The Ultimate Boardroom: Systematically Finding Your Business Structure With Jack And Michelle Bosch

Episode 362: The Ultimate Boardroom: Systematically Finding Your Business Structure With Jack And Michelle Bosch

View this episode on:

Many business owners out there don’t put nearly enough thought into their business structure, and how it actively affects the business that they’re creating. Without even knowing, you could be creating a business that’s completely dependent on you, and the moment you’re gone, it crumbles as if you’ve never built it up. Jack and Michelle Bosch are the Founders of Ultimate Boardroom, a Mastermind for business owners who are growth-oriented. They talk to Mitch Stephen about their impetus for creating Ultimate Boardroom, and what they hope to achieve by working with the business owners they’re working with. If, as a business owner, your priority is growth, then Jack and Michelle’s advice might just be for you.

—

I have two guests. They are some outstanding and phenomenal business people. Imagine if you came to a new country to learn a new language and start a new business. Do you think that would be a little bit of a challenge? Here are some people that have come from different parts of the world. They came to the United States of America and started in the regular way that we all started. Most of us had a job and figured out that was going nowhere, then decided to jump off into entrepreneurialism. That’s where all the fun started and they have a great story to tell. They have been very successful. Let me introduce Jack and Michelle Bosch. We’re here to talk about a mastermind that they’re putting together. How are you doing, Jack and Michelle?

We’re doing great. Thanks for having us.

I’ve met Jack at another fantastic mastermind group. It was dealing with real estate and creative real estate strategies. It was very niche. It was mostly about finding new products, where to find products and how to maximize your profits. It changed my life. I become a believer in mastermind groups because when you get to sit in the room, there were a bunch of other successful people who are not your competitors. You can stand up in front of them or they can stand up in front of you. You can show the numbers and results. You can openly be transparent about not only the books and the finances but also about business struggles and also family and personal struggles mixed in with the business.

As we know, business is not without life and we all have lives outside of the business. They co-mingle and they get tangled up. I want to bring them on because I was talking to Jack and he’s telling me about this mastermind group that he’s putting together. I thought this would be fantastic for everybody here at 1000houses.com because this covers everybody. This covers anyone who has a business. I would like to invite you to tell us a little bit about what your mastermind is about. Who wants to go first, Michelle or Jack?

The Ultimate Boardroom is a mastermind designed for the business owner out there that is growth-oriented, that seeks growth, but that is at a level that no matter what he’s doing in terms of he can’t put any more hours, any more energy, any more effort, they’re completely either exhausted or overworked and they’ve hit a ceiling of what can be done but they want growth. They know they want that growth but they don’t know how to go about it. We started with the four pillars. The Ultimate Boardroom is about looking at four pillars of growth, which are pretty much business fundamentals. You’ll find this in any business. If you want to grow, you have to be looking at these four things.

That is the leader themselves and trying to find out what is the why for the leader and the business owner. The team that is coming on board to help you create and sustain this growth. The processes and the strategies and all the tactics that come with the how in order to make this rocket ship go. Most of us start with the tactics because when you’re in business as an entrepreneur, you need to pay your bills, you need to do payroll, you need to find cash. The cashflow is important and so you say yes to everything. What you find is you’re trying to get the momentum going but there’s nothing to sustain that momentum.

That’s where The Ultimate Boardroom comes in in terms of guiding business owners and entrepreneurs through first leadership development. Only when you are at a level of leadership can you comprehend and understand the need to develop yourself in this area. If you want an extended capability and capacity as a business owner, not just in front of your family but in front of your business. As a leader in your industry, there is some leadership development that needs to happen.

From there, we’d go and walk you through the second pillar, which is looking at what is your corporate identity? What are your core values? How are you going to attract the perfect team to come on board that aligns with your mission and vision? From there, we go to the strategy. Let’s look at all the things that we’re doing right now. Are they the biggest bang for the buck? Are they the biggest pumpkin? We need to either stop doing them or identify the one piece of the area of the business that you love to do. That will give you the highest margins, impact and 10x growth in terms of revenues, profits, and meaning.

The Ultimate Boardroom is the name of our mastermind that has a coaching aspect to it. One of the things we realized, Mitch and I were in the same mastermind and this mastermind was specifically about figuring out ways to get more deals and things like that in the real estate space. It’s very niche and I’ve been part of many other masterminds and it was all about getting more how to do the marketing for internet marketing. It’s always about the niche.

What masterminds are great at is allowing somebody to stand up and say, “This is not working in my business right now,” then have the group of the other attendees of the mastermind come in and say, “I’ve seen this before and that happened to me three years ago. I went through this and here is how I fixed,” or they’re great at saying, “Here’s a relationship that I have. I know somebody who can help you fix this and that you can fix burning issues that are happening right now at the moment.”

I think of entrepreneurs as gladiators. If you’ve ever heard of that speech from Roosevelt. Entrepreneurs are the man in the arena pretty much. We need protection and support, but because of this gladiator image, it’s a paradox. We’re the ones that least have it. We are constantly bombarded with all kinds of noise and pressure from the daily grind of our business. A mastermind offers that opportunity to break away and speck away from it, from all the noise and the pressure and discuss important things about the business that affect your life or important things about your life that affect your business because we’re not fragmented individuals. We’re whole people. However, when we look at fixing things, we look at either fixing our marketing or fixing, our lead conversion or fixing specific aspects but not holistic.

Masterminds are great for fixing the burning issue, but what Michelle just said that I 100% agree is where they’re not good at is looking at the business from a higher stance or a 10,000 feet level and say like, “Let’s look at that.” What pieces of your business are broken in the first place so that the hot button issue happened in the first place? When we created the Ultimate Boardroom, we want it to solve both issues because we didn’t want to just put another mastermind where everyone gets their burning issue solved.

We also wanted to create something that everyone can look at their business from a 10,000 feet level and say, “I don’t have this piece, that piece and that piece,” which is refracted by those four pillars that Michelle talked about, the why, the who, the what and the how. We not only wanted them to identify that certain pieces are missing. We wanted to give them the guidance on how to fill them because that’s the process we have gone through. It’s an ongoing process that you go on as your business reaches the next level. You’ve got to go back in and you’ve got to fill holes again and so on. It’s something that will never end, but most people are not even aware that you have to do it in the first place.

What we have done is we married the two concepts into what we call a business coaching mastermind. It’s a mastermind with the coaching aspect where when we meet, we spent a part of the time on sharing these concepts that helped people identify their gaps and help fill them. We’re masterminding where they can figure out whatever the burning hot issue in their business is that’s currently falling apart and have that fixed. We talk about marketing strategies and things like that if that is something that they need help with.

Business Structure: The Ultimate Boardroom is about the four pillars of business: the leader, the team, the processes, and the strategies.

This topic is near and dear to me. I’ve been in business myself for many years doing the same thing. I’ve tried to get big and automate and failed three times. I tried it by myself, out of my own head and out of my wit. Looking back after being to several mastermind meetings, it’s no wonder that I failed because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. There was this big reservoir of knowledge that I had no way to even pull from because I wasn’t even remotely aware that the reservoir was there. I found a set of words pretty interesting. You said a ceiling of complexity. Would you talk to me about what that means? I think when you mash all this down, this is a perfect three words to describe. When an entrepreneur taps out, he can’t work any more hours of the day. He can’t handle any more orders. He can’t write any more contracts. He can’t deposit any more money because he’s in his own way. Will you tell me what ceiling of complexity means to you in this group?

The ceiling of complexity is a term that was coined by a gentleman by the name of Dan Sullivan. It means that typically entrepreneurs out there have certain skillsets. You have a certain capacity of entertaining complexity of attaining things. You are where you are in life. I love what you said that you tried yourself when you didn’t even know that there was a reservoir. That’s what happens to every business owner out there. They’re out there. They’re hustling and they’re trying on their own. Particularly the beginning investor is going to be somebody that makes it on pure ego and pure test like going for it. They say yes to everything and make things happen. At some point in time, they get to the level where they have many raving customers and clients that they can’t handle them all themselves anymore. They need to do a switch from being the operator to become the manager, the owner, the visionary and the leader of the organization. Usually what happens is when they hit that point where stuff starts falling through the cracks, the employees start becoming stupid, and I mean that in a funny way because they have no guidance.

You’re overworked and tired. When you’re overworked and tired, everyone around you starts to feel like they’re stupid.

You’re like, “Can’t these guys figure this out? How hard is it to do X, Y, Z?” When an entrepreneur starts saying those things, that’s a clear sign that they hit the limit of what they can currently entertain in terms of their business. That’s the point where they need to stop for a moment and start gaining more ability growing as a leader, looking up above what they can see and learn the tools that take them to the next level. Those tools are there because billion-dollar, trillion dollars, hundred-million-dollar businesses didn’t happen by accident. There are clear tools, structures, and principles behind these businesses. At that point, the entrepreneur has three choices.

Choice number one is to do nothing and continue to be frustrated forever and have a business that is not at its capacity. It’s very frustrating and not predictable. They make good money but it’s a pain in the butt. Option number two is to shrink back and become a simple small business again where everything is under control, everything is overseeable, but it is frustrating to not have lived up to your potential. Option number three is to figure out what these tools are. What do I have to do as a leader in order to grow beyond that and put it into four pieces? It’s always around those four pillars that stuff starts happening. If they make that choice, those are the business owners that we can help and work with.

I want to tip my hat to you, Jack. I want to tell the audience here, I’m going to buy about 100 houses in my hometown. Maybe I’ll wholesale about 40% of them. I’ll retail about 10% of them and owner finance the other 50 houses. I couldn’t have done that without your help. When you told me that you were going to make this mastermind, I knew firsthand that you’d be successful at helping people because you had helped me change my life. Because of you and the conversations that we had and a lot of input that you gave me, I won’t see fifteen of those 100 houses.

I won’t see them when I buy them. I won’t see them when I sell them. I won’t see them probably ever. I might see some pictures of them float across the meeting room table, but I’ve never been to them. The things that you told me and the discussions that we had has enabled me and allowed me to own a business and have a life. Isn’t that what you’re talking about? It’s to own a business and reach your maximum potential. My maximum potential is not 100 houses. It might be 150 or 200, I don’t know. If I keep improving the processes that you helped me learn how to put in, who knows what my potential is.

The greatest part about it is it doesn’t require me to work harder. The less I work in and the more I got out of my way, the more volume we did and the more money we made, which I found to be completely astounding, and the less I worked physically. I’m always thinking about it, but I don’t have to think about it anymore. It runs itself. I went hunting for ten days in a place where my phone wouldn’t work. I came back and I had bought more houses than I used to buy when I was here. I had sold more houses than I used to sell when I was here. I found it quite gratifying and rewarding. Most of all, I found that I felt like I was getting my life back and I was having the best of both worlds.

I was able to grow and start to feel like a real businessman. At the same time, I was able to spend time with my family and get my rest. When I show up to work, I’m invigorated. I look forward to going to the Thursday meetings even though I don’t have to. I look forward to going because I’m rested and I got my energy back. I’m ready to try to help the guys, see what their problems are and see if I can chime in, but I don’t have to go. That’s why I knew you’d be good at this because you were good at helping me. I was excited about it and I wanted to put you out in front of the audience out here because it doesn’t matter what business you have. You’re going to hit a ceiling of complexity at some point, especially if you started the thing from the ground up.

I watched a man speak that started a chain of restaurants here and it’s gone all over the state of Texas. The people that took it over from him got to inherit a three-generation set of systems that had been proven for years. The entrepreneur goes out and originates something from dirt. A lot of times, especially I know I did in my case, I outrun my own mental capacity. I couldn’t handle it anymore. It was getting bigger than I couldn’t even fathom. When you started adding some extra zeros to the ends of the column, I started to get confused and that’s just me. I brought some people in it and helped me solve not only that problem, but I also have salespeople and acquisition people. The whole thing is a different animal and I haven’t been to my office in 4 or 5 days. I talk to them on the phone every now and then when I need to but my business is running. I wanted to thank you for that and I’m looking forward to your mastermind.

Thank you very much. I’m humbled by that. I appreciate that. You said some great things not just about us but also about the principles of business growth. The entrepreneurs start something from scratch. Most entrepreneurs are not trained to grow this. I love what you said about outrunning your mental capacities. That’s another description of the ceiling of complexity. I’ve never heard anyone say it like that, but with your permission, I will adopt that because that’s brilliant. That’s exactly what happens. You feel like you’re constantly running.

You know in your mind you can create a business that’s too complicated or has too many tentacles often for you to be able to do that. It has a part to do with the entrepreneur’s personality, which is typically in this later than one direction of like a quick starter or a visionary wanting to do certain things. At some point in time, you’ve got to bring in somebody or at least you’ve got to be able to put some other pieces in place while not forgetting your vision. Otherwise, you’re working in the trenches and forgetting what you do this for.

It’s like what you told me. You said, “How are you training your people?” I said, “Jack, I don’t train people.” The secretary walked in and we interviewed her. I said, “You’re hired. There’s your desk and there’s the phone. Call me when you figure out something that you don’t know how to do.” She then called me and I wasn’t available because I was out doing stuff. That’s how I trained people. I sat them in the chair and showed them the phone. You said, “You’re going to have to train them.” I said, “I don’t want to train them. I don’t like to train them. I don’t know how to train them.” You said, “You don’t have to train them. Get someone else to train them.” All of a sudden, I’m quiet in my track like, “There’s an idea but how do you do that?” All of a sudden, I’ve got people training people and I’m not the trainer. Here’s the other thing I figured out.

One of the reasons why I wasn’t growing in certain directions is because I hated that part of it. I hated training people as far as training my employees. If you want to learn how to buy and sell real estate, I don’t mind training you at all. If you want me to train how to run the office, set the Falcon and stuff, do the spreadsheet, do all the printout, the reports and everything, I hate it. I’m not going to do it. Therefore, it didn’t get done. I finally managed with a lot of help from Jack and a couple of other people to sit down and build a team where I don’t have to do the things I don’t like to do. I’ve just got to make sure that they’re getting done.

Business Structure: You’ll eventually feel like you’re constantly running a business that’s too complicated and has too many tentacles for you to be able to manage.

There’s a process. There are amazing integrators out there, the right who that you can bring into the business to help you create an onboarding process, a training rhythm. You train in batches so that you’ll hire in one week all the salespeople and you train them all at once. You do ongoing rhythms of training depending on the different functions and the different departments in the business. The visionary is not that person. It’s not your genius and it would be completely dissatisfying. You would be very unhappy if you had to do that day in and day out. What you’ll find is that most business owners out of need and necessity are doing those things. They don’t know that they were looking at these four pillars systematically starting with you as a leader and then going into the whole. Those people that you bring on board as part of your team are the ones that help you then figure out a better strategy, tactic, process, system and so on and so forth.

I fell back in love with my business. If it’s gotten to where it’s out of hand and you want to fall back in love with your business, learn how to work on the business instead of working in it. Is there anything else you want to add, Jack and Michelle?

If you’re already going to be in business and you’re spending a bunch of time building this business, why not use the business? Why not use the enterprise to sculpt yourself as a leader and grow, not just in your business but also in your family life, your community and your industry?

At the end of the day, you have certain goals and frustrations in your business. We all want to be happy. We all want to have fun doing what we’re doing. Mitch, first of all, thank you for having us. Secondly, you mentioned that you fell in love with your business again. That’s exactly what happened to us when we implemented that. We also had some periods where we made good money and things like that, but we weren’t enjoying what we’re doing anymore. It’s because that’s when we discovered that we were missing some of these pillars. We’re very good at automation and systemization of things. We were taking vacations and things like that and having a business that was running, but when we’re coming back into the business, we weren’t enjoying it necessarily all day long. By discovering those four pillars and what’s underneath them, each of them has a set of different pieces that you can work on and put in place.

By putting in the basic pieces in place, all of a sudden we started falling back in love with our business and started feeling like we had a real business. You have a real business if the business doesn’t rely on you. That’s a very good distinction somebody made. If you cannot leave your business for two weeks at a time and come back and everything is as good or better than when you left, you don’t have a business. You are making money and you have people helping you make money. A true business is a business that doesn’t rely on you. It lives your vision and lives under your leadership where people are hand-selected such that they enjoy working in it. Everything is buzzing but they don’t need you to be there on a day-to-day basis.

As a matter of fact, ultimately things work better if you’re not there. When we go on vacation, we love to go there for three weeks like in summer we go to Hawaii. We tell our team, “If something urgent comes up, text us.” I still have my phone there. I’m reading a book. I’ve been taking pictures of our daughter on the beach and so on. We go now for three weeks and we don’t get a single text. If I don’t get a text, I don’t need to check my email because there’s nothing in my email that’s urgent enough for me to have to check it. That’s our definition of freedom. At the same time, our people stay for years and years with us and they love it.

I could go talkback on because it’s a beautiful situation to be in a beautiful business and life to have. For everyone reading this, if you already have a business, if you’re already doing six figures a year or you’re already making good money but you’re frustrated with where you are, you want to reach that next level and you feel like what I talked about that ceiling that applies to you, then contact us. Go through the link that Mitch gave you and set up a phone consultation with us where we can see if we are a match for you.

 One thing I want to tell you, I was talking to my wife and we’d gone on vacation. She knows that I had worked so hard and talked to you a lot about implementing this stuff. At one point during the vacation towards the end of it, my wife said, “No one’s called us for anything.” I said, “That’s great.” She goes, “I think I’m depressed.” I said, “Why are you depressed?” She goes, “They don’t need us anymore.” I said, “No, that’s a celebration for a drink. Bartender, come over here. Let’s have a drink. You said you’re depressed because this business is running without you. Are you crazy? We need to pop a bottle of champagne. We’ve been here for six days and no one’s called us for anything.”

There’s a weird feeling at first.

I love you, guys. I know you’re going to help a lot of people. You certainly helped me. You’re going to have more of a formal setting. You helped me informally, so I can imagine what this mastermind is going to be like. There will be plenty of sharp people in the room.

That’s our number one thing. We want to keep the qualities. It’s not a beginner’s program. It’s a program for people that already have a business. We talk to every single one of them ourselves. We do have a sales floor for other things and our real estate business but this is our heart piece. This is something that we care about.

This is our 10x growth in terms of the impact which is amplifying other leaders.

We came to the same conclusion of when we go on a regular basis to the four pillars, we identified that this is something that is close to our hearts. We talked to every single person that is interested in it and see if it’s a good match. Part of the good match is we only have our great people in there that are doing something that can share. The spirit of it is sharing the good, the bad and the ugly so that everyone can help each other avoid any pitfalls and celebrate the successes together.

Thanks a lot, Jack and Michelle. I appreciate you being on. It’s been great.

Business Structure: Putting the pieces back in place systematically under the four pillars will help you fall back in love with your business.

Thank you, Mitch.

Important Links

• ReInvestorSummit.com/ub
• ReInvestorSummit.com/Moat
• ReInvestorSummit.com/Livecomm  
• ReInvestorSummit.com/aof
• ReInvestorSummit.com/coaching

About Jack Bosch

Jack Bosch (a.k.a “The Land Guy”) is an experienced business owner, entrepreneur, real estate investor, respected industry leader, speaker, educator, and perhaps most importantly a parent and husband. He’s the author of the bestselling financial literacy book “Forever Cash” and the creator of the Land Profit Generator real estate without hassles system.

Jack immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1997 with just 2-suitcases and a bunch of student debt and since 2002 Jack and co-founder Michelle Bosch have purchased and sold over 4,000+ properties.

With his Land For Pennies investment method Jack and Michelle went from zero to a million in just 18-months and from that built a real estate investment empire that spans multiple areas of real estate including, land flipping, financing/ notes, tax delinquent real estate, home rentals, commercial, multi-family investments, and education.

In 2008 after seeing the devastation in the housing market Jack and Michelle set out on a mission to transform lives by sharing with others the land investment techniques and strategies that have made them a success.

As a result, this simple little-known Land for Pennies real estate niche has provided thousands of people with the opportunity to get into the real estate game without the hassles of traditional real estate investing and Jack and Michelle continue to spread the message with the mission to create 1,000 millionaires and impact the lives of many more.

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

Join the Real Estate Investor Summit Community:

• 1000houses.com
• Real Estate Investor Summit Facebook
• Real Estate Investor Summit Twitter
• Real Estate Investor Summit YouTube
• Mitch Stephen LinkedIn