Magnetic Systems: How to Attract Success by Design with Karl Staib

Karl: it's easy to hire somebody, to help you bring in more clients or more leads. But if. When you do that, things are broken on the inside and it just makes everything harder. So you just keep throwing, oil on top of the fire and it gets worse.
Karl: And that's where I come in and help them and maybe even back up a little bit is really having, a system around, mission, vision, and values.
Dustin: Yeah,
Karl: And sharing that with your team and having that ability to make decisions based off of those values.
Dustin: Welcome back to the seven figure lead podcast. I have a really cool guest today. Carl Stabe and I met. At a dinner at craft and commerce, way back in June. we ended up sitting next to each other. We immediately hit it off. And as you're going to hear from Carl, he has a very operational systematic mind.
Dustin: and as more of a visionary guy, I find that fascinating. And so as we got to talking about his story and some of the breakthroughs he's had and building his own business while maintaining a very, demanding and successful day job. I was like, this is something we should have on the podcast. So Carl, thanks so much for being here.
Dustin: It's really a pleasure to get behind the mic and be able to unpack your story today.
Karl: Oh, I'm excited. Thank you.
Dustin: Yeah, absolutely. So I used to like to dig in here a little bit and just understand what makes Carl tick. And so a lot of times we'll go back maybe into your history. could be, you know, as a kid, it could be in college, it could be in your career.
Dustin: There's usually some point though, where you're like. I want to have my own business, as you might know, I was an engineer. I had a whole career. and I had a few different bites at that apple of this entrepreneurial bug that was coming up and a few different ways I tried to address that.
Dustin: so I'd love for you to just take us back to wherever you feel is appropriate to start forming this, identity and why does Carl love systems and why do you have your own business?
Karl: Yeah. Yeah. man, starting my own business goes back to probably, I used to always try to figure out how to make money. I lived out in the country and there was not an easy way to have a job. I didn't have a, part time job until I was 16. I worked with my dad who was an entrepreneur and he was an electrician.
Karl: So I used to earn money that way. But I knew that being an electrician was not in my future. It wasn't who I, wanted to be or who I thought I was. And, the first, I guess, the second Phase of that was I started a mushroom monger company in college So my dad's german as you can probably tell by my last name
Dustin: Yeah. say your last name the right way. I just Americanized it. So Karl: stibe.
Dustin: Stive. All right. Like Riechmann. All right. Two German guys here. So, all right.
Karl: Yes and His dad found a mushroom called the chanterelle and that grew in my parents Basically backyard to kind of live on a country road. It was dirt until I was probably like 12 10 years old or so. And I picked these mushrooms I just had the idea. Cause my dad one time took him to a restaurant and he got a gift card.
Karl: And I was like, well, if he can get a gift card, I can get money. Dustin: I love it.
Karl: I was like, okay, what I'll do is I'll pick them. I'll go out and I sold them for 10 a pound. And this was man, 25 years ago, 27 years ago now. And, I went to restaurants with this just bucket of dirty mushrooms and said, Hey, would you want some chanterelles for your, guests tonight?
Karl: And, most chefs were like, yes. And that was like, okay, i'm providing a service for these chefs. They didn't have to go out and get it fresh mushrooms. and I get the, you know, there's no intermediary it's basically just Perfect mushrooms for them. so that was the, okay, this is something I want to do more of.
Karl: , But I had a marketing degree, went on to the workforce and over time and many years, starting, different businesses and iterating on them. That's where at now. Cause I'm like, okay, look at my journey and I'm starting to see that path. And to me, what's really important as a takeaway is as people are doing these things, look at.
Karl: Where their strengths are, where are you able to do things that other people can't do? And to me, that's why it's important to notice those things and document them because you know, as you see these patterns come up That's the stuff that is gold and you can really use
Dustin: That's awesome. So a few themes there. So kind of like me, I grew up very isolated out in the country and was always looking to make a buck. Cause like, there was no paper routes. There was no like traditional kid jobs, you know? So, I totally get that. Respect that. so you started with this mushroom business is sort of your first entrepreneurial adventure.
Dustin: I think it might be helpful. I mean, we can make this a quick recap, but you have a marketing degree. Maybe we can talk a little about your quote unquote professional career, you know, your, your day job career, and then maybe we can go back and start paralleling that with different, businesses you've started.
Dustin: And of course, we'll work up to what you actually do today with systematic leader, but do you want to tell us a little more about your professional background? Yeah,
Karl: got a marketing coordinator position out of college. And I didn't really like it that much. I am okay at marketing, but it's not a strength. And it's funny, looking back, I got a degree in it and I'm not very good at it. I am not very good at marketing my own company. So that's, that's a little side topic too, but over time.
Karl: I talked about is finding these patterns. Cause that to me is something that any good career, anybody who is navigating their career, whether it be a side hustle or whether it be a full time business, you have to look at where your strengths are and how to use them. So. I started a business back in, man, I'm sure my age now, 2008, and it's called Work Happy Now.
Karl: , I have done a lot of work with yoga, meditation, a lot of study around happiness, gratitude. And, what I realized though, is, work happy now was a really bad business, especially in America. Uh, people
Dustin: want to be happy. We just want to work. Yeah.
Karl: in 2008 though. This is almost 20 years ago.
Karl: Like, trying to get a job and trying to be a consultant, trying to teach people about the importance of work happiness was hard. And most people didn't. I had one, A workshop I did, it was in Michigan. I remember it very vividly because, Flint river, Michigan, you know, they had the poisoning of their
water system.
Karl: Well, the EMT, group the leader brought me in to speak to this EMT group. And it was a disaster. One guy came up to me, it was like, you're not the first guy they brought in. You're not going to be the last guy that they brought in. And I was like, Oh my God, what did I get myself into?
Karl: So that's when, talk about iteration, talk about understanding what patterns what's working, what does the market want? So I got laid off from my job in marketing for a credit union. And then I started a agency, basically a marketing agency. And, like I said, I'm not very good at marketing, but I was like, I need to provide for my family.
Karl: but helped me develop so many skills from design to sales, and just help. Really strengthen a large part of my business acumen. And so through that, I realized, okay, what do I want? so, I actually partnered with somebody who had, they trained coaches, so I Helped him with the training of, trying to train life coaches. And so that was fascinating. And I was doing that while I was doing my agency, which then, led to a fortune 100 company saying, Hey, we're looking for people with your type of talent that can design, because I did a lot of website.
Karl: Websites, landing pages. that was back in 2016 and I've been there ever since, but I've always had the itch to have my own company. So, I took a break, I wrote a book called, bring gratitude, trying to teach people about the importance of appreciating people as from a leadership perspective.
Karl: Appreciating people. And here's a, cool, fax six. if I show appreciation to an employee six times and I give one negative comment, they will still have a positive reaction though. They'll increase their work by 30%. Now, if it's three to one, And most people, it's probably managers. It's like maybe 2 to 1.
Karl: Maybe we, we always overestimate as leaders how much appreciation we show other people, but if it's 3 to 1, it's flatline. If it's anything under that, you
are basically creating a, not a toxic, but not a very good culture that encourages people to work. And so that was that iteration of, okay. And you know, how, People need to show more appreciation, which led to a podcast called dig the fly, which was helping teach people how to coach other people because of everything I learned previously, which then led to systematic leader.
Karl: And so, been helping people with systems since 2019. And probably before that, really with the other work I've been doing, but really trying to help them understand how they are looking at their systems, how they can become more efficiently, more efficient, but also magnetic.
Karl: And what I mean by magnetic is. Something people want to do people want to use and that's the hardest part about designing systems
Dustin: Interesting. Okay. Yeah, man. so much there to sort of like reflect on and unpack. There's like this mix of, an entrepreneurial bug. Marketing kind of realized marketing wasn't your thing, but then through the course of the market and, being laid off, you're like, I can do a marketing agency, which maybe wasn't your ultimate calling.
Dustin: But in doing that, you forced yourself to learn a lot of new skills. and what's interesting is those skills then led to a really great, fortune 100, professional career. and it sounds like You know, even though you always had this passion for mindfulness and gratitude and these sort of like soft skills that you tried to start a business for, and you kind of found, you know, especially maybe Americans and and then in that in this period of the last 20 years weren't craving or it wasn't like the pain point people were looking to solve, you've continued to evolve, so, that design skill that you sort of like taught yourself in order to, work with the life coaching company and, build your own agency now has, flourished into a career and then it sounds like you took, other skill sets, to create systematic leaders.
Dustin: So is that a decent recap of sort of like. this process, because I think you're such a process oriented guy. And, you mentioned signals and be able to pick up what's working and put down maybe what people aren't. And, in marketing, we talk a lot about like selling people what they want and give them what they need.
Dustin: So I assume that part of your story too, is like figuring out finally, like, what do people actually want to pay me for? I can still deliver. The gratitude and the holistic things I believe in, but that's not what they're looking to buy. Is that,, is a pretty good summary?
Karl: That's a very good summary, yeah exactly because I think and to your point of we talked about before I hit record Understanding your lighthouse where is working and what isn't and that's to me is Where systems come in and, I've done a lot of studying, around Toyota and, they're constant improvement.
Karl: They call it, they use the word Kaizen. and I think this is where a lot of companies can really improve. And really, I guess, multiply their business if they have these systems in place to review their work, review what's working and to your point, what's not, because if you put that focus, that energy into, Let's say YouTube and it's not working very well.
Karl: You're draining your energy from things that can work well. And I see this again and again, and so many clients, they want something to work or they think something should work. And instead of having this. System or process to review and work through these things, they butt their heads against the wall and eventually they burn out or eventually they learn their lesson, but they could have done it months, years before that.
Karl: If they had these systems in place.
Dustin: Uh, yeah. Guilty as charged. Um, yeah, let's talk more about systematic leader and what you do today in your business, who's your, who, like, who do you typically love to work with? Like, where would you meet someone their journey that you're like, man, I could really help you. tell us a little bit about people find you and the work that you just really are fired up to help people with.
Karl: Yeah, I find a lot of family businesses. I think, they need a lot of support and systems. A lot of it stuck in people's heads. And because of that, the communication breaks down inside of a company and it doesn't have to be huge. It can be, six, seven people. It can be, 25 people. But what ends up happening is people, if they do go away or if, you know, whoever goes on vacation, things fall apart.
Karl: And people can't keep up. People don't know what's going on. it's because these systems have been put in place. I'm a big advocate for SOP standard operating procedures, and it's seems very tedious and it can seem, sometimes superfluous to like have to document what I'm doing. it's not hard.
Karl: People should know how to do this. upload the blog post, publish it, add an image. but what ends up happening is you see it from your own perspective and other people don't see it from that perspective. so, they don't know what to
do. You are. at wits end, because you can't take a vacation as a business owner or as a leader, because you don't feel comfortable enough.
Karl: And that's where system documentation is so important.
Dustin: Okay. So is that, tell us about like a typical deliverable, are you coming in and like talking to a key leader in one of these companies? Maybe the founder? I mean, I get this sense because this is a process I've been through myself where there's this sort of catharsis where I have to get everything out of my head and then have someone like a Carl who can see it.
Dustin: move the pieces around, put it back into actual system and then install it in my business so that it's no longer just in my head. is that a thing that you love to help businesses with? Am I putting my finger on sort of the deliverable that you like to provide?
Karl: Yeah. So I think, oh, let me give you a little story. So I was helping out a client and they had. Digital products. so what ended up happening was, they realized something was wrong there was just a lot of friction inside their company. And we all have friction, but the idea is to help expose it and notice it and then be able to start making tweaks.
Karl: So it doesn't keep rubbing people and causing issues with customers and with employees. And so. usually do to your point is you start with an assessment, you look at what's working, what's not inside of a company, where are the friction points, where is it? Where is it really holding back the value?
Karl: what I found with this, woman is, she had so many great products, too many. but what ended up happening is once people did choose, that onboarding process was so antiquated and old because she had so many products, it was hard to keep track of them all. And so, People would complain.
Karl: So what we did was we created a little survey for people who are onboarding and we started gathering data. And this is a really important part of creating systems is not just to do what I think needs to be done, that you're trying to create this lighthouse structure. So as employees are looking and they're, going through your course.
Karl: You're finding out what's causing that friction for them. one for her was, the course took long, took too long. they weren't sure where to ask questions. Was it in the Q and a, was it in the membership group, the length of the
modules, so what we did is then we looked at all these things and you start to say, well, we can't tackle all of them.
Karl: And this is where most people often just give up or they just pick one. Instead, what you got to do is you really have to take a step back and it doesn't take long. And this is, what I love doing is that you start gathering a data synthesized through it. You realize it's just take some time, some questions, Some really thoughtful questions of like, okay, where, what's driving the most value. What's not. And then what ends up happening is you start to be able to prioritize and then you can say, okay, this is the most important part. And it's, you know, this course, the modules are taking too long. Let's shorten them because people are busy.
Karl: It was for, people who are, high up in their careers, they didn't have time to watch like a 30 minute video. So we started chunking it down and breaking it up. And it really, Created such a better experience and she got more referrals because of it. And that is the beauty of having these systems and being able to track that stuff and then be able to synthesize through it.
Karl: And to your point of you just making sure that you have that ability to look at that stuff and not just guess, because that's what so many entrepreneurs do, and it's really just giving them the tools to do that. Yeah,
Dustin: talked about it with other guests and on other episodes. But this year for me, I was like, I'm a sales and marketing guy, kind of a visionary, ran my whole business on post it notes. I mean, you know, grew a seven figure business that way, but it was maddening.
Dustin: And so my symptoms, I like to talk a lot about like, what's the symptoms that are going to make people raise their hand and be like, I need help. Uh, so my symptoms were sort of like this. Tension in my brain of like, there's way too much in here and I'm going to forget something and realize that I'm, there's people falling through the cracks that I could be helping better either, by enrolling them in a program or fulfilling better to your point, or improving referrals because we've improved the user experience, making it very clear what the process is for clients, onboarding, fulfillment, offboarding.
Dustin: so this is all like. Fresh wounds for me, but, uh, things I've addressed this year and it's made a huge, huge difference. So, tons of value in it. And I think it's so helpful for a lot of entrepreneurs, tend to be more visionary and they're just constantly going and going and pursuing the next idea.
Dustin: And they don't take that time to think systematically or document or think about where can they be in more of their unique ability and maybe hire a team member to help or a part time contractor to help? , so love that you're able to step in and help people see and then actually implement these things that will gloss over if we're left our own devices.
Dustin: And so is the symptoms for that client and clients in general. Sounds like customer service was a big one. Like they're hearing complaints. They're getting a lot of questions. There may be like noticing there's a lack of referrals
and like people aren't really satisfied, but they don't really have their finger on, like, what's going on and why that is, is that typically where people would reach out to Carl and be like, something's broke.
Dustin: I can't identify it, but I need someone to come in and help me fix it.
Karl: exactly. And most of that stuff is from an operations perspective because once you get, and this is, I think hard is it's easy to hire somebody, to help you bring in more clients or more leads. But if. When you do that, things are broken on the inside and it just makes everything harder. So you just keep throwing, oil on top of the fire and it gets worse.
Karl: And that's where I come in and help them and maybe even back up a little bit is really having, a system around, mission, vision, and values.
Dustin: Yeah,
Karl: And sharing that with your team and having that ability to make decisions based off of those values. And what I also find too, so I just did a workshop with a law firm and we started, they didn't have anything documented, mission, vision, or values.
Karl: And we documented the vision, the mission and the vision. And we did a workshop, including their people to do core values. And then we came away with six core values that the whole team could get behind. It's so powerful because people are. And they're like, it was funny. Cause one of the, owners said, Oh, this person's a troublemaker and, she's probably going to give you trouble.
Karl: And she was fantastic. She, and the key part is, is. Making sure they're giving the feedback. You're not telling them what to do or what to say it's them and just, pulling it out of them because at first people were always a little
reticent, but then over time they start to open up and that to me is that foundation.
Karl: So you, say lay the foundation and then you can start putting up the pillars of support and, finding those other issues like onboarding and all that other stuff.
Dustin: yeah, man. That's also something I've, I've experienced, sort of having inherent values. Like, I know how I want to do things. I know how I'm going to treat people. I know the types of. The types of people I like to work with and who really fires me up, who gives me energy. but then, you know, I went to hire some team members and I wasn't articulating that cause I'd never like articulated it to myself.
Dustin: I'd never documented it. And so part of that process, which you help people with too, once I got the values laid out, they're not only like on my website for clients to see, but like they're on the top of my job applications or my job postings. Right. So it's like, You need to resonate with this in order to fit in here.
Dustin: I'm talking where it's me and I have one full time employee and some contractors, but even at that scale, so vital to have everyone know, know, like, what are we about? how do we treat people? And we have a filter or a value system in which to do that. and that also helps with hiring the new team members.
Dustin: It helps with the onboarding into our community. Like if you're a client and you come in, you're like, For one, before you buy, you should know, these are our values, but then once you're in your community, you know how to behave, you know, how to treat people, you know, without having a bunch of rules, it's like, no, these are our values.
Dustin: And if you stick to these values, you're going to excel in here because this is the values of everyone in here. Right. Um, so I love that. And I, will say I'm the first one. If you went back two years ago, for sure, even a year ago, I would have been like. Mission statements, core values of gag me, you know, like that's why I left my engineering career.
Dustin: That's why I left corporate America. and so I was very like resistant to that. But then once I was like, Now I can see like this is actually to my benefit to articulate this is gonna make my life way easier. And it's gonna make me
happier. And, so I love that. And the last thing I want to talk about, how systems play in.
Dustin: I feel like I have to say Nathan Barry's name because, you know, that's where we met was, crafting commerce, which was kids convert kids conference. And of course, he talks a lot about flywheels. so as you're talking about, customer feedback and improving their Experience, which leads to new referrals, and I was assumed to as they're going through, say, this woman's course, having a constant feedback loop constantly makes the course better.
Dustin: And then that makes people happier, which makes them refer people. so we actually can create a virtuous kind of flywheel effect by having systems. But if you. Don't have a system. You can't have a flywheel, I know, you know, about
flywheel. So tell me a little bit about how you see, your work in the context of building, an effective flywheel for someone's business.
Karl: Yeah. you're right. 'cause if you are constantly recreating the wheel again and again, it's exhausting. And I think as entrepreneurs we like novelty, we like shiny things, we like new things and possi possibility of, of things. and it gets us
distracted. That's where systems are so important is kind of bringing you back to what is the value that's really driving your company and keeping it focused on that.
Karl: Because if you don't have that system in place, you're going to try to spin other flywheels and try to get those up and running and you don't have enough energy to do all that. And so it's really understanding, how you can, like I said, have that lighthouse, where is there a friction.
Karl: And it's really starts with the customer, if you're making the customer happy and they're loving what you have and what you've created, they're going to tell other people, and that is the best marketing that you can do. And we talked about, investing before we hit record cause my site also, a lot of times I'll invest my money and I put it a lot of times into Bitcoin. And the reason that. I do that is because of the community that encourages more people to buy Bitcoin. And the funny thing is, is no one owns Bitcoin. It is a decentralized asset that just sits on the blockchain. And if people want it, the price goes up. If people don't want it, the price goes down. But because so many people believe in it.
Karl: It goes up and up and up. And now I have some because I'm like, well, I have to get on this ride. And the same thing happens inside a company, right? If
you're doing great work and other people are telling people about your work. Now, this is not easy. It is not easy to put these systems in place. It's hard to.
Karl: Take the time and slow down. I try to tell people a lot of the systems should be either like quarterly or biweekly. , and then you should also have a monthly and a quarterly and a yearly. So if you're coming back to core values, I would eventually, as you grow, bring in your team and say, Hey, these are core values, like.
Karl: How do you feel about them? Is there anything we should adjust? Anything we should add? And it makes it dynamic and flexible instead of like, Hey, this is the core values we've had since, 2015. And people, as they're on boarded, that's good. But if you bring them along for the ride, it makes it so much better.
Karl: Having a system like that in place. All these little flywheels. And I know we're talking about a lot of different types of systems. The key part to all this is to really start with one. you have so much on your plate as an entrepreneur, you've got marketing, you've got operations, you've got accounting, you've got, maybe mentorship, maybe you mentor or whatever.
Karl: You've got memberships, groups or sites. and you have your, social media that you're trying to feed on a daily basis or regular basis, you can't do it all. but the idea is to really understand where the top friction is. And sometimes it's good to have surveys, but I also suggest to people to interview because it helps bring, strengthen the empathy muscle.
Karl: so, I often will help clients craft interview guides and have them interview, I've done interviews for them, but I really prefer if they do it because you get to hear what's going on. I'll record it and I'll share it with them, but they're so busy. They, a lot of times don't listen to them.
Karl: So they actually do it and record it. And I did a, interview with Tim Grawl, who was also at craft and
Dustin: Yeah,
Karl: and he interviewed 550 people. And what that did is that helped his. Marketing flywheel because he realized he was saying the wrong things to the people that he really wanted to reach. Like, so he helps, authors and he was like talking about being a bestseller and nobody wanted to be a bestseller on his email list.
Karl: So he was saying all these things thinking that's what they wanted, but the reality is. They just wanted to make an impact. They just wanted to leave a legacy. So we started shifting his marketing message to that and everything got easier for them. It's because you have these systems in place. And so that's often what I suggest.
Karl: Start with a survey because it's the easiest and you start to see some cracks in your foundation a little bit, or in your, pillars. And then you can start to say, okay, I'm starting to see some patterns. Let me dig deeper. And this is where I think a lot of, especially small business owners with a small team really don't think they have time to interview their customers.
Karl: But my thing is you don't. Not have time to interview your customers. that should become part of your regular process. if you can talk to one customer a month, just one a month for 30 minutes. Do that 12 times a year and it will change how you run your business.
Dustin: Yeah, that's beautiful. that was perfect kind of summation because, what I heard in that too is not only the practical value to improving your business by, interviewing people, learning, what they really care about, what they're struggling with, having the empathy, but going back to your origin story of gratitude.
Dustin: you've basically what you described there and in a bigger sense is putting systems in your business that make you more empathetic and show more gratitude to your customers and to your team members. ? Because while we all would probably say we have that intention, like, yeah, of course, I want my customers to be happy.
Dustin: And I do want to understand it. the capitalist pig side of this is also served because You're going to have a much better business, happier customers. They're going to spend more money with you. They're going to refer people to you when they feel understood. when you're speaking their language, it's really hard to guess at that.
Dustin: And so like Tim, yeah, Tim's a very successful author, very successful coach. And it's really cool. That's, that's a really good example of when he actually took the time, he did it to an extreme, like he tends to do, uh, interviews, you know, 500 clients. his whole messaging changed, right? Like the whole premise of why people would purchase something from him you.
Dustin: It was like, I got to imagine it's like a light bulb moment. so that's really cool. talking about like systems a lot of times to me can sound sort of dry and sort of like boring. but the marketer in me like really lit up cause you're like, if you had a system for communicating better with your clients, understanding what they really want.
Dustin: how much easier would your business be? And it's like, yeah, that's the ultimate way to fuel the flywheel is with the customer juice. Right. And like be able to understand and name that. So that's really cool. well, Carl, I know we're gonna wrap up here shortly. you mentioned the word lighthouse.
Dustin: I love to just kind of turn it over to you and any gaps you want to fill in, or if there's, a process around that, but like, what do you mean by a lighthouse? And, what can we do as entrepreneurs once we identify this lighthouse? Yeah,
Karl: are so many, we talk about shiny objects. There's so many things that entrepreneurs do well. Like the people who are listening are probably in the top 10, 5 percent of people from intelligence, from an energy standpoint. A lot of people don't start business because they don't have the energy to do it.
Karl: You know, like we said, do this as a side hustle and it's a lot. But because of the systems I put in place, it allows me to know when to say when, when to pull back, when to lean in and do a little bit more, try new things. And because of that, I think I have basically a lighthouse. So I don't crash. If my energy's fading, I.
Karl: Turn on that lighthouse and I'm like, oh, here comes the rocks. Right? And so we have to create these systems inside of our own business that allow us to catch these things, catch these mistakes before they become big problems. It could be employee issues. People are leaving, the company faster than, you would like.
Karl: people are, not bringing their full self to work. customers are not referring you all these different things. You have to be able to say, okay, I'm noticing this thing. let's find out why let's dig deeper. And that's why I say suggest with surveys and then dig deeper with interviews. The key part is. there's feedback mechanisms happening all the time where we're seeing, you know, when, a client, doesn't return our call, right away, like they used to. Now it doesn't mean it could mean that they're just busy, but that's also these little signals that, okay. Let me check in with them now.
Karl: We're very tuned into that because we know if we clients happy they're going to keep paying us and we're doing a good job but there's these softer signals that we have to be aware of and I want right now the people who are listening is What can you what soft signals can you start to put out there these little lighthouses that you can Put out there so you don't crash into the rocks could be a survey It could be you know asking people in a group, hey, I'm curious about this thing.
Karl: And, for people who are, trying to get the seven figures, the key thing is listening. And in this fast paced world, we don't do a great job of listening to our customers or employees. And that's why systems are so important because it, Forces us to actually do it. And then once we do, it's like when you finally get the guts up to ask that girl on the date, and she says yes.
Karl: And you're like, why'd I wait so long? You know, like it, it was, it was there all along for the past six months, and if I just would've taken action sooner, we would've gone on a date sooner. I think the same thing happens in
Dustin: that's, that's beautiful. I'm just like, right with you on this. so I run mastermind group, the seven figure lead mastermind. we've got over 20 members in there. It's been going for 18 months. And if for some reason, some signal that I wasn't looking for, but I was like, man, there's something, something under the surface here, so I took one of our sessions.
Dustin: I said, Hey guys, like instead of hot seats today, With, if you'll indulge me, I just want to basically listen to you. we did a SWOT analysis, so, you know, from the corporate world, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and it was very informal, by that standard, but so, so useful.
Dustin: And so. You know, 90 percent of the feedback was, this is awesome. Like I love the people, I love the culture, but they started to name the things they actually care about. And some of those were obvious to me. And some of those I'm like, really like emotional support. Like that's, that's why you come to these calls, you know?
Dustin: and so that made me, I literally yesterday rerecorded sort of the overview video of what we're about, and I was able to say, here's what the members say, you know, here's what they care about and in the opportunity side of thing, it was like, Dustin, you do a good job.
Dustin: we always get value, but like we could use a little more structure, you know, and I'm like, okay. And I think that's what I was feeling. I'm like, I feel
like we're a little unstructured. And so, yeah, I won't take the whole rest of our time, but the end of this story is not only did I create a better structure for the mastermind, so we have monthly themes to our meetings and all of a sudden I'm like, oh my gosh, like this would work for our whole community, not just the mastermind.
Dustin: And so we've had two events since then. where we involve the whole community. we have a structure. I'm able to bring the mastermind members into serve in that, which they love. Cause one of the things they wanted more of is an opportunity to be a mentor to other people. And now for the next year, we have a whole.
Dustin: A calendar of every month. We know what the theme of the month is in the mastermind. And then we've created events in the whole community that tied to that. And I would have never known this is even a thing, but I asked the question, I did this, group interview, and then I dug a little deeper with individual people that said something.
Dustin: I'm like, can you tell me more about that? Cause like, that's really interesting. And just being curious and being open to the feedback opened up like immense value I think if we rerecorded this in a year or two, I'd be like, that was a lighthouse moment. That was like a pivotal moment in this whole company.
Dustin: And it came from one, 45 minute conversation with a small group. So, um, I'd say that as an encouragement to people. I was a little scared to do that. I'm like, well, what if they say I suck? You know, I'm
Karl: Yeah. Ego, ego kicks in. Yeah, yeah,
Dustin: go, the ego kicked in for sure. But I pushed through that and I'm like, just like you said, asking the girl, I'm like, why didn't I do this sooner?
Dustin: Like, this is so good. so that's awesome, Carl. Well, thank you for being a friend to me and, having me on your podcast and you being here to share your wisdom, it's amazing. So yeah, tell us more about, how people can go deeper with you. If they need this help, they want to have a call with you or whatever your process is for helping people, like what's the next best step if people are like.
Dustin: I like car on. I need more Carl in my life. I need some more systems in my business.
Karl: Yeah. So you can go to systematic leader. co, and that basically is my website. And if you go to systematic leader. co slash guides, I got one of them is the 30 best interview questions to ask customers. So it's. One of the best, things that I think people can use. and I have a podcast called systematic leader.
Karl: but the idea of working with me, is just reach out, message me, call me, email me, Carl with a K at systematic leader. com. and it starts with, an assessment. We break everything down, understand where that friction is. And then we start to look at, okay, how can we put flywheel processes in place and then iterate on them.
Karl: That's the key is it's not going to work great right away, but then once you start iterating on it, that's when it's really starts to move for you. And that's when the magic happens.
Dustin: That's awesome. Yeah. So if you're sitting here thinking, man, I do need to do more of this and I know that I'm going to like quit listening to this and I'm going to forget tomorrow. I'm going to be like, yeah, and you do that later. Don't do that. Like go to yeah. Systematic leader. co slash guides at the very least get
some of these resources that Carl gives for free.
Dustin: I think the interview questions that will really open people's eyes into like, Oh my gosh, I hadn't thought I should be asking this in my onboarding or this to my clients or my team members. and then, yeah, if you really want to make a decision to improve your own systems. Go have a call with Carl and, see how he can help you so that you have this partner in this, because if you're like me, it was only through committing to, investing some time, money, and energy in this and finding the, who, who loves this stuff.
Dustin: Cause that unlocked so much for me. And so. Carl, I'm super grateful for you. I hope everyone goes to systematic leader. co, checks out what you have to offer and, and books of calling gets to know, you and get to know more about how you can be a partner to them in their business and build some really, really powerful systems and build a flywheel effect in their business and they don't have to do it themselves.
Dustin: they have a Carl in their life to do it with them. Thanks for being here, man. I really appreciate you.
Karl: Yeah. Thank you. I had a great time.