'm gonna put you on the spot here for a second, Ben. And I'm gonna ask you to define freedom, but I'm gonna give you a couple seconds to think about it cuz I'm first gonna define it myself, how I actually define this word. And Fire Nation. I'm gonna challenge you listening right now. How would you define freedom? Because you are never going to find your version of freedom if you don't first define and actually know what that is and what that looks like. And there's so many people, especially in corporate America, that spend their entire lives climbing this corporate ladder and they get to the top and they say, I've been climbing the wrong ladder the whole time. Cuz they never defined what it was they were actually going towards or for.

0 (9m 35s):
So for me, freedom is doing what you want, when you want to, where you want. So it's that location freedom, it's that actual time freedom, all important stuff. How do you, how do you Ben define freedom?

1 (9m 51s):
Your answer is killer. And I I love this question. It's really defining your priorities. Num number one. You know, it's different for everybody. Some people's idea of freedom might be financial freedom. They can fly on the private jet, they can, yeah, buy the private island, they can drive the car they want to drive and, and, you know, really do what they want financially. Other people, it has to deal with building a family to have time for their, their son or daughter for their their wife or partner or husband, whatever. You know, it's what are your priorities and how, how are you matching up to those? And so it could be a mix of those things, but it's, you know, again, what are your objectives in life? What are your priorities and are you doing them?

1 (10m 31s):
And if the answer is no, I would say you're not free and you're still getting there. And if you're eight to 10 years in and you're still not getting there, then you're in, you're probably in a, a spot of trouble.

0 (10m 40s):
Sign me up. I love that definition as well. And for me, at the end of the day, Fire Nation, it's is your finger on your pulse? Like, do you actually know what it is you are trying to achieve, what you're trying to move towards? And that's why I love how this kind of segues perfectly into symptom number two, which is intending like you're intending to, but you're never achieving an exit. So kind of expound upon what that phrase means, Ben, and then dive into the symptom.

1 (11m 6s):
Sure, yeah. I I've seen this one firsthand. I've coached this, I've seen this with clients intending, but never achieving the exit. You know, some people, you know, there, there's, there's two things you go into business with. I want this to be a life sustaining lifestyle kind of business. Yeah. Or I wanna grow this to sell. And there's only really those two things. And if you don't know what you're gonna do, you're not really leading your company in the best possible position. But if you go in and you say, Hey, we're building this thing to sell, you better not miss that window. Because if you do, you know, that's probably the most dysfunctional, toxic chain of events that are gonna follow that I've ever seen in businesses where people say, I wanna build and scale this business and I wanna sell it by five years into it for this number.

1 (11m 53s):
If you miss that, what happens after year five is your 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. I've seen people 15 years into this, their passion, their leadership, their quality, it all erodes exponentially. And so if you wanna sell, you better sell. And so, you know, two solutions to this one is, or get off the pot, some people get caught up on stupid things that don't matter. They think about, oh man, if only I had this website, or if only I had this, you know, venture backer or this spot or this feature. You gotta think of the MVP mode. What is the minimum viable product you need to sell your business within the timeframe you want it at, the price you want it.

1 (12m 35s):
So you better do it and you better do it soon and not get distracted. And then solution two within that is to run through the finish line. One of my favorite analogies, and maybe this is something else that people don't know about me, is I used to run track and field in high school. Ooh is the, the track and field coaches tell you always run through the finish line. You don't look at the ribbon as you're approaching it. You look at the fence a hundred yards down past the ribbon or wherever that fence is, you look through it and you run through it. And so if you're intending to sell, you need to run all the way through the finish line. And I, I know a couple stories and one jumps to the top of my head of a fellow agency owner who built the business to sell.

1 (13m 18s):
And he had a buyer lined up and within 90 days he completely slacked on the business. He let everything lapse. Some of his people quit, his clients unsigned up and a lot of the recurring revenue that attracted the buyer walked away. And when the buyer came back 90 days later to say, okay, let's, you know, take a look at how things are right now, we're ready to go. He's like, oh yeah, x, y and Z happened. They're like, well we're gonna have to walk away. So you have to run through the finish line.

0 (13m 48s):
So much value here at Fire Nation, I mean let's be honest, it's time to poop or get off that pot Fire Nation. That's your options right there. You gotta go into that MVP mode. It's such a critical mindset and running through the finish line, think of that concept. I mean, honestly, my analogy to this is I'm a big Peloton. Like I have Peloton, I love it. Shout out to Leanne Hayes, she's my favorite trainer on there. And whenever we get to the countdown for each little iteration that we're doing, you know, she'll always go, all right, pelotons, five more seconds. Five, four I in my head am going 10, 9, 8 because I know that if I do her countdown at three or two, I'm slowing down.

0 (14m 30s):
Even if I don't want to subconsciously I'm slowing down. Cause I'm like, I'm there, I'm at the finish line and guess what? My final score is going to reflect that cuz it's a leaderboard is very competitive. So I have hacked that by just doubling whatever the countdown is and I go 10 98 and when she says, one, you're finished, I may be at like four or three and then I do slow down, but I've run through that finish line and that really helps me maximize my results. And again, that's just one analogy on the reality that you Fire Nation have spent years, sometimes decades for others building this business. And then when you just don't run through that finish line at the ends, I mean all those years or decades of hard work are for not, and it's so sad to see in Fire Nation, we're gonna be talking about some super important things, never ending debt.

0 (15m 17s):
I mean that's such a crusher and consistently failing in your marketing. We have so much more value to talk about as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. I remember back in 2013 when Entrepreneurs on Fire was scaling fast. And in those early days of our business, we sometimes found ourselves struggling to keep up because we couldn't find software solutions that were easy to use and that would grow with us wasting time worrying about software that's complicated, a pain to use and that doesn't do what you needed to do is not fun or productive. So what do we wish we knew back then that we know now that a powerful all-in-one CRM platform that will accelerate your business growth is a HubSpot CRM.

0 (15m 58s):
Unlike a lot of solutions we are using back in 2013, HubSpot's CRM grows with your business. Whether you have an MVP or you just iPod. HubSpot CRM is built for scale because your tech stack should work for you, not against you. And with over 1300 flexible apps and integrations, you can customize HubSpot's CRM to the way you do business. Get started for free at hubspot.com. That's hubspot.com. Did you know that most leaders waste up to 70% of their time on tasks they shouldn't be doing in the first place? You know, like managing routine details, scheduling meetings, replying to emails and processing reports. If this sounds familiar then I have the solution for you.

0 (16m 41s):
It's time to delegate those routine tasks to a BELAY VA. It's time to take back your time and spend your days casting vision, growing revenue, and scaling your business instead. BELAY has been helping entrepreneurs scale and succeed for over a decade through fractional, highly vetted US-based virtual assistance bookkeepers and social media managers. It's time to give away the administrative tasks so you can start accomplishing more and juggling less with BELAY. And to help you get started, BELAY is offering Fire Nation their resource, your personal guide to a productive work week for free. Learn how to make the most of your time and maximize your results today. Just text fire, that's FIRE 2 5 5 1 2 3 to download your free guide to a productive work week.

0 (17m 28s):
So Ben, as I kind of teased before the break, never ending debt, we're gonna talk about it because man, it breaks my heart and we're not gonna go down this specific rabbit hole, but I mean it breaks my heart when I see these poor 21, 22 year olds kids that have no idea what 50,000, a hundred thousand, $200,000 in debt means. Like it's sad because they think, oh, if I get a job for $75,000, I'm gonna be able to pay off $150,000 in debt in two years, right? 75 times two when you realize, oh my paycheck's actually $4,000 and it's costing me $3,900 a month to live and I have no money to pay off my debt and I'm in this never ending debt cycle.

0 (18m 10s):
So talk about that symptom, Ben.

1 (18m 12s):
Nailed it. That's how so many people think. But multiply that in a business sense. You took venture funding or a big loan, you know that 50,000 is now a quarter million, a half million, a million, 2 million, 10 million rut row. Big trouble. And so really, you know, functioning failure disorder could present itself this way where you took a loan but you never pay it back. Your 10 years in your plan to pay back the loan was maybe five years or you're 20 years in and your plan to pay back the loan was 10 years. You can't be a constant debt machine. And I know a lot of people on the podcast like to mention Jeff Bezos and Amazon who's a company that is a anomaly where they, they've never turned a profit and they have just constant debt and balancing that way and they have a business model around that.

1 (18m 57s):
You're not Jeff Bezos, you're not Amazon. You need to turn a profit, you need to get out of debt. And really the reasons for this are really core to the functioning failure disorder, where maybe you're, you haven't priced yourself properly, maybe your production processes or costs are really inefficient or maybe you have significant customer complaints, returns, et cetera. And really the solution to this is really, really simple. It's all about the money in your business. Businesses are built on getting out of debt, maintaining profitability, balancing the sheets at the end of the year, all of these kind of things and hopefully turning profit. You need to look at the cost of everything you're doing.

1 (19m 37s):
You need to look at the cost of your team, your materials, your processes, et cetera, et cetera. Need to follow the money and you need to figure out where you're lacking. If this is where you've been and you've again, you know, a little bit of debt is okay for business. Yeah, sometimes it, it's really important to get started. You know, maybe you're manufacturing something or you need to hire people to build a product, but you can't last this way forever. It has to end and eventually it will crush you, it will cripple you and you need to figure out how to get out of it.

0 (20m 5s):
There's so much truth here. I mean you cannot be a constant debt machine, Fire Nation. And I actually love that you brought up Jeff Bezos because I've done a lot of studying of Jeff Bezos and what's really true and interesting when you actually listen to when he goes in depth about this, cuz you know, a lot of people just give that headline of Amazon never makes a profit. Well, they actually had a lot of profit positive revenue streams, but the reason why they never made a profit was because they were always three years ahead investing massively and a lot of things, some things that didn't work, some things that didn't work, but their focus was never profit. And unless you have venture capital and investor money that's coming in in the billions of dollars like Amazon's had, then you really need to focus on not being this constant debt machine.

0 (20m 54s):
Amazon is, you know, one in a billion company that did that from the beginning, but at the same time they had a lot of profit positive revenue streams within their entire business model. So simply number three, never ending debt. Anything you wanna share? Closing that down, Ben, before we move on to symptom four.

1 (21m 12s):
Nah, I think just do a little soul searching. Why are you in debt still? If you should have paid it back, really follow the money and figure out, you know, where is it lacking, where could you be better follow

0 (21m 22s):
The money. I love that phrase. And there's a great book, Michael Malowitz, prophet first, he's been on the show multiple times. When you really understand that philosophy, you can really start following the money and you can really start paying down that debt by paying yourself first. So take us to symptom four, Ben

1 (21m 40s):
Here, we're running through the finish line. Yes, certainly last but certainly not least here is consistently failing marketing. Or even worse, no clue how marketing is doing, you know? Oh, that's so true. Whether you are a self-professed marketing guru or somebody who relies on a team of people, you need to have a basic understanding. And if you are seeing that your marketing is failing for your business, there's gonna be repercussions, reverberations, you know, the pebble and the pond kind of effect that's gonna happen to you. And even worse, if you have no clue what marketing is doing, you're in a spot of trouble because that, again, is critical to any business. And I, you know, as a owner of a marketing agency, as somebody who's been involved in them, I don't believe in the, if you build it, they will come.

1 (22m 26s):
That is totally not true. It's build it, market it, then they will come. And so I think that really puts it in perspective for business owners. And you know, if you're, if you're missing the mark, you're gonna be in trouble. Maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow. You know, we just went through a pandemic and the, the value of marketing and channels was ever present in businesses. How fast can you turn to a digital product if you need to? How fast can you turn on online ordering and how, how good can you market that you need to understand how your business can meet the mark, make the mark and hit those different points. And worse, if you have no clue, if you delegate it to a cmo, they might be the best CMO in the whole world.

1 (23m 10s):
But you need to understand what their results are and how they are performing for your business. And so the solution for this is, is really simple. Number one, follow the money. Again, follow the money. I, I don't believe in, oh, we got a million impressions. I I really don't care about that. I care about what is the business objective. Did you wanna make $10,000 this month and you made one? Well, you failed. I really think that marketing should be black and white. What are we trying to tangibly do within what timeframe? And did you do it? And if you didn't, well something's not going right there and your business is gonna feel it at some point. And that leads into the second solution is what are your business objectives?

1 (23m 52s):
How many widgets are you trying to sell? How much in services are you trying to sell? And it's, it's so timeless. It's so easy, you know, the smart, you know, objective format, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time constrained. It's, it's really simple formula that you could, you could put together where it's, we wanna send, sell $10,000 a month within the first year and within the second year, $20,000 a month and within the third 30,000 you can always go over. But when you go under, you're really gonna feel it. And you could just be maintaining your business and not feeling freedom, not finding an end to debt and not really growing to where you want to be.

1 (24m 34s):
So consistently failing marketing and or no clue how your marketing is doing is a really big symptom. It might be one that a lot of people who have business savvy but might not understand the mystique of marketing, they might say, oh man, that could be it. And it could, it definitely could.

0 (24m 51s):
This is huge. And you know, my experience with this, especially in the podcasting space with Podcasters Paradise and just coaching a lot of up and coming podcasters is they say something along the lines of John, like, I know I'm late to the game, but you know, it's no problem because I'm just gonna run a bunch of ass to get a bunch of listeners to my podcast. And my response is always, well what's your roi? Like, what is your return on that investment? What can you put as far as a dollar amounts that each listener is worth? Like what call to action do you have within your podcast is getting people into a funnel that's converting them actually into dollars back into your pocket? Because I know that you just can't be doing this full-time, you're gonna run out of runway at some point. Unless you have this system in place, you have to have a clue in how that marketing is actually doing.

0 (25m 34s):
It is critical stuff. So Ben, you've broken down the four symptoms. Take us home, brother, take the stage. What is the one thing you wanna make sure that we really get from everything that you've talked about today? Give us your call to action for Fire Nation, then we'll say goodbye.

1 (25m 51s):
The thing to feel here is maybe again, you're in, in your car or in bed and now you're not gonna be able to sleep. I'm so sorry. Really do some soul searching. You know, think about where, where you wanted this business to go. What did you want it to be? Do you have the priorities in check? Are you achieving those things? Are you 10 years in and you didn't do it? You're a slave to your business, you can't get out of it, you can't get help, you can't get out of debt. It's crushing you. Maybe you haven't taken a moment to review why, how and what you can do about it. You know, when you realize that you are maybe, and you don't have to tell your friends this, you can just tell us secretly in your car or in your bed, whisper it out loud.

1 (26m 38s):
If you are a functioning failure, that is the first step to getting to become a success. So do some soul searching, see where you're lacking, see what you can do about it. And my call to action to you is to find a way to break yourself free and to achieve the life that you want.

0 (26m 54s):
Value bombs. Mike dropped Ben, is there anywhere we can go to find out more about you, et cetera? Oh

1 (27m 2s):
Yeah,

0 (27m 2s):
Plenty of places.

1 (27m 4s):
Couple quick ones. You can go to our agency's website, top Hat built by top hat.com. And also we're starting a newsletter called Please Advise, which will be a lot of hard-hitting business and marketing advice like you just heard here. And if you wanna sign up for that, it would be built by top hat.com/EOF and you can get signed up there for some more of these kind of knowledge bombs. And me just ranting really.

0 (27m 31s):
Ugh, I love Ranting and Fire Nation. You are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with BB and JLD today, so keep up that heat and of course head over to EOFire.com, type Ben in the search bar and the show page will pop up with everything we've talked about today. But your real call to action is to visit built by top hat.com/EOF. Go subscribe to the newsletter, get these great rants by Ben going forward, and of course just check out their website in general. Built by top hat.com. Fire Nation, you are the average of those five people, so keep up that heat today.

0 (28m 11s):
And Ben, thank you for sharing your truth with our audience. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side.

1 (28m 19s):
Oh yeah.

0 (28m 21s):
Hey Fire Nation, today's value bomb content was brought to you by Ben and I've created a treasure trove of free courses for you. I teach you how to podcast run masterminds, create funnels that convert into so much more. All you need to do Fire Nation is visit eofire.com/resources to start learning today for free. I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flippity flip side. Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals business made simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business.

0 (29m 5s):
Listen to Business Made simple wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know that most leaders waste up to 70% of their time on tasks they shouldn't be doing in the first place? It's time to delegate those routine tasks to a BELAY VA. Learn how to make the most of your time and maximize your results today. Text Fire, that's FIRE to 55 1 23 to download your free guide to a productive work week.