How to Turn Your Idea Into Investor Money

I believe that when we create a a business plan or a pitch deck or anything like that, it's like a passport. We give you a passport to fly, but you go choose your airlines. Okay? It's our services to provide you the documentation, give you the visa, give you the passport, give you something that you can go ahead and as if you have an investor lined up. Somebody comes to us, they want to raise a million dollars or $2 million or $25 million. A lot of times it has nothing to do with the business actually needs to go. It's how much guts they have or how much it's a feeling that they have or it's something which they feel they can do. We always sit down with them and say who says 5 million is the right number. We put it down pen and paper. What does the business need? How quickly will he use up that 5 million? So where does the business go in five years? And we make that plan and we dial it backwards. And now everybody sees it and the investor can see it and they can see it internally. And hopefully they can come in a year from now and say um they see their budget they allocated for marketing. They see the budget that they allocated for legal expenses and they they suddenly see their business and they see the different revenue streams that they put down for them and so forth. Welcome to the Let's Talk Business podcast, a project of the PEX Group. Gain valuable, actionable ideas from the world's top business leaders to help you take the next step in your business journey. And now, here is your host, Manny Hoffman. Coming to you from the PEX headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. This is the podcast for No Nonsense Advice to help you learn, grow, and lead. Today, I'm so excited to welcome our guest, Joel Loey. Joel is the founder of Cavana Business Deliverables, where he helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas and numbers into business plans and pitch decks that banks and investors actually take seriously. Before launching Cavana, Joel spent years at B&H Photo preparing executives for highstake meetings with some of the biggest vendors in the world. That experience taught him how to cut through the noise, focus on the facts, and make sure every plan stands up under pressure. In our conversation, we cover what separates plans that get funded from the ones that don't, how to balance numbers with narrative, and why getting your business on paper can be the difference between a no and a yes. It's a fascinating topic and there's so much to explore. Let's get right to our conversation with Joel Loey. Joe, thank you so much for joining me on the Let's Talk Business podcast. >> Manny, I don't know if your audience knows how genuine your brand is and how much you show up with such generosity to the community and how much you're available to everyone and to me always on WhatsApp when I ask you a question. So, I just want to acknowledge that and it's such a privilege to be on your podcast. >> Appreciate it. Um, I also want to thank you. you have been uh a listener giving me feedback on episodes and we can only keep on perfecting and bringing more content if we get feedback from the audience and this is a request to the audience. If you have feedback on the show, I'm always um there to listen and also some of the guests in the past that you're able to to to make me some introductions to some of the guests that you saw fitting fitting for the show. Today we're all about uh you which means is I want to listen to your story and I want our listeners to learn from you. Um you cover a topic that I don't think we ever covered on the show and I think it's an important topic. So um that's why we decided it's time to bring you on the show and have that conversation. So before we get into exactly what you do today, um give our listeners a little bit of of the backstory as far as what you got started, how you got into the industry that you actually are servicing now. >> How far back did we go? Would you go back to Beth Israel? >> I don't think so. We go back to the business world. >> Sure. I I will go back a little bit. So >> So I grew up in Williamsburg, part of the South community. My family was in manufacturing. My grandfather actually founded the iconic Smar Matsua Bakery on Broadway. And so that's just an interesting tidbit. When I entered the business world after I got married, I was selling building materials. I was an outside salesperson. Then one of my clients got me into their real estate business and I joined another real estate business and I bought some property. Then I became a partner in Amazon business and at the same time I started going to night school and I took my GED which is the high school equivalent to get into school and I went to CUNI to get to do accounting in English and I did very well. I was I was a good student. I was a good test taker and I took three levels of accounting and that was while I was while I was working then in 2011. So I was I was studying business and I was reading a lot of business books and I was fascinated with this huge uh business in our community uh called B&H Photo and I started researching that business and from public information that I saw at the time I knew that it was a multi-billion dollar business very sophisticated and all the systems and everything that was going on. I was a customer also at the time. I was I had a passion for photography and I joined that company in 2011. End end of 2011. I worked in the store for a little while. I learned the product. Then I was invited to join very quickly. I I was invited to join the team of a vice president of marketing. I it was the end of 2000 of 2012 is when I ran my first holiday season. So the Q4 programming before Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, free shipping before Christmas and all all that all that stuff and I I fit very quickly into that team and I did that for a couple of years where I coordinated multi-ep departmental projects on behalf of management. Then I switched into the product team. I did similar similar functions marketing and product launches and coordination with other brands and things like that. And that went on for for quite a while. Then it was interesting. Then it's it's very funny how these things happen. The company found itself with a problem. So what happened? They a company of that size they have meetings on a weekly basis with with huge hugely impactful meetings right with the UPS's of the world with the Panasonics of the world and management tasked my boss at the time to prepare them for those meetings because there was no way they could prepare properly and and bring home the pastrami so to speak right and and cover everything and know who they're talking to and hit all the points and have all the background and all that stuff So they tasked my boss with it. My boss decided to delegate. I was called in and Joel from tomorrow this is your job. All your other duties will be taken care of. You help us. They knew I went to school. I was I was everything all the projects that I was doing. I I I was writing those projects. I was putting away the SOPs. I was I I worked with the data people and I built up a lot a lot of relationships around the company. So they knew that I would be able to do it and they they just let me jump into the pool to the deep end and get started on that. I got a couple of couple of bullet points where they were trying to know before every meeting. I threw that out, redid it on my own. And then for six years until I left the company, my job was on a weekly basis to prepare the top, let's say, five people at the company for major meetings with major partners. Mhm. So that the the preparation was the more like a slideshow was the data was the data analysis like to what to what extent >> it was it was it was two two or three pages of written text with background with important points which this is what's going on in our world. This is what's going on in in their world. These are some market forces. These are some trends. This is what they need to know about. This is what we need to know about. This is something they're going to ask you. this is something we're going to ask for. These are relationships in different parts. This is why margins are this way or that way in Japan and this is what's going on with the first Trump era and all and all these points and it was a lot of feedback sometimes from up to 20 stakeholders which uh management wanted to be aware of as they went into into into those meetings. >> Got it. So fast forward to today. What does the company do and then we'll try to bridge the gap to to go back a little bit to your past history. >> Sure. So my company prepares the materials which businesses need to take to banks and investors. That means Cavana Business Deliverables employs a team of writers and researchers and financial modelers who prepare bank letters, business plans, projections, financial models, data and research and investor pitch decks for our clients to be able to go to banks for equipment loans, acquisition financing loans, lines of credit, and capital raises. >> Mhm. Um so in terms of um obviously it's you expanded way more into what you just said what you do versus the experience you had working and preparing for meetings. Um I guess how much did that era of your career prepare you for for the business that you're in now? >> So it's interesting. So so life moves you in in in in ways which you don't expect it. So it's not always linear, but in terms of skills that that half a decade of of a career prepares you to interview stakeholders, prepares you to synthesize information, prepares you to see around corners with information, prepares you to present to stakeholders and prepares you to work quickly because nothing ever came in several weeks in advance, right? and it prepares you and and also there was there it instills in you a sense of mission where it's not like somebody needs a pitch deck and okay you know what so maybe a couple of months or no it's something which it it became ingrained that this is something which somebody needs something this something that happens immediately and you deliver it as soon as possible so that's something which we carry forward >> got it and in terms of the the professionalism of working with these larger such a large um employer Um, is that something you have seen like what type of data is important or what type of information is necessary versus fluff in order to make sure that what you're doing now? >> So, so yes, I I thought about it last night where there are a lot of formats out there with with So, I'll let me go over my own little tangent for a second. >> Sure. So there are things like the problem slide and the solutions slide and a lot of templates out there for investor pitch decks and I tell everybody and it it evolved over over over you know a couple of years of doing this now that we are a business plan company. We speak in plain English. We will present your data. We will present your numbers. We will back up our points. We will bring data. We will we will make the correct point. We will say it as it is. And we are a business blind company. The bank will believe us. your accountant will believe us and so forth and then we can make it into a pretty pitch deck. U but we are there is no fluff. If I tried to do fluff for several years, if I tried to do any fluff, if there was any opinion or there's any claim which wasn't backed up, there were the drill sergeants which will take care of that. And and and for so so from day one when we tried when I hired my first employee and we tried to do a pitch deck, it was all about okay, so how many tons of metal can they crush? What is the equipment they will need? How much money does that cost? What does that amount? If the law changes this way, if the law changes the other way, and you bring it all up and you make it all work in Excel, and then you work backwards. Got it. So, so let's dive into this conversation in a little bit more what you do because um I think it's an important point uh because a lot of people are very excited about running their business or their idea but and then they get sometimes very surprised when they sit with an investor sit with a bank and they don't buy it and they say what do you mean I'm working already two years on this plan and this is the next you know the next best thing since sliced bread was created you know and and and and they have this this shocker when they start asking questions and they don't even know how big is the market and what exactly are we looking for? What is our projections and so on and so forth. Now obviously that's where your company comes in to make the research and and and ultimately create something more tangible. Um I guess my question is do you also play um a role in in in lowering sometimes expectations of the business owner to say like you want to make this grand slam type of presentation and try to get x amount of dollars or x investment. let me work independently or you are there to support the business owner and basically drum up the the the the data in order to make sure that they get the investment like you get my question. Question is how much of a checks and balances operations do you do or how much is it to try to take what the business owner has and try to make it presentable? >> Sure. So like I said before, I I think I'm very comfortable in the area of creating a business plan for a bank to support even millions of dollars in acquisition financing or or working capital lines of credit and we apply the same methodology to investor pitch decks. So for example, if somebody would come to you with a pitch deck that we created, they'll be very it will be a business plan in in PowerPoint. So let me let me answer your question this way. Um, so far a lot of our clients that came to the table, there's in in in pitch deck language, if you look it up, there's something called traction. And traction would mean that you have x amount of clients, x amount of revenue, things like that. To me, traction means that you prove that this thing works and that somebody buys it. For example, two years ago, we had a client who played in the supermarket software area. And this this founder invested hundreds of thousand dollars of their own money and they make it made made their software work at their own expense with se several of the most popular softwares in supermarkets and they had a handful of paying clients. The supermarkets they were paying them a couple of thousand dollars a month to use their software. So that is slam dunk. That's you go to an investor you tell them my thing works and somebody uses my my software. It's not thousands and thousands of clients, but this thing works. We had somebody come to the table with the software for truckers. Not going to say exactly what it is, but something that truckers use to solve a certain problem. They weren't charging one penny, but I if the number comes to my head, there's about 16,000 truckers were using that software. So that means it absolutely works. And if they want to charge $10 tomorrow, it's very likely that they will keep half of the truckers and this thing works. So it's no longer a dream. So this thing actually works and it's worth checking out. It's worth investing in. Versus we had a client a month ago who had this fascinating idea. The research is fascinating and the potential for the business is hundreds and billions of dollars. Seriously. Now I'm not joking. But the sales are this much and the the the website is not developed. And so it's all it is is a great idea. So what we proposed to that client was, hey, right now I see the research. I see the little tests that you did. things like that. We can start on a little project, lay out some numbers, and then they had an accounting firm which they were working with. Let's do a little bit of homework. Then let's go back to the accounting firm and see if they go for an acquisition, if they go for a vest, things like that. But I I really like it when when a client can bring even a little bit of of of hard evidence that you can touch with your five senses that you can say that this thing works. >> Yeah. But but I I'll ask the question a little differently. So I was involved in in in recently in a in a project where uh it it required medical research um just to see if this is if this product could work or not. And we were trying to help the client find the right uh researcher and and we found two camps. There's researchers that says if you're planning to do it and all you need is some data to you know to to attach yourself that this works. That's one way. Or we do research unbiased research which means is you're going to pay us. We'll do research and we could come back either for your product or against your product which means is the research could show that your product is not something that could work. and and that's sometimes a business owner has to make a decision what type of research do I want am I very invested in my business and I want that research because I'm already doing it or I want the unbiased type of research so my understanding is you're helping the client connecting the client to be able to pitch to an investor so you're taking the client's data and making the best out of it you're not making independent type of research you might you might make independent spend independent time in in in coming up with the data, which data points to showcase and so on and so forth. But you're not here to say client your based on my research your product will not succeed or cannot succeed or vice versa. >> Correct. Correct. So so the we we follow the client. Um so when they sign something for the bank or they they make a claim for investors, if it if it makes sense from the first couple of phone calls, if it makes sense, we go we go ahead with them. if it makes sense that this idea could succeed. They're not spending, they're not flushing $50 million with us on on on they're paying us to create a pitch deck. We understand if it makes basic sense, we will back it up. We will find the research that mental health blah blah blah or that medical devices or that toothbrushes, etc. to to help them make the claim. And of course, if it doesn't make any sense, we won't take them on. But if it makes sense, we help them go down the path where which they want to go. >> Got it. Now uh is there is there any any place where let's say you would do the research and you would do uh you know coming up with whatever that that deck will have that will be an eye openener for the business owner in the first place like things that they didn't realize they didn't think that way and so on and so forth. Um for sure. So it happens a lot that these these business owners they are they are dynamic and they move around in the world and they test things and then they come for the first time to put their business on paper and then as for example we do something we are not we are not accredited valuators for the IRS and for those purposes. Okay. But we would do sometimes a back of napkin valuation for various purposes whether for a sale or for investors or for for different purposes that we get engaged to do valuations back of napkin valuations. And um in those cases we would research we find we look around corners and my my people use machine learning and we have a data scientist that works for us and we find new revenue streams potentially for a business and we add those to the projections. We come back to the we come back to the founders and we tell them here's what we found. We found that businesses like yours have these additional revenue streams for example and this is what you should expect as a ratio for your business and these become part of investor decks those become that part of bank letters and those become part of back of napkin valuations. So of course >> got it before we dive into this week's episode I wanted to share an opportunity that many business owners are already taking advantage of. If you're feeling stuck or unsure about your next move in your business, there's still time to turn things around. That's where a clarity session comes in. This is a focused onetime strategy session with me personally where we'll break down your biggest challenges, identify opportunities, and map out your best next steps for your business. You'll walk away with a clear action plan to move forward with confidence. Now, I want to make this clear from the get-go. This is not an ongoing consulting offer. You know your business best. This session is simply about giving you the clarity and direction you need to take action and make the rest of the year a success. Many entrepreneurs have already gained incredible value from those sessions. So don't miss out. Reach out to me now by emailing podcastroup.com. I look forward speaking to you and seeing how I could bring more clarity to your business. Got it. So So let's speak a little bit more about the process. So and this is for our listeners to understand because I want they should learn from this episode. So you could do sometimes you know your execution is to find that investor find that uh bank and so on and so forth but sometimes a business owners need some of the information also for themselves as well between their partners between existing investor they want to see what's what what we planning to do. Do you dabble in that as well like where where one partner we need to show like what we plan what are projections for next like for the next year or so on and so forth it's always for somebody new coming into the business. >> So I I'll explain. So our our I believe that when we create a a business plan or a pitch deck or anything like that it's like a passport. We give you a passport to fly but you go choose your airlines. Okay. So we don't officially connect people to investors. It's not something that we charge for. We'll get into it more later because we do get involved with to in it to a large extent or in funding, but that's not officially part of our service. our services to provide you the documentation, give you the visa, give you the passport, give you something that you can go ahead and as if you have an investor lined up and then we would some of the best outcomes is when we work with partners who because they're too busy or for whatever reason the the five different partners haven't have never aligned on paper and now they are aligned and we create a five-year vision. We create a five-year vision. From those five-year visions, there is something somewhere where the business needs to get. And there's certain costs and certain activities which will drive how the business will get there. And we put that together into into a business plan or a pitch deck. It's called use of funds, meaning it it aligns with the vision of the company. So, it's something important to point out and it's a good point good time to mention it. If somebody comes to us, they want to raise a million dollars or $2 million, $25 million. A lot of time a lot of times it has nothing to do where the business actually needs to go. it's how much guts they have or how much it's a feeling that they have or it's something which they feel they can do. We always sit down with them and say who says five million is the right number. We put it down pen and paper. What does the business need? How quickly will he use up that 5 million? Where does the business so where does the business go in five years? And we make that plan and we dial it back. We dial it backwards and now everybody sees it and the investor can see it and they can see it internally and hopefully they can come in a year from now and say and they see their budget. they allocated for marketing. They see the budget that they allocated for legal expenses and they they suddenly see their business and they see the different revenue streams that they put down for them. And so suddenly somebody works on sports teams and suddenly somebody works on on prisons and somebody uh um works to adopt a product as a baby product and so forth. So >> So yeah. So got it. So I want to I want to dig deeper a little bit and and I want to get your opinion because I have my opinions about it. I want to hear your opinions about it. maybe we could discuss it. Um, there's a lot of people that have ideas and as we discussed it before, it's not all about idea. The line that I use a lot, not every business is an idea. Not every idea is a business. And our listeners are used to hearing that. Um, but the first question will always say, I need a business plan. I need to get funding. I have this mega idea. I need to get some money. I went to someone and he says, bring it me on paper. Okay. Now the challenge with that when somebody tells me that both provides is and they they will call let's say a company like PEX we referred business in the past to you but they would that company could you create me a pitch deck because my investor wants to create a business plan I should give him my business plan yeah and I always say we don't do business plans and then I've connected some people to you as well on this on this topic now um the challenge which I see many many times happening is that this this this guy wants to prove his point. He wants to be able to get the $500,000, the million dollar, the $2 million for investor, and he'll find a company to do him a um um a a business plan. The problem is they're so early in the game where a lot of times the business plan will change 10 times. Yes, they might. I'm not even talking about the people that don't are not successful. Even you are successful. So many things change. If you look two years into the business plan, every number there is totally totally different. Even the revenue streams sometimes are so different. So the question is somebody listening to the show and listening to what you're saying, what I'm saying and is asking themselves, how much am I should I invest in a business plan and how accurate does it need to be and how much time, money should go into a business plan when we're just starting out? We don't even know where this is going to go. We we we have a we have an ambitious plan. We know what we want to accomplish. We know where the market is now. We don't know what's going to happen two years from now. >> So So exactly. So when you come to us and the beginning of March, it's likely at the beginning of April, your business plan will be done. All right. So So a lot of a lot will be clarified in th those four weeks, but things will be approximately the same because you wouldn't have been throwing that much spaghetti on the wall in that in that month. So, so within that month we're okay. If if they would take longer then a lot more would change. We do realize that once we work with clients that from week one to week two to week three a lot changes and we we built that into the process. We built that into the pricing and it's all it's something that I realized right away that it's it's a feature and not a bug. So the things change even even as we speak >> and we recently had a client a very successful distributor >> New York-based and they when we made the business plan they had so many questions so they knew they needed to raise a large amount of money and they had the backing for it it was almost a 10-year-old business very successful business and they and they had questions so what will be with with the bank accounts and I is it was a very complicated things what they were pitching and I assured the client and and We we changed a lot over the time that we worked. And when we were done and I told the client, relax. My our job our job is to put the facts down on paper and to give a direction. To give a direction. This is approximately where we want to go. This is why we need $40 million. This is what's going to happen. These are all the deals that are going on at the table. And let us let us finish the work. And I told the client, our job is not to tell you what the ultimate solution will be. When you're done with us, your job is to take the these papers and take it to the smartest, sharpest lawyer you can find or the sharpest accountant and show them the facts and let them guide you. And what happened? They went they we were done in a couple of weeks. The accountant that referred him to us, one of the best known known accountants in in our community. Um he t and he left me a WhatsApp. He liked our work, whatever. And he takes he sees the facts and he goes, "No, this belongs here. This belongs here. This belongs here. call so and so on and so and so partnership with this money from here and boom. So nothing that we thought about but our job was just to to align everything and and think about the department stores that they were working with and the different things that they were trying to do and why they needed the certain amounts of money and on that once those facts were clear when it goes to the next step this is where it becomes true. Did I did I did I help you? Did I answer your question? >> Yeah, you answered my question. I just want to go further than that because my question is for the person listening to the show in in saying that how much does does we do we have to have on paper to the tea versus how much could be to be discussed to be determined because the this business is going to evolve and we're going to have to see how the market accepts our product or accepts our pricing or whatever it is to make sure that how how I need to say how accurate and how fixed does the your pitch deck need to be once it's ready to go to an investor. >> I understand the question and I I I think I have a good answer for you. >> Sure. >> So, we went away we went away from letting our customers pay us to design the pitch or to write the pitch in a very clever way. Like I said before, I realized that we are a business plan company and we will put down on the paper that this toothbrush device is going to do X, Y, and Z and such and such as the market. We won't have you pay us to write that up in a funny way or with puns or with humor or with emotion. Nothing like that. Just the facts. And the design our our pitch decks are beautiful. We designed them in PowerPoint and in Canva. We have people are very capable, but you don't pay you don't pay $10,000 for that because in the end of the day, the facts matter. the numbers matter. It's it's it's it's very basic information that you that you're transmitting. Similarly with banks, well, the banks want you to have a good bio, Manny Huffman, so and so, whatever. And they need you to have a good business description. They need you to have solid projections and they need to have all that. Now, if you that changes in two years from now, you you tweak the numbers a little bit. So, it's no longer four forklifts, it's 10 forklifts. And to payroll is always a ratio of expenses. is you move it up, you move it down, but the biographies and descriptions and these things, they don't expire. They they they last for a pretty long time. Your bookkeeper, your accountant, your CFO can always play with these templates we create. And you can these are evergreen to a large extent. And our customers sometimes call us and they they ask for a small tweak over here, small tweak over there, but that's an exception. The rule is that they can do it themselves and they don't invest a lot in a final product. It's it's it is something to to affect something in in in the here in the now tless and and and then then it can change of course. >> Got it. Um in your process do you get involved or do you follow um are you part of the team as they're taking your data and presenting it to banks or to presenting it to investors to see what the outcome was or usually you're done with your job you send send it over and that's about it. >> So it's like this. So my unofficial title at the company is chief rabbi >> and and my and my officially I it came from making sure that everything is kosher. You take a deposit from someone. Is it somebody that you can deliver for that you can deliver everything that they expect you to do? Are we telling the truth to the client? Are we doing a good job? Who is I'm to use the the term I'm the mash to make sure that somebody Q QAs everything. So everything that goes out to a bank or to investors is checked over by by by a qualified professional who who is qualified to to double check numbers and so so we make sure so I'm on top of this process. Um I usually I'm involved in a lot of the sales. I usually intake the client. A lot of clients come in initially through WhatsApp or an email through me. An introduction from from an attorney or an accountant or a consultant or a loan broker comes into me. I usually do a quick intake. Then I'm usually there for the first call because I like to be involved as we shape the ideas and then I'm involved throughout the process and I'm involved in in in the delivery. Um, we are usually not involved as as the client goes to the bank or the client speaks with investors, we're usually not there. But if the clients but but I'm there always 24/7 because if if if if for example if something goes to a bank and we delivered P&L projections and the bank now decides they want the balance sheet projections which is different than what they said the first time. Um even if I'm on vacation everybody knows that I'm watching and that thing gets delivered by 7 a.m. the next morning. So this is this is where I'm involved. >> Mhm. Uh let me ask you you've seen you've seen this pro this process again and again and again by you doing the work and then ultimately the person going out. Now there is you know there is this notion out there for investors you know as much as they look at numbers and everything like that but they buy a lot of time they buy into the entrepreneur they buy into that individual they have to believe in the individual. Uh from your experience first of all is this true? Do you see even the numbers are not the greatest or the best projections that the best place where they can park the money but have you seen a lot of times where it's the entrepreneur that actually gets the funds because of who who they are or do you feel that the end of the day it's more putting more emphasis on the actual numbers and seeing the market is the place where to go. So in in in banks, we often see that pre-existing relationships of one of the investors and one of the partners in the banks goes a very long way. In terms of in terms of um projects that go out to investors, like I said, I think most of the projects that that we have seen come across our desk are are projects backed up by our projects are are are projects backed up by by real results. Um, and sometimes there are very successful founders and people that have multiple businesses going and maybe they try a wild idea. So, it is a little a little bit of a mix, but most of the time we get to deal with pretty decent ideas with with good projections and they think it looks good on paper. >> Got it. >> But but but we've recently had we've recently had a startup which which we did a very good job um getting the making the case for the funding. But I I believe that the re part of the reason why the bank the bank went all the way was because one of the investors had relationships. >> Got it. >> Hey listeners, are you struggling to create beautiful looking proposals? Is it a hassle every time you need to prepare a quote or proposal for your clients? Is collecting signatures still a manual process? Well, it's time to upgrade to Panda. At PEX, we use Panda for all our proposals, employee documentation, and so much more. It saves us time, keeps everything organized, and our documents look incredibly professional with customizable templates, real-time collaboration, and e signatures. Panaduct turns creating documents into quick and easy steps. Plus, it integrates with so many other tools, streamlining your workflow and boosting productivity. Try Panodoc today by visiting pex.co/pandidoc and start your free trial. Trust me, it's going to be a gamecher for your business. That's pex.co/pan. co/pan da d o c. So um just because um you know time flies by pretty quickly and I I just uh so I want to shift the conversation um for our listeners to understand obviously they understood our conversation what you do and in the importance of it but ultimately you're a business owner yourself. Uh you started the service business service business is not easy. You're growing now. You started off as the chief everything officer and now you became the chief rabbi and outsourcing the rest of it to the the rest of the team. What would you say are the struggles of a service business and what are the things you've implemented to support you in the growth and the scalability. >> Let me share something which has helped and if you need to ask me additional tough questions you you'll go ahead. One of the books which helped me the most was the checklist manifesto by Dr. at one day and the idea of checklist manifesto is not to trust your memory and to trust your checklist and when I started this business I knew certain things that I need to do. So, I needed to call 150 people and I needed to do a website and I needed to develop systems for this and systems for that. And everything that went on paper got done and and my people know that if if something was supposed to happen by Tuesday and happens by Wednesday night, it's fine. I I I'm I'm pretty okay to deal with. But if you didn't write it down, you'll hear from me. >> All right. So, that that really helps. That really helps a ton. something that gets so much off your brain and you know what you need to do Tuesday, you know what you need to do Wednesday. Then there is removing yourself as a bottleneck. I remember I I one of the first pieces of advice which I got was was to delegate and keep removing and and I I as I go I keep removing myself as a bottleneck. Eric Adelman, consultant Eric Adelman challenged me, Joel, it sounds like you delegate everything but you do all of the sales. Who else can do sales for you? Who else can close business for you? and he challenged me on that and then I I fixed some things in that area and then I let somebody into my inbox and then I let somebody else understand what I want from our weekly newsletter or how I want the subject line to look like. So I remove myself further and I think um and I think delegating is is more like than than getting it off yourself but it's allowing your people to shine. People get responsibility and when people get something which you you give over the responsibility for something suddenly they step up to the plates and and and and the juices are flowing and they become responsible and they surp they surprise you and they give you nas just like children. So I I think that's it's a it's it's a good practice to to to learn to delegate and to trust your people to elevate your people to more and more responsibility and then you can do a lot. Mhm. One of the things that I hear a lot from business owners is and and they have a challenge and a problem with delegating is because if I if I remove myself too much and then all of a sudden there's a problem and I and the client calls me I don't I I don't know anything about it because I wasn't involved in the project. What is the things that you do on a best practice that you could share that in order to remove yourself but yet be present to know what's going on? So many of Hoffman says inspect what you expect. >> Good. Thank you. >> And I know I know that not only do I make sure that things get QA by by people who who are not on the project from the beginning is that I that I make it a point to look over projects before they are done. at some point when they're threequarters or almost out the door, I look it over and and and my people know that I there I review projects and and of course if if you don't in one day one day I'm going to be in a position where somebody else that I trust will be head of QA just like any just like the the CEO of Coca-Cola doesn't taste the batch. There was people appointed to that but you can system if this is important for you you can make a system for it. doesn't have to be you, but you have to make sure that there is a system for it. And if a client calls you middle of the night asking why a certain number of forklifts most of the time I know what approximately what's going on, but sometimes it can wait till the morning uh you know because the um you usually things are usually things are looked after and if it's if it's a minor detail I mean I guess it's if it's a minor detail wait a minute. Did that answer your question? I feel I felt like it came out a little bit stupid. >> Yeah. No. I don't know. Um the answer is that you have your you inspect what you expect. You have the places where you do the QA which makes sure that that the work is to your your standards even you didn't actually do the work. And that's important for our listeners and every leader because guess what? In order to scale your business, you're not going to end up doing every single every single client. What you could do is making sure that the work your team does is up to your standards, but that comes with developing first your standards and making sure that you train your people properly. Uh what can you share on that in terms of making sure that the people that you bring onto your team are trained properly to what your standards are? >> Okay, so this is before that I want to jump in real quick. Just interesting tidbit to put put a visual on people's minds. >> B&H Photo has one of the the best websites for photography technology, video computers. It's one of one of the best websites out there. Highly rated all the time. There's a floor with writers. There is a whole aisle for QA and a QA manager. And that's something that's something if if you watch it on a daily basis where where an article needs to go on the website for a new camera with launches, but that's still going through a couple of layers of QA and people are still bouncing around that that's the correct word. That's something that stays with you and it's something where which which every every business owner can can take with them. Um how to train people? I think I think it's in the philosophy. So we have we have core values and we live our core values. This is not something that we do and we have to remind ourselves. We live our core values every day. And I make sure I make sure that the customers that I'm sorry that my team everybody on my team from top to bottom knows how much I love the customer knows how much I care for the customer and how much I would never let this customer down. And there is no there is no shortcut you can possibly take which will be acceptable. We are here for one reason to let this customer go in front of his bank and get what they need or go in front of their investor. And I make sure that they know it and I make sure that they feel it and and then everything. And of course you hire qualified professionals who have had 10 years experience in startups and 10 years experience in grants and 10 years experience in an accounting firm and 10 years experience as a parallegal. and you hire qualified people and then you make sure that they feel it. >> Beautiful. I think I think you you've said it right and I think uh for people listening to figure out how could you take what Joel just said implement in your business in the way that you need to do business not to copy paste but just say take that philosophy understand what are your standards what do you want to do how do you want to train I think it's so important because at the end of the day the only thing you cannot buy in Fiverr is time and therefore a leader has to figure out okay how am I utilizing my time. And when you're when you're growing a company, you need to focus on on the business and in the business, you want to focus more on the business than in the business, especially if you have already a team that could focus in the business. And that's where the mindset of not being a bottleneck. It's so important. Very cool. Um, how could people find out more about what you do or follow you for the content you post? >> Sure. So, I write on LinkedIn. My name Joel Loey, J O L O W Y. I write on LinkedIn on a daily basis. I write it myself then the website is cavanaservices.com kavanaservices.com my email address is [email protected] and I'll welcome your emails and please reach out anytime >> sure for the links resources mentioned this episode check out the show notes at www.pexgroup.com/mpodcast pxgroup.com/mpodcast where we'll link to Joel's LinkedIn and his website. Let's close with the four rapid fire questions. Are you ready? >> Let's go. >> Number one, a book that changed your life. >> The one thing by Keller and Papazan. >> Phenomenal book. Number two, a piece of advice you got that you'll never forget. >> Shout out to business coach Matriel Friedman. Don't underpromise and overd deliver. deliver on your promises. >> Beautiful. Number three, anything you wish you could go back and do differently. >> I would eat more vegetables. >> That's a good one. That's a first. That's a first. And last and final question. What's still on your bucket list to achieve? >> I would love to learn the piano. >> Okay. You'll come back to play a song once you go you do that. Joe, thank you so much for joining us. I know your time is valuable. That is why in the name of our listeners will forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today. It's been a blast. >> Thank you, Manny. >> My pleasure. Likewise. Oh, that's a good one. That's a first. That's a first. And last and final question. What's still on your bucket list to achieve? >> I would love to learn the piano. >> Okay. You'll come back to play a song once you go you do that. Joe, thank you so much for joining us. I know your time is valuable. That is why in the name of our listeners, we'll forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today. It's been a blast. >> Thank you, Manny. >> My pleasure. Likewise. That's my conversation with Joe Loey. My takeaway from this one. Number one, get it down on paper. Having a plan forces clarity. It aligns partners and it gives investors and banks something real to react to. Number two, clarity beats clever. The fluff doesn't get funded. Plain language and real numbers do. Number three, remember that plans are living documents. Things will change and that's fine. The process itself is what sharpens your thinking. Number four, build systems you can trust. Joel shared how using checklist and reviewing work along the way keeps quality high and stops you from being the bottleneck. And number five, lead with values. Delegation only works if your team knows the standards and feels ownership over the mission. Now, I do have a request. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure to share like this episode on YouTube or any of the platforms you listen to this podcast and also make sure to share it with your co-workers, friends, and family. Let them know about this show. Thank you in appreciation. And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Let's Look Business podcast. I hope you enjoyed the practical nononsense advice that our guest shared. If you found value in listening, I would be so grateful if you could share the episode with your friends and if you could give the show a five-star rating on Apple Podcast or wherever platform you listen. Subscribe to the show and get notified every time we publish a new episode. The Let's Talk Business Podcast is a PEX Group original production. Until next time, make it a great day. [Music]