Outstanding Growth Consultant Arnie R. Claimed

Arnie Rintzler, https://awrbusinessconcepts.com

People, Strategy,  Execution, CommunicationCash

Metrics, Priorities, Communication

Video Transcript:
Hi, I’m Elizabeth Gearhart. I’m here with Arnie Rintzler with AWR business concepts. Hi Arnie.
Hi. I work with owners of companies in a variety of industries and I can help anybody grow their business.
You work with entrepreneurs and small businesses? The beauty though is that you have a system that works across any type of business, so it could be somebody selling toys, to somebody selling a coaching business, right?
Yes. because what it is, is, I work on the premise that my client is an expert in their business. I am an expert in how to maximize business.
So you find that there are concepts that work repeatedly, basic concepts. What kind of things do you tell your clients?
Well, it’s not really telling my clients, it’s asking my clients. I start with, every business really only does two things in a perfect environment. I would do this as a question and answer, but because of this environment, I will answer the question that I asked. The two things that every business does is they sell what they do, and they do what they do. Think of an accountant, an accountant needs to sell his accounting services or her accounting services, or they will have no business, but then they need to be accountants and perform that businesses. So I always want to find out with somebody that wants to grow, what’s the limitation, is it sales or is it production? And then once we identify that we work on breaking that limitation and then we’ll go to the next limitation because it will always go back and forth.
So do you have success stories you can talk about?
Absolutely. I I’d prefer for the moment not to mention names because I haven’t cleared these and if somebody wants to know the names, absolutely I will give them. And they’re there. People will love to talk about it because I’ve made a lot of friends, and on my website, which will be posted, there’s about 20 letters where people have said things that worked well. But I’d like to talk about my greatest successes. I met three young guys that were doing somewhat under a million and a half. And we began working together and this past year, which is four or five years later, they’ve crossed 200 million. Now that is an absolute outlier for me. It really doesn’t happen often, but it’s fun to talk about. And then I have another longterm client that I met again, a little under a million and a half this year, they will do 17 million.
And then I have a lot of clients that in these times are holding their own. And so there’s a few of them that I could talk about that are holding their own. And then what I’ve been most excited about is working with clients that in these times have discovered how to maximize what’s happening in these times. For instance, I’ve changed my business, in that I really only want to work on a type Zoom platform because I’ve discovered it’s far more effective for everybody. And that’s what we’re going to discover. We’re going to discover that we’re never going back to the way it was. And every crisis that we’ve been through does that, we keep what works best and only go back to those things we have to work back from. And so again, if I were working with a barber or a massage person that touching is part of their business, right, we can’t do that on Zoom, but I’ve discovered so many areas my clients have where overcoming the limitation of physicality has opened up tremendous opportunity.
And that’s where I’ve been having the most success. And for me, it’s been great fun doing that with clients. That’s important because everything that we hear says, we will get another disaster in a few years. We don’t know what it’s going to be, what it’s going to look like, but you should take what you learned from this one and make sure that you’re ready for the next one. Right? Well, I’m kind of going beyond that, in that, for instance, I really grew my business for lots of reasons by meeting people, meeting them, doing face to face. I mean, I’ve also worked with people on the phone in different venues in different ways. But I have actually discovered that I am more effective in the Zoom environment than I am face to face. And so what that allows me is, it opens up not only the New York Metro area, it opens up the rest of the country.
And so I have been having sales meetings and consulting meetings with people that I never would have met prior to March 10th when we kind of went on lockdown and I’ve discovered so many clients who are finding the same thing.
So when you first, when you have your initial meeting with somebody on Zoom, what is the first thing that you talk about with a new client? Let’s say I signed up with you and we’re meeting for the first time. What’s the first thing we would do together?
That’s a good question, Elizabeth. And that will vary depending on the person. I have a number of structured ways that I go if structure is necessary, but I need to be flexible enough because I don’t want to meet him to go where I want to go. I want a meeting to go where the client client wants it to go.
And so I have certain things that are necessary in a business and they involve four platforms, which are people, strategy, execution, and cash. And then there are metrics. What are we counting? Priorities, what are our priorities and then communication within the company. Those are our major issues that I will use as a structured environment. But the first thing I want to know from somebody is do they want to grow? And I’ve never yet met somebody who says ‘no, I don’t want to grow’. But I liken it to somebody that is not in great health. They’re not old, they’re just not in great health because they haven’t been taking care of themselves. And if I said, do you want to get in shape? Do you want to lose weight and get in shape? Absolutely terrific. We can create a diet and exercise program that will work really well, but it involves change.
Human beings don’t relate well to change. They fear it, they’re resistant. They deny it well. Growing a business is kind of the same when I lay it out. For the most part, it is either: ‘Do I need to sell more? Do I need to produce more?’ And that’s easy to determine. And then we identify, well, how do we break that barrier? Either selling more or producing more usually will involve change. It will usually involve if it’s a single entrepreneur doing something different than you’re doing it. If it’s somebody that’s got an on-going business, it may be investment, either investment in production, investment in sales or investment in a better website, investment in marketing. And when somebody says to me, well, when I do more business, I’ll invest more in my business. Well, that’s violating a law of nature. Okay. I mean, did you ever hear, Elizabeth, of the law of the farm? And I’m not going to put you on the spot, you haven’t okay.
You can break in, the law of the farm really means, have you ever met a farmer that wanted to harvest without planting? Well, of course not. You must plant it before you can harvest. Well, how many of us want to say when we do more business, we’ll invest in our business? That’s violating a law. Investment must come before reward. Now that gets into the fourth level of these decisions, which is cash. A business must have the cash to to grow, to just function day to day. And if a business is unprofitable, they bleed cash. But a growing business also may not have enough cash because frequently we produce before we get paid. And that’s where a company must have a viable source of lending or borrowing. And in today’s world I have another saying, shortages of bread and milk there have been, but never money for a good idea.
So if somebody’s got a way to make money and do something, you can find a way to fund it. And I think now maybe it’s even a little easier if you have an idea to fund it, because it seems like there’s all these government programs really encouraging it with, with what we’re going through right now. And that’s the best thing about this. The government has figured it out. If we give people money, they will spend it. They will keep the economy going and they will ultimately get it back in tax returns. And it does fly in the face of, if you run your house and continue spending more money than you and your husband bring in, oh, you could face disaster. Well, that’s not way countries work. So that whenever we say, well, we can’t have debt, you’re right. You personally, well, you need debt. I haven’t met a whole lot of people that have paid cash for houses. And most of us don’t pay cash for cars. So we borrow, and I think it’s not reasonable to borrow, to take a vacation, but to borrow, to invest in yourself or your business. That’s a wonderful way to do it.
So what’s the first thing somebody should invest in when they’re borrowing. You said it either production or sales, right?
It’s one of the two. Look at the limitation. And if the limitation is, I got loss of productive capacity either because I have a business where I buy from other people and that’s unlimited and I sell it. So then my limitation may be sales. But even in that if a real estate agent is so busy doing the administrative work of all the listings and sales they have, well, then the limitation will be production. And so then that real estate agent must hire administrative help. And what I’ll often say to somebody, how much do you want to earn per hour? And so if somebody’s got a good business and they can earn multiple hundreds of dollars per hour, great, every time you pay somebody $20 an hour to do work, that they can do. You’re going to add to your bottom line. And it’s looking at those things because we get emotional, especially small businesses. They don’t want to spend money on staff and on things like that because the money is coming out of their pocket seemingly, right? So that’s what I’m saying to you. These dialogues can go in so many different ways. And if somebody wants to ask me, what is my skillset? It’s asking questions, not giving answers, but asking questions.
Well, you know, it’s interesting that you say that because what I’ve heard from the most successful people in just about any profession is the most important skill is listening, asking questions and listening, really hearing what the business owner has to say, not telling them and not doing a one size fits all.
Well, except when the business has to say something that will not get the business owner where they want to go, somebody has to push back. So yes, the customer is always right in the business owners, my customer, but if the business owner establishes a goal that they want to get to, and then they’re going in a direction that they think is right, but I have suspicion it won’t get them to the goal. I must skillfully ask them the question that they will see by their answers to that question, ‘Gee, I guess that’s not going to get me where I want.’ Exactly. Well, let’s look at another way to go, because what I’ve learned, those of us that have had adolescent children, we understand how difficult it is to tell our children something. They push back. Well, adolescents are humans on steroids. So every human is programmed to push you.
You’re laughing at that. I’m meeting somebody that has lived it. Okay. And that’s the key. So that I become, I don’t mean I become a parent, but if I become a parent figure and continually tell my client what to do, you’ll go in the opposite direction. They’re human, they’re normal, they’re natural. And so my role has, and I, by the way, that was kind of how I raised my kids. And they laugh at me a lot because ‘Dad don’t do that, we know what you’re doing’, you know? And so that my wife always says ‘I ain’t your client’. Okay. And sothe key is asking questions.
So how often do you check in with your clients?
Well, that depends on the client because I’m paid by the hour. I’d like to check in all the time, every day, hour after hour. But that’s not, I don’t mean that seriously, that when I finish an initial planning process, that may be anywhere from eight to 12 hours, depending if I’m working on one or a group, that I’m comfortable either way, it just takes a little longer with a group. Then we finished that plan with a longterm meaning where does the business want to go? And longterm can be defined. Or then I’ll back that up to three years and then I’ll back that up to one year and then I’ll back up to 90 days. And so if I made a friend in the process, I want to check in at least every 90 days, how are we doing on that plan? And then if they want to check in more often once a month and at the initial, sometimes every couple of weeks and my hourly rate stays the same.
If I don’t want to be paid by the project I’m paid for my time. And there’s never a commitment. I mean, when Jimmy says, how do we start? I say, we schedule a meeting. If it’s a planning meeting and it’s one person, it will be two hours, maybe two and a half hours. If it’s more than one person, I’d say three hours. And we’re going to do that until we get to finishing the plan, which could be three meetings, four meetings. And then I’ll suggest you want to set up something for 90 days. If they say yes, great. I’ll put it on my calendar, their calendar and reach out. But I also urge them to call me if they’ve run into a decision that they’re struggling with, give me a call. I don’t want to only get paid for the scheduled meetings.
Right. So do you hold them accountable? Do they feel like they have to report to you? Like you’re their, teacher.
What’s interesting, that’s a really good question. And I know that for many people, I serve the role of a board of directors. I’m only me, but I ask, would you like to be accountable? Would you like me to check in with you? And sometimes we’ll do this: If I’ve had somebody that doesn’t do what they need to do or say they’re going to do. And so we’ll boil an action. How many people will you call? What will you do? And they’ll tell me, and I’ll say, would you like to send me a week from Friday that you’ve done that? Would you like me to call you a week from Friday to just see if you’ve done it? Yes, please. Terrific. I’ll be glad to do that. Or they’ll send me something. It will totally be the client’s choice if I become a parent or a boss. I mean, how many of us resist our boss? Right. And if I become that, I stopped being useful. Using a child, again, as an example, if my child is so angry with me, that they put all their energy into defying me, rather than what’s in their best interest, I’ve stopped being useful. Well, that’s the same with me and a client.
Great. Is there anything else we need to know before we wrap up?
Well, Elizabeth, as far as I’m concerned, no, I think we’ve done it all. But is there any other question I may have asked that you’d like an answer to?
I think I have a pretty good idea of you and your personality. You seem like you’d be wonderful to work with.
Oh I’m great fun. Sorry.
What I love and my husband would agree with this, is the pay as you go. A lot of other companies want years of commitment, they want you to pay them every month. With you, to me, that is a vote of confidence.
My wife is always saying, I always say, I work without a net. And she says, can you do better than that? I say, my net is my competence. My net is that people want to work with me. And when I lose clients, the client that I talked about that got over $200 million, I did lose them after five years, because I didn’t know all the people in the company anymore. And I still talk to the principal that hired me. We still have a wonderful relationship. In fact, I’ve worked with both of his parents and he’s on my website. Having said nice things about me. But oftentimes I am not equipped to work with hundreds of people.
Right. And that’s typically what happens if you’re servicing the small business community. Once they become a big business, they move to somebody else.
And that’s fine. It’s as your child grows up, leaves your house. You need to be thrilled with that. Not angry.
Well, wonderful. Well, thank you very much.
It was truly a pleasure speaking with you, Elizabeth.