The OYT Coaching Series – Bryan Jakovcic at Fusion Health – Making Time to Think

Back-to-back meetings may sound optimal in how you approach your schedule. However, don’t overlook the power of making time to think. If you want to see around corners and create a new future, you have to give yourself space. It may be a walk outside or even scheduling a day away from the office. Find your best strategy of making time to think. Our guest is Bryan Jakovcic, President and Owner of Fusion Health. Fusion Health was #556 on the 2019 Inc 500 list. Bryan begins by sharing his top strategy for optimizing his time, which is conducting better 1-on-1 meetings. In part two, Bryan is coached on making time to think. Visionaries must be intentional about time to think. You will discover how to make time to think inside this episode.

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Bryan Jakovcic: The Transcript

Target Audience: Bryan Jakovcic is the President & Owner of Fusion Health. Over the next 15 years, Bryan built Fusion from a startup on top of a dance studio (very loud) to one of New Jersey’s 10 fastest growing businesses. Bryan has designed Fusion with a culture fostered by entrepreneurship from within (intrapreneurship), empowering staff to own the vision through fulfillment and feeling directly tied to the accomplishments of the business.

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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

Bryan Jakovcic
Does Brian really need to know this, but my acting in the best interest of not just Fusion Health by my acting as an extension to Brian with their with their each of their respective divisions. So it took me it took me time and growth to really become comfortable with that. But I realized that I was going to be the bottleneck, I was the bottleneck, and I could not be it anymore. And I needed to kind of adopt these philosophies in order sustainable growth.

Intro
Welcome to Growth Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest-growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hammett. I hope leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow?

Gene Hammett
Do you have the time to think do you have the time to truly be the strategist for your company be the visionary time to think is different for all of us. One of the problems that a lot of people have with time to think is they will put it on their calendar, they will have great intentions, but they will realize that email needs to be checked or email needs to be responded to or someone needs something, or there’s something else that’s more important. And so time to think tends to get pushed down the road or kicked down the road. And you end up not having the time and then you feel guilty for not having more time to think. And if you overfill your calendar with meetings and all of the stuff that necessary for you to get the work done of a CEO, then you’ll rarely make time to think unless you understand the value of it. And you understand how important it is. This is part of the optimize your time series, we’re talking to CEOs of fast-growth companies to talk about what has really moved the needle for them. Our guest today is the CEO of fun. Health, it is Bryan Jakovcic. And Brian talks about his improvement on his ability to do one on one meetings, some of the details inside there are perfect for you. If you want to have better one on one meetings, you want to lead your department heads, your executive team to that next level, and it will help you become and be seen as a better leader.

Gene Hammett
The other piece of this in part two, we do the coaching session where I’ve been doing this all month long, where I am diving into what’s really going on here. Now one of the things I will set this up with is Brian was asked what’s the challenge, and I had to ask him three times, he is very tuned in to what he’s doing max, he knows kind of what’s going on. But I had to keep asking him because here’s the issue, he could not put his finger on. And maybe it was a little bit of nervousness inside this. But I really was patient with him to do this. Because this is what it takes to be an executive coach is figuring out what the real issue is. And the real issue is time to think I opened up this episode with a little bit more about it. But inside our conversation, what we got really clear about was how he needed to put time on his schedule, what was really missing there, and just kind of connecting the dots on a few things. Very simple things that would help him be a more visionary leader, be more strategic and drive the business forward as a leader. So thanks for tuning in to this episode of optimizing your time here on go Growth Think Tank. And here’s Brian.

Gene Hammett
Brian, how are you?

Bryan Jakovcic
Good. How’s it going, Gene, good to see you again.

Gene Hammett
Excited to have you back on the podcast. This is your second time being on Growth Think Tank.

Bryan Jakovcic
Yep. The first time was a great conversation. And I look forward to kind of picking up on that the second time around here today.

Gene Hammett
Well, we’ve got a different kind of approach. Today, we’re gonna dive into how to optimize your time as a CEO, you’re as busy as any CEO I’ve ever seen. You’ve got acquisitions, you’re adding to your team. You’ve got, you know, integrating cultures, there’s a whole bunch going on in your world. But before we jump into that, I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about what is your world. So tell us about Fusion Health?

Bryan Jakovcic
Oh, definitely. So Fusion Health is the largest provider and supplier of electronic health record solutions in the Department of Corrections. So you prisons and jails throughout the country. For the last four years, we’ve been named on inks list as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America. And we are also one of the fastest here in the state of New Jersey. And I as a leader have grown this business from the ground up. We’re roughly 100 employees based here in Woodbridge, New Jersey with our new office in Topeka, Kansas through acquisition. And I was just awarded one of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalists for 2020.

Gene Hammett
That’s impressive. When you know went through that process for Ernst and Young tell us a little bit about, what they were looking at and how it worked out.

Bryan Jakovcic
But definitely, so my wife actually nominated me without me even knowing back in 2019. So at the time, I just thought it was one of those, Oh, nice to have kind of accolades to you know, if I would even get it. I won one of the 40 under 40 Awards here in New Jersey. And it wasn’t till I really got into the process and start talking to people, you know, just colleagues and so forth. That I really started to understand the magnitude of what I’ve been nominated for, and the process was definitely long and arduous and detailed. And they did a great job with it. So anyway, I moved out from New Jersey and then went to the Nationals, which were probably two or three weeks ago, and I didn’t win it, I was one of the finalists there. So definitely a big thing that I was happy about. But you know, what they really looked at was not just myself as a leader, they looked at what I built in the company’s philosophies, values, mission as a whole. And again, you know, just the aspect of what fusion health is, and how we, how we contribute to an underserved market, and largely forgotten about people that I think really kind of helped us move through the entire process.

Gene Hammett
I love that I appreciate you sharing a little bit of that story with us. It goes back to prove that the basics, the fundamentals are still very important. It’s not just about putting money in the bank, but it’s about you know, creating a place that people love to come to work, actually making an impact in the world which are doing through the technologies and services you offer. So Bryan, I appreciate you sharing that with us. We are going to talk about optimizing your time, I’ve already had a chat with you about specifically what some of the things are that you have done to optimize your time as a CEO. It’s a never-ending journey. But you put a spotlight on one piece of this that has made you a better leader. Do you remember what that was?

Bryan Jakovcic
Yeah, no, it’s definitely are what I refer to as our hearts are headed divisions. So on a weekly basis, I meet with each of the heads of my divisions throughout the company. And, one thing I realized was I was going to these meetings and leaving with leaving the meetings, without the information I really needed. And honestly bored, you know, I realized that I shouldn’t be leaving the meetings that I’ve called on my leave my heads, I shouldn’t be leaving those meetings board, I shouldn’t be leaving those meetings without what I need to move on with my day, and to run this company effectively. So you know, over the over course of say of about a year, I really started to tweak and fine tune the meetings. And what I saw was that an hour wasn’t really needed, I can get out of what I knew what I needed, and half an hour instead of an hour. And the way I did that was by creating a formal agenda that is actually embedded on our Confluence pages.

Bryan Jakovcic
So we use Atlassian Confluence here fusion instead of SharePoint, but it’s relatively the same similar technology. And what I gave the direction I gave to my hods was, you know, I want this completed the day prior, so that we can both review it, digest it, and walk into that meeting with the information questions already, you know, at hand. So it really allowed us to move through the agenda, let allowed us to skip through things on the agenda because the status updates were enough of enough information I needed. But even you know, moving through it, you know, and over the past year, what I started to introduce also was KPIs in our, our HUD meetings. And at first, I put it right up on top of the forefront. And I even gave him explicit instruction to my hods and said, Listen, you know, we’ll put the KPIs up there, but let’s just look at them and kind of keep moving on. And what I realized is that it’s people’s just inherent nature to kind of, to kind of look and review and just talk about what’s in front of them no matter what. So again, you know, we’ve been refining it over the past year, about two months ago, I decided, let’s move those KPIs down to the bottom because they’re just out of sight, out of mind is at least as it pertains to the conversation, but they’re still there and meaningful information that again, if we’re reviewing in advance, we can review them and just not talk about them, but only talk about them if they’re really, you know, there’s something critical that needs to be brought up.

Gene Hammett
Bryan, when you talk about that, I want to make sure it’s very clear to those listening in, what are you doing in this one on one meetings with your hods, or your head of departments.

Bryan Jakovcic
So I’m getting the information I need, you know, we are moving at rocket speed, you know, to say the least. So what I needed was I needed to have the information, the high-level information I could use to not only disseminate to other the other hods. but to also make sure that I understand the big picture. And I’m disseminating my big vision to the rest of the heart so that we can keep moving forward nimbly, you know, I realized that as we were growing, especially that, and especially as I gave you a tip-off the multiple hats I was wearing, that I didn’t, I couldn’t afford the time to have the nitty-gritty of everything I needed to have faith in my hods to be able to know what would Brian do? So does Brian really need to know this? am I acting in the best interest of not just fusion health by my acting as an extension to Brian with each of their respective divisions? So it took me time and growth to really become comfortable with that. But I realized that I was going to be the bottleneck. I was the bottleneck, and I could not be it anymore. And I needed to kind of adapt these philosophies in order to continue sustainable growth.

Gene Hammett
Here’s a real key question for you. And you can explain this any way you want to. How much time would you guess that you spend talking versus they spent talking?

Bryan Jakovcic
I’d say Do probably about 15 to 20% talking, they do the rest, you know, I’ll drive specific questions, but they also understand at this point, what is it the what is the information that Brian needs to know. So we’re walking in and truthfully, I walk in and they’re ready, set, ready, locked, and loaded ready to go. I sit down in my office here, which is really the only time I’m ever in it, sit down, and they have, you can see the screen right behind me, there’s still your screen sharing with put chair, and it’s up on the screen and we roll right into it. I’ll usually walk in with my notepad and my blue pen. And then we’re off to the races.

Gene Hammett
You know, that’s a very different structure than what most leaders do, I find that a lot of Inc leaders like yourself, who are tuned into leadership and empowering others don’t feel like they need to talk as much was that adjustment over the years? Or is that just something that was natural to you?

Bryan Jakovcic
I realized that if I was doing little talking that my, my, what I said last value. So I guess it might be a maturity thing of growth as a professional thing. But I realized that my words need to be impactful, especially as we grow as a company, you know, I’m definitely out there goofing with guys friendly, nobody’s gonna say, oh, Brian’s that guy who doesn’t talk or he’s very, you know, Stern, and we can’t have we have a conversation with them. But when it comes to key decision makings and talking out in conversations, I do tend to be the quieter one in the room.

Bryan Jakovcic
So I can absorb as much as possible, digested information, kind of calculate in my head and then actually give direction. One thing I’ve also realized and learned over, you know, my growth, is that when I give direction, I need to be very concise and clear that this is the direction that I’m giving I was listening to one of the podcasts, and you know, listening and hearing that, you know, an executive was confused as to why one of his employees, one of the subordinates did something. And he said in passing where, you know, almost, you know, jokingly, you know, you should go do that. And, and he and that person actually went out and did that even though the owner did not necessarily intend for that to happen. So that’s one thing I’ve learned is that if I’m giving direction, I’m very explicit, saying, here’s what we’re going to do. This is what I’m understanding, you know, and those keywords really act as triggers in people’s minds. Remember, this is what we’re doing. And it also affirms that they completely digested and understood and accepted what we’re doing.

Gene Hammett
How many of those meanings you have each week.

Bryan Jakovcic
It’s a massive count, it’s frequently I’d say, it’s probably about nine or 10 out of 10, eight or nine out of 10, something like that.

Gene Hammett
And when you have to cancel them, how do you handle that?

Bryan Jakovcic
So what I actually do is, we have our administration meetings on Wednesday afternoon at two o’clock. And even that we’ve actually been able to hugely streamline through building out agendas. By getting them in ahead of time, you’re kind of taking the hard concept and moving it to the entire board. So so we do that exact same thing. So that’s on Wednesday afternoon, Monday, and Tuesdays are my hot days, except for finance, and the physical plant, but the building and office and so forth, that those two I do on Thursdays. But my other Hots, I have it the exact same times on Monday and Tuesday. And I have time blocks scheduled on each person’s opposing day. So if somebody is on a Monday, I could pull them to Tuesday move the Tuesday person to Monday, and it’s absolutely seamless. So again, because of you know, the intensity of the meetings and how short they are by design, it’s very easy to slam in 30 minutes in somebody’s day, even in the worst-case situation to take their lunch, rather than these marathon meetings of an hour plus?

Gene Hammett
Well, I appreciate you walking us through that. I think there’s a lot to be gained from this. And so I really appreciate it, too. Before we move on. I know that you shorten the meetings from you know, 30 minutes, from 60 minutes. But how is it really impacted your overall time? What’s the quick version of that?

Bryan Jakovcic
So So one thing I realized is that and maybe it’s because I’m getting a little older, I don’t know, I need time to digest I need to I have this picture and vision in my mind. And maybe it’s because my daughter loves watching the show and movie boss baby, where boss baby CO is walking down the aisle and everybody’s circling around him handing them papers sipping the coffee mug, you know, a million things going on, even before she started watching that, and that was always kind of idea like, wow when I’m that busy, that’s when I’m really successful. And I realized that I realized that what I need to do is actually take time to digest what’s just happened so it can make the next corrective action.

Bryan Jakovcic
So even Gene you know, I mentioned that we’re doing 30-minute meetings, that’s actually gone down from 45 that started at an hour. So I realized that 45-minute meeting didn’t allow me to time to actually document and think it through and even go back and go the bathroom, I was going to marathon meeting back to back to back to back. So one thing I started having my admin do was allow, do not do back to back consecutive meetings, like more fit, like actually thinking meetings, I have a 30-minute meeting, I have a 30-minute block, a 30-minute meeting, I have a 30-minute block. So that allows me to end the meeting, jot down some notes, even even even complete the things that I promised that person I would complete. Because what I started to get into is a cycle of meeting, meeting, meeting, I’ll get this to you next week.

Bryan Jakovcic
I’ll get this to you next week, I’ll get this to you next week, when your entire week is nothing but meetings and you can’t actually work, you’re failing the people, you’ve promised to do things. So now you have to take a step back and say, okay, am I going to impact my personal life, which I value dearly, you have two kids, a one-year-old and a four-year-old, been married five years, I’m still in that part of my life. And I want to be part of my family. And this doesn’t. And what we’re talking about here is even fusion health services, this is all about fusion health. This is not even talking about the other businesses that I have. So again, my life is full of things to get done. And that’s what I realized is that I just need to structure my life in a way to achieve these things. And that this is just something that’s worked for me personally.

Commercial
Alright, hold on for a second. Before we go into part two, in the coaching section of this interview, I want to talk about what we just heard inside of part one, I’ve been asking CEOs about what has been the key to them optimizing their time, what moves the needle. And one of the things that I wanted to bring up to you is the three things I took notes on that you can learn from here, and just put a moment for you to pause and think about are you doing this well enough. The first one is really about asking your one on one employees to come to the meeting, prepared, come up with an agenda. And that sounds so you know, basic, but isn’t it pretty important for you to have them create the agenda, instead of you creating it, they create it, and it’s a set template. So it’s pretty easy, you put some rules around it, like, I want to get it 24 hours ahead of time so that I can digest it and I can come prepared for that meeting, what do that signal to that employee and they get their issues heard, that also signals that you want to give them the best of you not just show up and be reactive to that you’re being very intentional about it. So I love that a big key to the hat is them owning the issues, then owning the agenda, they own, what goes in there, you don’t own it, they own it. And if you have that as kind of a rule that you put in place, then you will have a better kind of experience with your one on one meetings with your employees. I found that to be very impactful in my own business and my client’s businesses. So I’d love for you to look at that. The third thing I want to put a spotlight on is and it’s very basic is the back to back meeting myth. And that back to back meeting myth is so prevalent. I’ve had it happen to me before and back to back meetings, don’t give you time for bio breaks don’t give you time for jotting down notes don’t give you time to do anything. But what if you had enough space in between your key meetings and in every meeting may have a different kind of requirement. And at the end of my podcast episodes, I take 15 minutes to record these issues for you. And so I’m just putting a spotlight on this for you is what is your rule around back to back meetings? And what do you use that time for? What Brian said Is he likes to take notes, but he also likes to go ahead and do the things that he said he would do. So maybe it’s sent another email, maybe it makes an introduction, whatever it is, he goes ahead and does it so he doesn’t have a backlog of these things. Love this idea. I just wanted you to understand to be intentional about what to get out of this episode. Now, going into Episode Two, I know we’re gonna be talking about time to think it took us a little bit of time to get into that. But it really is a powerful conversation, what we end up with is very simple and basic. It’s, you know, executive coaching is not always the big strategic issues. Many times it is many times it’s the big ideas. But sometimes, like today, it’s just the small things that you can do, to feel more in control of your time and play at the highest level possible. Create specific rules around your time that allow you to be the leader that you want to be. Now here’s the second part of the interview with Bryan.

Gene Hammett
I’m scribbling down notes here because this is just brilliant. I really appreciate you sharing that with us, Bryan, I know that you’re always in a place of evolvement. And so as a leader when you think about your time, what is the one thing that you’re working on right now that will improve the way you lead and use your time for the most valuable things.

Bryan Jakovcic
Sure. So one of the things that we’re really working on right now with our hods and this is the first time we’re doing it is actually to step back and actually figure out what we want to get done in 2021 you know this past year everybody’s saying, obviously has been one for the books. Nobody’s ever. Nobody ever thought that this was coming. But you know, again, looking back, and as I mentioned at the open, we’ve been forged four times listed as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America. And what’s crazy is that at the end of every year, at the beginning of every time we moved to New office, we kind of like laughed a little bit saying, oh, we’re never going to fill this space. Can it ever be at that kind of year again, so we never planned for the next year, we just pretty much held on to our butt cheeks, and hope for the best. And that was it. And now after four years of doing this, it really has settled in with us that this is happening, this is going next year, in theory, will be a much better year than 2020. Frankly, 2020, we 2020 is pretty much flat for us. S

Bryan Jakovcic
o you know, next year, we have a lot of things in the pipeline, we’re hopefully gonna close on a couple more states that should have closed this year. But that’s where we’re going. But again, we’re taking the time to say, okay, know, what we know, know where we want to go. Putting a strategy to strategy together and putting a priority list together is the focus. And that’s something that we’re working on right now. So this is the first rest, we’re doing it, I have a high expectation that it will work. And we’re actually using the priorities for each of the HUDs as their incentive for financial compensation in the upcoming year. So it should be really exciting.

Gene Hammett
So, Bryan, I want to go back and gonna clarify the issue. Is there a challenge that you’re working on with your time like you’re spending too much time doing something that you want to stop doing? Or I know, we had talked before about something you want to do with your leadership capabilities around fulfillment, and growth of the individuals? So what’s the real challenge with your time right now?

Bryan Jakovcic
It is two parts. One is developing knowledge and actually pushing my hods to become more managerial. Like, one of the things here fusion is that all my hods effectively have been here since day one. We only have one outside of that came from McKinsey. You know, what am I at least so again, we’ve all grown internally in a silo. And, you know, one of the challenges I have for all of them is to professionally develop themselves in the upcoming year. Yeah, I think that’s really important, because that’s how you become a level five, you know, a level 10. You know, that’s what I want my guys to become. I don’t want them just to be complacent, because Heck, it worked while we got here, well, heck, you know, it’s been working. But last year, we had half the staff the year before that we had half the staff, we have grown as a company, we are grown in complexity, we are even diversifying in the businesses that we are operating. And I expect those hearts to be able to be rock stars as we continue to grow. So that’s one of the big things that I challenged them all to do.

Bryan Jakovcic
You know, when you look, when you look at my time, you know, there’s only so much time in a day. And that’s something that I’m just having to accept, you know, it’s me, especially as we’ve grown, it’s become this, this difficult thing in a way where people appreciate Brian because I’m out there rolling up my sleeves, I’m out there in the on the server cage, I’m out there with the guys just do whatever needs to get done. And it’s a little painful in a way that I’ve had, I’ve had to realize that I can’t just go out there, I can’t be feeling bored. And just go out there and kind of you know, screw around with computers with the IT team. I can’t do that anymore. I mean, it’s just the reality of it. So I need to be structured and disciplined in my time. And even structured and disciplined in my creative time. You know, I used to be able to say, hey, let me go crash on the couch or something and just figure things out, let me go think. And I realized that had to kind of work that around differently. But one of the things I’m thankful for at least is that I think best in the car.

Bryan Jakovcic
So in this video, we’re even chatting about it. This is how you listen to your podcasts, other podcasts. I have that out in the morning, and I have that out of the afternoon, going home. And rather than just listen to the same old country music over and over again, you know, let me better myself, let me use that time wisely. And you know, either making my thinking time or making my learning time, that’s something that I’ve even kind of, you know, kind of told my heart like, Hey, guys, why don’t you try this because it’s working for me. You know, that’s another thing also is I’m, I’m expressing myself more of guys, this is what I’m doing to make myself better. Try it, it works. And it’s amazing the impact you could have on the people nearest to you and the people that you want to interest in helping you run your company. Because the more and more they could act in your image and thought process, the better you’re going to be and the quicker you’re gonna be able to streamline and scale.

Gene Hammett
So I appreciate the context there. But I want to kind of get to the heart of this. What do you want to be different as it relates to your time in 2021?

Bryan Jakovcic
Third time as to the question almost like I hit the nail on the head down. Like do I want to…

Gene Hammett
Give me the short version like what do you want to be different? Do you want more time to think do you want more time to lead people? What do you want more time to do?

Bryan Jakovcic
I would say think you know definitely think for the short for the short of it is that you Especially as we’ve grown, I feel like it used to come Come at me when I didn’t even expect it. And now, especially as I’ve tried to restructure some of my time, and we’ve spoken about this before, you know, I remember, I remember times where I had time, and this is recent, two or three weeks ago, I had to go down, you know, winterize, winterize, the beach house, and it took care of it, like half an hour, I blocked out the entire morning, I got to the office, I sat down and I said, Well, I’m gonna be super productive today. And the thing is that I was not geared and I could not actually just, I couldn’t be productive, the first half an hour, I sat there thinking about how to be productive. And then I didn’t know what to be productive on. And then you know, and then all of a sudden, there’s like, somebody calls me up, and then the whole morning is not and I want to bluesy it, I might as well have been out of the office and just got some time off. So so that’s one of the things that I need to definitely get more time to think about. But I also need to structure that productivity time, I think, is one of the big things I need to work on, honestly.

Gene Hammett
Well, I’m going to help you understand something because I look at these differently being productive and the time to think is kind of different. productive to me is I’ve got a list of three or four things I need to get done. I did them, you know, I can mark them off my list, it feels good to scratch through them. Even though I have an iPad, I still scratch through this list of things. But time to think is, it’s hard to look back on that and say, You know what, I really got a lot done today because you were thinking, like, there’s no product, you can’t go back and see it. Like when you were deciding to acquire a company, there were probably a lot of tasks that you had to do once you made the decision. But the decision to acquire that company, probably took a lot of time to think is that fair to say?

Bryan Jakovcic
No, absolutely. Frankly, I did very little work when it came to that. You know, I acquired a company that was some experience. And honestly, I could not have done that. I have done that without my team. I mean, we hired an m&a consultant, you know, my director of finance, but…

Gene Hammett
I don’t want to go off into a tangent. I was just using that as an example. You know, being productive is different than time to think. Do you see that?

Bryan Jakovcic
Though? Absolutely.

Gene Hammett
What would you do with the time to think if you had more of it, let’s say you had half a day four or five hours a week to think what would you do with that time?

Bryan Jakovcic
So as an entrepreneur, I guess, I agree with you that thinking and productivity are different. But I think like an entrepreneur, and in a way an innovator, I think that one there’s they’re loosely coupled in my mind, almost Okay, were you thinking but in my mind, as I often tell myself, as a builder, I like to build things. So even in thinking I am producing the skeleton, if you will, of what to move on next. So yes, you know, when when I thought to acquire, I thought it through I went through the maze, you know, I wrote some things down, I even did a basic, I even did the basic framework of it. Here’s a confluence page, where we’re going to kind of put all the documents, here’s our JIRA. So I gave it to them, and said, Guys, we’re going to go buy this company, you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna do this, I’ve set this up for you, March. And so…

Gene Hammett
Let me stop you there. I think that’s a good example of a time to think because many times I’m thinking I’m scratching out stuff. I’m planning for whatever the next quarter is next year planning for another launch of something a campaign? Or how do I change the podcast? Like I sit back and think, what needs to be different? So you do have some productive output from time to think. But if you and 2021 had more time to think, what would you spend it on?

Bryan Jakovcic
What would I spend it on? This is a good question. If I have more time to think and 2021, what would I spend it on? I would be thinking about how to scale I think, without work. Yeah.

Gene Hammett
Yeah. Let’s get more specific and scaling. Is that integrating your product lines, adding new products, the innovation of some sort? How do you think about scaling? Is it more people?

Bryan Jakovcic
People are definitely part of it. But I’d say I say scaling more. So in the operating sense of it. You know, right now, the acquisition allowed us to bring a lot of talent in. So we have a lot more human capital than we had before. But the way that they were structured was effectively incompatible with how we operated, where there are their applications, each application was its own mini-company. So as you know, and we are in the process of implementing that a shared services organization, which again, shares resources. So scaling in that regard is something that I’ve spent a lot of time on, I think I definitely would love to spend more time on is not just figuring out how to do that, because I’m pretty much there. It’s figuring out how to implement that.

Bryan Jakovcic
You’ll build that skeleton. It’s like I mentioned earlier where guys, here’s how we’re going to actually Actually, this plan to integrate the team that we just acquired into our organization. So we continue to scale build quicker, build faster, and take up additional market share. So I think that is where I’m kind of at even in my business development cycle is, you know, once I figured out this definitely going to put a retrospective together, the document is all down for the next step to actually have effectively a blueprint for the fusion of how do we go and acquire businesses, integrate them and continue, you know, towards world domination?

Gene Hammett
How important is scaling in 2021? To the business?

Bryan Jakovcic
Huge. I already have the next target in sight. You know, so I know what I want to do. And I know what time, you know, when when the exact timing should be. But again, I would be foolish in where we are today, to act on that. So without integrating and completing that, and, you know, scaling, figured out how to scale, I can’t go to the next step.

Gene Hammett
I appreciate you saying that. So you would spend your time on scaling you it’s hugely important to the success of the business and where it’s going, and the impact you want to make. Here’s another question for you. If you’re not doing that, that thinking to scale, who’s doing it for you and your team? I’d say high powered intellectual people, but who’s doing it besides you?

Bryan Jakovcic
So it was my brother who oversees our, our business development team. He’s VP for business development, he definitely does some of that. But he doesn’t think I’m a scaling side. He’s more the idea guy. Okay. You know, frankly, my COO, Eli, he’s been with me from the beginning, he kind of will take it to a certain point. But frankly, I mean, yes, you’re you almost say yes to the fact that if I’m not doing it, nobody’s doing it.

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Gene Hammett
Okay, and this is very common. We don’t have the luxury of having, you know, someone that we can go, you know, outsource our thinking to as CEOs and visionaries. Frankly, I don’t know if you want to, because what made what got what you saw as an opportunity years ago, no one else would have seen or else they would have done it and beat you to it. You saw something that others didn’t?

Bryan Jakovcic
Absolutely you’re absolutely right Gene. I mean, yes, I as the founder-owner, you know, head of this business needs to think about where we are going to go next and how we’re going to do it. That’s why I’m here that’s the value I bring to the company,

Gene Hammett
Which is very different than I’ve got three things I need to do. Because something I told someone, I would send them something, right. Or it’s also very different, just happens to be, it’s still important to do the one on one meetings as we talked about earlier, but it’s different than time to think. Right?

Bryan Jakovcic
Definitely.

Gene Hammett
So if we’ve established what you would do with it, we established that it’s very important, we established that no one else is doing it for you. Is it still a struggle to keep it on your calendar in a place where it happens on a consistent basis?

Bryan Jakovcic
Should it be or is it?

Gene Hammett
Is it. still important still a struggle?

Bryan Jakovcic
Well, I know it shouldn’t be but it is a struggle at times. Definitely. I mean,

Gene Hammett
I get it. Here’s the thing. One of the pieces to this is and I’ve talked about this in some of the previous optimizer time episodes, I’m kind of repeat myself a little bit, but I think it’s helpful for everyone. Do you know when you do your best thinking your most creative, you’re most energetic to a complex situation? What morning? Is it in you know, the middle of the day? evening? What is it for you?

Bryan Jakovcic
Hands down in the morning, I know it and it’s usually on that car right in about halfway down the highway. And you know, I purposely live an hour away because I knew even when I bought the house that that’s the time I need to get up and get thinking in the morning if my wife dislikes it totally. But, you know, if if I had a five-minute commute if I even if I worked my No way. I mean, here we are 2020 in the pandemic, I’m still here in the office because I need that time. I can’t even go into the office and we have a finished barn. We’re at my office, I can’t even go in there. And it’s even though it’s a separate building, and everybody would be out of my way. I was a person who know what I need to do to be productive and those hands down, right?

Gene Hammett
Here’s the hard part. And I’m gonna say this knowing that it might hurt me because I know you’re, you’re an avid listener to the show and you listen to other podcasts. What if you didn’t use that time to learn, but you use that time to actually think about the things that you need to do like somehow you had a routine of getting in the car and that’s when you thought about the next scaling up a piece or the opportunities in front of you.

Bryan Jakovcic
So I think I’m not gonna have to hurt your feelings because I as a person, know that I can multitask in some capacity. And that’s the inspiration of podcasts like yours, that actually makes me think. So I’ll hear ideas or, you know, the thought process that you guys have. And like, that is it, you know, but again, that might be leading me to think, you know, so that silence thought where they’re plotting, you know, by myself. So, I actually think that the podcast help.

Gene Hammett
I get that because I get the same thing, too. I can listen to a podcast, read an article, read something out of a book and go, that’s a piece of content I need to create with a different twist on it for my audience. But I will, I will just ask the question again, like, if, if you are doing that already, then why is it still a struggle? Because it wouldn’t be a struggle. If that was already working.

Bryan Jakovcic
That is true. Anything goes on, maybe might go back to even earlier, we were talking about just having more time, though to actually do it. And you know, so they’re saying so, yeah, I can see where you’re coming from on that.

Gene Hammett
Here’s the beautiful part, you saw value by having space in your calendar, I wrote down there specifically, in my notes, I realized that back to back meetings weren’t going to work for me, because I was making all these kind of promises, and I was behind. And so I made a 30-minute buffer in between, that’s what I heard, right? And what if you just need certain buffers so that you’re not overscheduled so that you’re really using that time to think and not just get things done? Not just check your email, but using it to think does that? Does that sound like something that you could do?

Bryan Jakovcic
Definitely, and just even thinking back at it, you know, one of the things when it comes to time blocks, and space and set up your time is, is not to maybe just have it be blank? You know, even if I had to write something like what am i This was back to my salary cap, I came back from the beach house earlier that morning, my calendar, nothing on it. So it was an infinite possibility of wondering what can I do with this box of time? And I did nothing, you know, so maybe, maybe I do need to start putting in their think time, you know, or, or 2021 strategy, thought process or new product development thinking, you know, maybe that’s something that if I put that on there, that actually helped me focus my thinking because I think that might be actually one of the challenges that all of us might have. And so at least I do, are you told to think, well, what am I thinking about? You know, am I thinking about going to the bathroom? Am I thinking about building an empire? Am I thinking about what to do this weekend lunch? You know, what am I thinking of? And maybe that’s something that I should.

Gene Hammett
I want to take that a little bit further with you because I think you’re onto something what I’m hearing you say, Bryan, is, it would pay off because this is so important to the business. So important to everything, no one else is doing it. And going back to the things you’ve already said. But scheduling it on your calendar, and tiling it something that you know, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, as opposed to checking email, right is an example. And inside there, we have the ability to write notes to ourselves. You could be you know, I’m gonna say this knowing that maybe this is against the law, I think in New Jersey, but you could be doing voice to text is that voice? Is that okay with you in New Jersey? Voice to text?

Bryan Jakovcic
With cuts? Yeah, I think it is. Yeah.

Gene Hammett
I just didn’t want you to be texting while you’re driving. But if you’re driving in and you get..

Bryan Jakovcic
Oh, yeah, that’s it.

Gene Hammett
You drop into the meeting request a little bit of an outline of your voice to text, you know, hey, got an idea. New acquisition, let’s look at how this product matches up with this project and see how much product is overlap. And that’s what you do with your time and think you get a little put a little bit more detail in there so that when you look at it, you don’t just oh, you know, that’s, that’s not important. I’ll do something else you already know you’re going to think about. Does that make sense?

Bryan Jakovcic
That’s a beautiful point. And it’s kind of funny because that’s so logical that I can’t believe I don’t do that. So something pops in my head in the morning. I’ll admit, I won’t tell you where I’m at, you know, six o’clock in the morning, what part of the road, but I have been on my phone trying to type down a little note, or, you know, if I’m just I don’t wanna deal with it, the entire ride to the office. I’m trying to say Don’t forget this. Don’t forget this. Don’t forget this. And, it pains me to say this, but I’ve definitely lost a few good ideas. Yeah, because I was trying to not forget it is something distracting me, it just slipped my mind. And what

Bryan Jakovcic
So you’re realizing behind this is a voice to text could be a useful tool. I email myself, I know that maybe that sounds weird, but I use it myself, myself the workouts in the morning because I don’t take a notebook, I just take my phone and I just pull it up and like just go. But ideas. I email myself. And so you could either email yourself or you could put them actually in the meeting requests, which I think is probably an even better way to do it. Because if you create an intentional time to think about scaling that you already know what you’re going to think about. So that’s part of it. I saw the smile on your face on there when you’re like that’s so simple. Did you?

 

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

 

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