Did you know that businesses, no matter how big or small, experience similar obstacles as they move from idea to goals to finishing a project? In over 25 years of training, teaching and executive experience, Jen McFarland has discovered these common obstacles. Join WTR host Kevin Dumont and guest expert Jen McFarland in rooting out 5 common mistakes many business owners make and unearth how to solve them.

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Avoid These 5 Common Business Mistakes

• [00:03:51] Mindset to examine where you are today vs where you want them to be
• [00:08:12] Willing to poke holes in what you are assuming is success
• [00:17:11] Asses risk of project. Are you prepared for if this doesn’t work
• [00:21:17] The amount of time it actually takes
• [00:28:34] Realization there’s more than one right way to do things.
• [00:32:41] Value Bomb: Shiny object syndrome

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Jen McFarland

Website

https://www.womenconquerbiz.com

LinkedIn URL

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jensmcfarland/

Facebook URL

https://www.facebook.com/womenconquerbiz

Twitter URL

https://twitter.com/jensmcfarland

YouTube URL

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4gqaZ96ns7jJzMMYQP-r7Q/

Instagram

Instagram

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Notes:

Kevin_Dumont: [00:00:00] Welcome to another discussion with Wealth Tactic Rebels, the podcast for people who see things differently. I’m your host, Kevin Dumont. I’ve been thinking differently in the wealth field for nearly 15 years today. I’m joined by a host. Jen McFarland. Jen, how are you today? Well, I appreciate you being here today and sharing your time and your knowledge with our wealth at the rebels.

So Jen is an entrepreneur in business consultant and, she has a particular expertise in business and,  kind of like the Wealth Tactic Rebel philosophy, where we believe that you have a lot more to be had by first avoiding losses, before you go chasing a rate of return, like it’s the same thing in business, Someone like Jen who’s had a lot of experience has seen a lot of mistakes that people commonly make when they’re trying to run their business. And if you can first learn those ahead of time, but through someone like Jen and look out to avoid those, you know, you have a lot better shot at having a more successful business.

So today’s discussion is avoid these five common business mistakes. we’re going to discuss those. It has to do with it mindset, willingness to poke holes in what you think is a success.  and assessing risk and, time. And we also talked a little bit about, uh, with different ways that, that you can accomplish things.

Before we get into that though, Wealth Tactic Rebels, if you would do as a favor after this episode on whatever your preferred listening platform is, please just go there, give us a rating review and a, you can drop us a line. You can do it there. You can do it on a Wealth Tactic Rebles Facebook page. let us know what you found inspiring about today’s episode, what you think may have helped you or someone, you know, Jen let’s, let’s get into a little bit, but before we get too far, would you mind sharing a little bit with our listeners about a little bit about where you came from and what inspired you to do what you do today?

Jen_McFarland: [00:01:48] Sure. Thank you, Kevin. And thanks again for having me on. so my name is, my name is Jen McFarland. Um, I have 25 years of teaching training and executive experience in leadership projects and marketing, and the way that I got really into. All of this was after college. I got really interested in the peace Corps.

One of my best friends went to Bolivia. This was back when we were pen pals, cause they didn’t have internet in Bolivia. And I just became really fascinated with it. Now the whole time that I was. Her pen pal. I was also working as a graphic designer and I was like, I want to do this. And I got married and my husband and I ultimately what to Kazakhstan and lived overseas for two years.

And it just kind of took away like all of the creature comforts.  and I realized how much I love projects and it also kind of changed my own mindset. So I came back, I had, you know, Went back and got a master’s degree in leadership and management. I led a bunch of really large scale projects and that I realized that my true love is really boots on the ground, helping people and that a lot of what I have learned even, getting my masters degree really wasn’t as applicable as they like to make it sound.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:03:01] You did, this is a common experience for a lot of people. You go to school, you get your degree and then you get out in the world and you’re like, huh? It’s not quite what I remember studying.

Jen_McFarland: [00:03:11] You know, and even as I was going through getting my master’s degree, you know, I was a mid-career peace Corps volunteer as a mid career grad students. So I was kind of like, this doesn’t sound right. But you know, I hadn’t been in some of the higher levels of organizations . So I thought, well, maybe it’s a different, you know, and no, it’s not, it’s, it’s not, not different.

so it really, all of these experiences, including working on really large scale projects that, like I said, Higher levels of organizations.  it really uncovers that a lot of the mistakes that we’re making in business, it doesn’t matter how big you are, how small you are.  a lot of things happen over and over and over again.

And a lot of the work that I do now is about helping people,  you know, just think about things a lot differently.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:03:51] Excellent. What we’re all about thinking about things differently, so perfect for today’s conversation. So, as I mentioned in the beginning, we’re going to talk about avoiding the five common business mistakes that you’ve experienced in your career. This has to do with examining where you are today versus where you want to be in the future. Jen, would you mind, talk a little bit more about why is, why is this a mistake? Why do our listeners care about this? And, how’s it gonna help them?

Jen_McFarland: [00:04:15] Sure. I mean, I think as, as leaders, we all need to really consider where our mind is and, and how that is really, changing. Maybe the way that we are seeing the things around us. One of the things that I talk about with my clients. and then on my own podcast a lot is, you know, we have to look for the good and then we begin to see it everywhere.

So if you’re always saying that everything is going wrong, guess what, that’s what you’re going to see. That’s the reality that you have created for yourself. And you’re almost.  Looking for the bad instead of the good. So these are the types of like mindset things, that can really affect how well you do in your business, or how will you lead your team or different things like that.

So, one of the key dimensions is if you look at how things are today, and you’re not satisfied, You know, you want, you know, something big to change. You do have to look at where things are today and then compare that to where you want to be. And then look at where the gaps are, you know, and part of that is in how you are thinking about.

You know, the future, how you were thinking about where you’re at today. Maybe you’re not reflecting enough on what’s going right. Or you’re not really looking at the things that are really holding you back. And so it’s important to take a look at all of that. And then again, really reflect not just on what’s wrong, but also on, on what’s right. And that will help you realize where you truly are on your path.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:05:44] Absolutely.  that vision is important to be able to see where you’re going. if you don’t have a bit of an open mind, you’re not okay with thinking about it differently and stepping outside of your comfort zone,  your vision of that future could get skewed and you could be trying to force something that,  is not really where it should or could be going.

Jen_McFarland: [00:06:01] Yeah. I mean, I think it’s, I think it’s that, I think it’s also like when you are envisioning, where you want to be, you have to recognize, what your own strengths are as well as your weaknesses, and then surround yourself with people who can fill the gaps,  on the things that you don’t like to do, or you’re not as good at doing.

So that, in that sense, you’re actually,  not poking holes in things you’re actually filling the cracks and surrounding yourself with people who maybe have a different mindset or a different. Openness or a different outlook.  and then what you’re actually doing is reinforcing your business so that it is more resilient and able to weather things, like economic downturns and other risks.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:06:43] Hmm. Makes sense. It’s almost like a, in a personal relationship where, you have people that kind of. Balance each other, relationships work well when,  if you’re, if you’re dating someone, who’s exactly like you, for instance, uh, maybe a bit of a conflict there, but when you, yeah.

But when you have someone who is a little bit different, and they balance you, you work well together? And in the same sense in a business relationship whether it’s with your employees or partners or your business itself.  that balance is important because it helps, helps bring out, as you say, fill in, fill in the cracks.

Jen_McFarland: [00:07:19] Yeah. Yeah. That’s part of the openness of especially small business owners where,  although I’ve seen it in leaders with big organization is as well is if you’re unwilling to realize that you’re not good at everything, which is hard. Cause you know, we’re all

Kevin_Dumont: [00:07:33] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Especially big ones because I, you know, sometimes big, big leaders of big companies and such tend to have big egos and egos tend to, can, can get into the way of thinking like that.

Jen_McFarland: [00:07:47] Exactly. But some of the most successful business people that we’ve ever had, you know, someone like Henry Ford he’s, he’s always said that the reason he was successful is because he surrounded himself with people who were smarter than him.

And that’s one of the things that’s really key is you have to realize your weaknesses and then find people who can help you.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:08:08] Right, right,

Jen_McFarland: [00:08:09] smartest person in the room, you got to find another room.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:08:12] right, right. You gotta find all the people. That’s a good idea. Actually, a guy that I know his name is Don Blanton. He’s really big with this whole philosophy of what we talk about. He jokes around too a lot. He says I never really had a brilliant idea. I just took someone else’s,

you know, he’s a lot like that. That’s how he believes, just like yourself.  so mindset to examine. Now let’s talk a little bit about a willingness to poke holes, assuming success. What do we mean by that?

Jen_McFarland: [00:08:44] You know, when we talked about this beforehand, I’ve no idea what I meant when I said that, but here’s, here’s my take on that today. So I’m just going to admit that because I have this like shifting and evolving philosophy around success. I think a lot of times we equate success with money and only with money when success can mean a lot of different things.

And I think that we make these assumptions about. What it means to be successful. And sometimes we have to look at the different dimensions of success and we will get more money if we take care of some of these other dimensions along the way. Right? So if, if you, you are, for example, getting feedback from your customers on a regular basis, and you’re hearing the same thing over and over again, and you may not like it.

That’s something that you can adjust that will lend itself to your success. Right. And you’ll find that you’re making more money as a result of handling the feedback better, instead of just assuming that the customers are happy, it’s better to get feedback

Kevin_Dumont: [00:09:45] Right, right,

Jen_McFarland: [00:09:47] and in fact, in the marketing world, there’s a tremendous gap between,  how businesses think that they’re performing when they’re.

Trying to attract new customers and how the customers received the information. lot of times we assume, that we’re being successful at things. And so one of the things, instead of just focusing on revenue and bottom line as a business owner, there are a lot of different dimensions that contribute to your success.

And so you can’t just look at one, you have to look at many. And then, like I said, poke holes in it. So what that means is ask a lot of questions, get a real sense of the landscape of what’s going on, and you will find problems along the way that as you resolve them, you will find that if money is the main driver for  success, entrepreneurial success, you will find that you are making more money because you taking care of your customers better.

Your processes are no longer. All over the place, you know, you have solid processes, for example,  maybe you have a gold standard for what customers can expect that wasn’t there before and now all of those things are happening. So then the revenue is being addressed in other ways.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:10:58] Excellent. You know, when you talk about like, this makes me think a little bit about,  something I’ve kind of seen through studying what’s going on with other companies,  is that I think that, you know, if you’ve got a business, that’s  Looks good in people’s eyes or, is relating to their, to their customers out there, people out there, and they’ve got to build a good brand for themselves that people know and trust and,  it makes it desirable.

And then sometimes you’ll get someone that comes in that’s kind of bottom line focused if you know what I mean? They’re, they’re really looking at, Hey, look, here’s our revenue. What can we do to increase that? But they’re looking at it through safe spreadsheet, eyes. You know what I mean and say, Oh, well, this doesn’t really make us money.

And this does, so we’re gonna cut back on that. That’s not really making us money, but maybe that was the thing that was helping you get in front of people and help you build that brand that they know, and they trust and they want.   So you’re looking at it as, Oh, success is more revenue.

And we can get revenue by increasing sales and by making cutbacks. And they’re not looking at it as success is getting people to love your company.

Jen_McFarland: [00:12:01] Yeah. I mean, so when I look at problems with businesses, I’m always looking at them holistically. People want to just take the shortcut and that’s oftentimes the spreadsheet solution, but there are a lot of different dimensions, like you just said to what it means to be successful. And, you know, There are also a lot of people who think that our brand is a logo and a website, and there’s a lot more to a brand than that. In fact, can either, you can run a business without a website. You can run a business with a crummy website, how you treat your customers always matters more,

Kevin_Dumont: [00:12:35] Sure, sure.

Jen_McFarland: [00:12:37] people say that word of mouth and online reviews,  they mean the same meaning if they hear from a friend that your business is awesome, it carries the same weight as if they’re reading about it on like Google my business or Facebook.

So what that tells me is. Treat your customers well, and everything else will follow, you know,

Kevin_Dumont: [00:12:56] Right, right,

Jen_McFarland: [00:12:57] that is there’s, there’s like so many dimensions to how we treat our customers as well. That really at the end of it, when it comes to revenue, that’s, that’s really the number one place to start.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:13:07] You, you mentioned a Ford, right? Henry Ford. So my observation here, and by the way, I’ll, I’ll admit right now I’m a car person. I love cars. I love tinkering with my car, I go racetracks, everything. But, so Henry Ford had that motto of race on Sunday, sell on Monday.

Granted he was a car guy, but the point of it was that he knew that racing wasn’t something that was going to bring him a bottom line. He was just spending a lot of money on it, and that doesn’t actually make him any money, but it was getting him in front of people. and it was showing the brand, the kind of brand that he was and the vehicles, and  people would see that spirit and want some of that spear and want to own some of that spirit of that company.

Right. And that helped build a great brand.  and then growing up,  car company in Japan that I liked growing up because they were, they seem to have that same kind of racing spirit. And that caught my attention growing up and, you know, playing the video games, growing up the Gran Tourismo. So The company has Mitsubishi. Some of you may not have even heard of it at this point because you have, well, you know, I’ve actually said Mitsubishi before it’s people, uh, what they make a what, air conditioners or something, because they do make other things too. There’s a larger company that makes a lot of other appliances and things, but the, but the car company, they used to be big into racing like that.

And because of that, everyone knew that brand, they had one car that was kind of like their halo car that was out there and racing and  It made them desired, made them fairly successful. And then they started cutting back on those types of cars. Because as a company, they decided that the sporty cars weren’t making them enough money.

Like the bottom line was too small. They were putting a lot of money into developing them and promoting them and not making much profit off of them. So they kept cutting it back and cutting it back. And as a company, they kept going down, they almost completely went out of business. I know they’re still in business right now with a few cars.

But they’re not very well known anymore. They completely stopped. They cut their entire racing budget. They stopped all the sporty cars that they were used for, that the people liked for that. So they lost their image and people stopped buying them.

Jen_McFarland: [00:15:15] Yeah, well, so I drive a Mustang, so

Kevin_Dumont: [00:15:18] There you go. There you go.

Jen_McFarland: [00:15:22] you know, but like even just, you know, Mitsubishi, but even going back to the Ford example, that movie Ford versus Ferrari, you know, a lot of that was about not only,  looking fast and like having people at the track, it was also helping them develop better cars.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:15:38] Sure, sure. There’s

Jen_McFarland: [00:15:39] was a lot more to it, right? Like, so, so here’s this thing that you think is race on Sunday. So everybody sees you, you know, it’s the visibility, you know, sell on Monday, but that race on Sunday had more benefits to it than just people looking at it at the track. Right. And then even in Ford versus Ferrari, I mean, there’s still, some of the things I talk about in that movie are still like, Pillars of what we know to be important in cars today.

and in fact, the Shelby is, you know, my aspirational car, I would love to have one of those

Kevin_Dumont: [00:16:11] I know a lot of people like that one.

Jen_McFarland: [00:16:15] but the point is that, you know, yes, we do things for awareness, but there might be more benefits to it than we can imagine. And it’s shortsighted, like what Mitsubishi did was actually very shortsighted.

And that’s why their profits fell is because it was doing more for them clearly than just the image,

Kevin_Dumont: [00:16:35] Yeah, exactly.

Jen_McFarland: [00:16:37] the image fell to yeah.

so there’s a lot more to it and that’s why you have to poke holes. And you know, what you’re assuming is success or is successful for

Kevin_Dumont: [00:16:46] Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Cause I I’ve seen the car thing. I’ve seen other car companies make cars that actually lost the money , on the spreadsheet, but they knew that it would bring them forward as a company.

Jen_McFarland: [00:16:59] Yeah, totally. Yeah, but isn’t that what Tesla is?

Kevin_Dumont: [00:17:04] it’s true. It’s true. But you know, as long as Tesla survives, that’s, that’s the future right there.

Anyway, we know that.

Jen_McFarland: [00:17:11] Yeah.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:17:11] Which is the next part, I think assessing the risk of the project. Cause Tesla took on a big risk, there’s, there’s nothing out there they’re starting something totally new with this whole electric car thing. so let let’s talk about  the next common mistake is assessing risks it’s important because I think you have to be.

Fully aware of the truth of how risky a particular project is and are you going to be okay if it doesn’t work?  A lot of people are entrepreneurs, I’ve got this great idea. They convinced themselves and they believe that it’s going to succeed, but you have to have the reality of that, correct?

Jen_McFarland: [00:17:42] Yeah. So this is kind of the, kissing cousin to the one we just had. You know, you have to be poking holes in what you assume is success and you can’t just assume that. Everything is going to be successful. So this is before you even get it off the ground, you have to be able to assess the risk of the project.

That means you have to be prepared for if it doesn’t work, which the way that we do that a lot in the work that I do with my clients is we’re looking at what is, is it that you’re assuming? Or what is it that must happen in order for this to be successful? And sometimes people don’t even consider that, you know, for example, you and I are sitting here, we’re having a podcast interview.

we’re assuming that we’re going to have internet and a clear connection and you know that I’ll have a nice microphone and I’ll say sound good. I mean, there are a lot of things that we’re assuming, you know, that might be safe because, you know, we’re. In the United States, I have my own podcast, this and that.

But think of it in terms of, you know, when we start scaling up to thousands or millions of dollars, but you don’t want to do anything twice

Kevin_Dumont: [00:18:46] Sure.

Jen_McFarland: [00:18:46] cause you might not be able to, to afford, to make a really big mistake. So one of the things that you can do from your biggest goal down to a lot of the tasks that you need to do. One of the ways that you can stop the roadblocks from even happening or be prepared for, things that might cost you a lot of money or it might take longer,  is, is by really looking at the risks that you’re taking it every step of the way. And sometimes you can plan ahead and be like, this really just, isn’t a good idea, right?

But in going through this exercise, what if we did it this way, this is the path of least resistance and lowest risk. And we’ll still get there in the end, you know, or sometimes you might be like, this really isn’t worth it. Why don’t we put this one on the back burner for right now, let’s do this other thing instead. So the assessment of risk and of really looking at things like the true cost or,  one of the things that you and I have talked about before is like the opportunity cost of things. You know, when you start looking at things like that, then you are better prepared for if it’s really a good idea or not, and that can save you lots of time and an unbelievable amount of money.

And for some people it can literally save your business from a disaster.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:19:59] I agree. I agree. That’s a great way to look at it and glad you brought up opportunity cost because it’s important in both directions and  most people I talk to just, they don’t think about it because it’s not talked about enough by enough people out there. And that’s one of the points of this podcast.

in the course of someone’s looking at their personal finances, people tend to focus on the rate of return that they’re getting and they forget about opportunity costs. So an opportunity cost for our listeners, if you haven’t heard before, is if you have a dollar and you lose that dollar, you not only lose that dollar, but everything there that dollar could have earned for you, that’s the real cost of it.

That’s in itself much bigger number, and that’s an opportunity cost can apply to more than you, just dollars too. when you can avoid that, when you avoid an opportunity cost loss, your returns are bigger. Whether it’s talking about returns, as far as business growth or,  profits  or whatnot.

So it’s important to understand that look at what you can lose. And  there’s two ways you can lose, with the opportunity. One is the project that you failed on. Perhaps we’re talking about projects and assessing the risks you took on a project, it was risky.

It failed. So you lost out from that project. You lost money. The other one is. The project that you didn’t take that would’ve earned you money.

Jen_McFarland: [00:21:17] Yeah. That’s, that’s usually the bigger thing. A lot of times people don’t think about things like time, but they also don’t think about capacity. So what that means is how much can you really take on? And is it worth it,

you know, is it in, in projects? that’s, that’s really one of the biggest things.

And one of the biggest risks that businesses don’t think about is, how much manpower, how many resources do I have? And. Do I have enough to take this on because maybe there’s something else that’s even more important that you’re not going to get to. If you take this one on that’s, that’s part of the holistic look  at a business instead of just saying, I need to do this one thing.

And like, knawing on that one thing, like a bone,

Kevin_Dumont: [00:21:58] Right, right, exactly. Exactly. Maybe it’s one gigantic project. Hey, if it works out, it’s going to make your, your business and your career, but it’s really risky. And if you miss you’re gone and then meanwhile, you ignore, like you say, another one or two projects that  were more likely to bring you some, some good profit or business growth

Jen_McFarland: [00:22:17] Yeah. Well, you got to leave the lights on too. Like, I mean, not everything is sexy. Not everything that we do is sexy. So you sometimes have to ease back on some things so that you can, like I said, keep the lights on. Yeah. Manage your resources and then work towards it.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:22:32] right,

Jen_McFarland: [00:22:33] other times it’s the right time to take on that kind of risk and do it. But the important thing is that you’re looking at all of these different factors, including, opportunity costs, which I agree with you a hundred percent, most people don’t either don’t know what it is or don’t ever think about it.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:22:48] right, We need to talk about it more. That’s all I think something that goes along with this too, when you’re doing this assessment,  we touched on, time because you may not have enough time to take on everything, which no one does. You have to. Take on what you can with the time that you have and be the most efficient you can with it.

you’ve seen this as a mistake that sometimes people make, they think that something is going to take X amount of time, but it really takes X times, two amount of time or something like that. Right,

Jen_McFarland: [00:23:11] Yeah, all of these happen at every size of organization,  but especially the time I’ve seen this, over and over and over again throughout my career. So the number one thing about time is it almost invariably takes longer than you think.

but some of the things that really multiply that out are, how many people do you need to have involved? And have you talked to those people and are you on their calendar and then  are they giving you the time based on a best case scenario  or is it a realistic timeframe?

So you need to get to the bottom  as a business leader is answering all of those questions, and that’s part, honestly, of the risk is  well, if it can’t be done in Q1, you know, or if it’s going to take a year, is it really worth my time? And that sounds really expensive.

Do I really want to do that? now within time there can be some negotiations.  but a lot of times you have to realize, in terms of time, money and value, it’s something I talk about over and over and over again,  with clients.  yes, you can throw more money at something and , put all of your resources to it, but the value the project at the end might not be as good as if you took your time and spread it out over a longer timeframe.

If that makes sense, because when people are in a compressed timeframe,  it doesn’t matter sometimes how much money you’re paying them. They’re more apt to maybe mistakes. And then are those mistakes things that you want to be fixing?  what light does that really put you in? So there are a lot of dimensions around time that really need to be.

Looked at, not just how long is it and can I throw more money at it, but how long will it realistically take? and then how good is the final product?  Even if it’s your minimum viable products, so like your first pass, sometimes you want that to be a little bit better so that you can make a little money off of it, then slamming something out that might not be good for your brand. So time is one of the biggest, one of the biggest problems, always, always, with anything that any business owner is trying to do, because we don’t have enough time ever.  And yet sometimes we need to actually take the time so that we’re able to shine better for  what we’re actually trying to deliver.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:25:25] Hmm. I agree. I agree. You know, when you’re talking about that, I was thinking about another car story.

Jen_McFarland: [00:25:30] Oh, what’s that?

Kevin_Dumont: [00:25:31] it’s not as exciting as like Ford versus Ferrari, but just using my little personal experiences. you’re talking about, making sure you have an  appropriate amount of time for whatever the project is, you know, and being realistic about it. And when I was a teenager and I got into cars and I decided I want to learn how to work on cars, my uncle, I grew up with my uncle working on cars a lot and helped my father restore an old Mustang and stuff.

So I got to be a teenager. I decided I’m going to do this. I thought about it as “I’m good. at working on cars, if I’m really fast.” Right. So I would try to get everything done as quick as possible. And when we behold bolts would snap things, wouldn’t get put back on the right way. You know, I’m thinking, you know, something would fall up the car and we took it out for a ride.

I had a brake caliper fall off one time, you know what I mean? It’s not

Jen_McFarland: [00:26:19] So it’s not good. It reminds me, so one of our best friends, his name is Chad and, my husband’s. So we’re we just hang out and he really likes the show on MotorTrend called roadkill. Have you ever heard of this show?

Kevin_Dumont: [00:26:31] yeah,

Jen_McFarland: [00:26:32] that’s what this reminds me of. Like, yes, you can go like roadkill and just bang out a list so that you’re like sitting on the side of the freeway.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:26:39] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I’ve had that happen, you know?

Jen_McFarland: [00:26:43] your time, you know, I mean, I I’ve watched show in, like they don’t have a windshield and they’re like driving through Minnesota in the winter. So, I mean, yeah, you can do your projects like that for sure. A hundred percent, But bolts are going to be falling off and, you know, and I’ve, and I’ve worked on projects.

So a lot of times on projects we say, Oh, so you want to ride the bike while you’re building it. Okay. Like, and you just, how it’s going to be. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad, but you just kind of realize it’s going to be a problem the whole way. and it’s fine.

You can spin up a project quickly and you can be iterative, but there’s going to

be a lot of pain

Kevin_Dumont: [00:27:19] Right, right. Sure. It is too full because your results aren’t going to be as good. And you could actually end up wasting a lot more time. Had you just done it right to begin with? Cause I experienced that, like I said, a bolt snapped off. Maybe I spent hours trying to get at it. Cause I had to pull all these other things out of the way to get to it.

And I couldn’t, you know what I mean? I could sometimes my project doubled in time because I went too fast. I broke something that I then had to fix. Uh, and I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older. Yeah. Now that I’ve gotten older. I take my time. I do it right. Most of the time I get through the project without any problems, I get my car and I drive it.

It’s perfectly reliable, the opposite.  It seems like it’s going to take longer, but it doesn’t

Jen_McFarland: [00:27:56] Yeah. And that’s, the thing about time and that’s one of the things that as leaders we need to realize and, consider, and I have to say, it’s not convenient. The reality of it, and that’s something that is a very hard conversation sometimes to have, as a consultant or,  if you have someone who works on projects at your company, they seem to be the one who’s the messenger, you know, don’t kill the messenger.

because time, it just is what it is. But I think that, going into it with a realistic lens usually helps with those conversations.  and the outcome you’ll be happier with the outcome, if you’re realistic about time.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:28:34] Absolutely.  I think going along with that kind of idea of, working on the time and everything, so that comes down to our next point, which is, there’s more than one way to do things

Jen_McFarland: [00:28:44] That’s right. And one of the ways that you can actually reduce the time that something takes and reduce. Sometimes the budget, all of it is to listen to the professionals and not put your post in the ground and say, this is the way it’s got to be, because there’s more than one right.

Way of doing things. So you get more value a lot of times and you get a better outcome. If you don’t say that this is how it has to be, and this is how I want it. So you might get exactly what you want and not like it at the end. So part of that is collaborating with people who are different from you, having people who are smarter than you, who are able to poke holes in what you want to do, you know, going through  kind of like sum Of all of these common mistakes,  is   realizing that you can still achieve success and you could still get everything that you want, but how you get there really doesn’t matter at the end of the day. There’s more than one right way of getting there. It’s just, the achievement at the end is really what matters.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:29:43] Absolutely end results matter far more than the path to get there.

Jen_McFarland: [00:29:47] Yeah, but I’ve worked with a lot of people who are very path oriented, and want things the way that they envisioned it. And I think that part of being a visionary is sometimes you have, the way that it needs to be done as part of your vision. And it’s hard to let that go.

but it’s important because. There is more than one right way. And it’s really like, think about that goal at the end.

That’s really what you want.

It really doesn’t matter how you get there.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:30:14] Maybe the way that you envisioned, maybe will work, but maybe it’s going to cost more and take more time than another path.

Jen_McFarland: [00:30:21] Exactly. And one of the ways that people do that a lot is, they rely too much on the past. This is how we’ve always done it. So we’re going to do it this way again.  And I think that, for all these, wealth tactics right out there, you’re probably the ones telling people. want to do it the way we’ve always done it.

There’s all these ways it’s not going to work. But, the reality is that everybody can kind of get stuck in their head of how they’ve always done things. The way to success. Sometimes it doesn’t look how you intended it. Again, it’s all about the outcomes. and guaranteeing that that’s what you’re going to get.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:30:53] I agree. I agree. And I think modern times we can really see some results of how,  that’s played out of getting stuck at this is the way we’ve always done it and not thinking about, “Okay, maybe there’s a different way.” Because think about, Netflix, right? Everybody watches Netflix today, right?

That’s a different way. Netflix has a different way. It was a new way to watch movies. What, 10, 15 years ago, when did these guys come out? It was something like that. Right? I don’t remember the

Jen_McFarland: [00:31:23] it was a long time ago. I remember I became, I was an early adopter of Netflix because blockbuster video made me so angry that I was like, there has to be another way. And I did research

Kevin_Dumont: [00:31:33] exactly. Exactly.

Jen_McFarland: [00:31:36] You know? and this was like, when we had. Dial up. This was like a long time ago. But there had to be a better way. It’s kinda like taxis. Like how many times have you been in a taxi that’s has so much cologne in it. You’re choking on it. Well, guess what if I go in a Lyft or an Uber, it’s, it’s not the same experience. least not here in Portland, Oregon where I am, there’s always a disruptor out there that is saying there’s another way.

So, why can’t that be you?

Kevin_Dumont: [00:32:02] Agree. Why can’t it be?  And that’s what we’re talking about. Thinking differently. there’s more than one way to do things.  We’re going to find the most efficient way for our rebels.

So we’ve, touched on it. the five common business mistakes, the mindset.

To examine where you are versus where you’re going to go. And that was number one. Number two was a willingness to poke holes in what you’re assuming success. Number three was assessing the true risk of a project.  number four was the amount of time things actually take versus what you think they’re going to take.

And then of course we just talked about, number five was the realization that there’s, Hey, there’s more than one way to do things. If you’re open minded and you can pivot, this is good, this is a good thing.

Before we close today, Jen, I’m going to ask you for our wealth tactic rebel value bomb, which is what in your experience should our listeners look to avoid and what can they do about it?

Jen_McFarland: [00:32:51] Sure. I would say that one of the biggest things that. People need to avoid are the shiny objects, call it shiny object syndrome or SOS. and I find that it happens all over the place. Especially with entrepreneurs who are it’s late, they’re tired, they see something on social media or something else that it looks like it’s going to solve all of their problems. They’re speaking exactly to them.  And don’t hit the buy button. You would be way better off buying the cat video or watching cat videos all night and going to bed. then going down the rabbit hole, and where I see this the most is in the area of like digital marketing. People think that digital marketing should be easy, that it should work just like it does for, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk or somebody else like that.

everybody’s trying to sell you a funnel and something really simple and really easy.  What you have to do is actually look at what works best for you. And so don’t fall into these traps. the average business owner is contacted, I think 25 times a month, by somebody who is, and that’s on the phone trying to sell you something.

In the digital marketing realm, whether it’s Yelp ads or PaperClick or whatever.  So avoid all of those shiny objects come up with, what your longterm goals are, and don’t fall into the traps of spending money on things that really aren’t going to support your business over the long haul.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:34:18] Hmm. Good advice. Thank you for sharing.  anything else you’d like to share with our Rebels about yourself?

Jen_McFarland: [00:34:24] Sure. So again, my name is Jen McFarland. My business and podcasts are called women conquer business. I help everybody. I just liked the name a lot, because I’m a woman and I think that we all, deserve a place in the business realm. It’s a weekly podcast and if you’d like to learn more or,  get the three hot tips I have about how to achieve your goals,  you can do that at Jenmcfarland.com/goals.

Kevin_Dumont: [00:34:49] sounds good. Oh, absolutely been a fantastic discussion with you, Jen. I really appreciate it. And I’m sure our rebels do as well because we’ve learned some great things to help us with our opportunity costs. Wealth Tactic Rebels we’re gonna put, Jen’s information on the show notes page for today as well. That’s wealthtacticrebels.com and look for today’s episode, Avoid These Five Common Business Mistakes , with Jen McFarland, we’re going to put her website and stuff there. One more time, Jen, thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Jen_McFarland: [00:35:20] Thank you so much for having me. Yeah,

Kevin_Dumont: [00:35:22] Absolutely. And Wealth Tactic Rebels, thank you for joining us. And I wish you all health and I hope you have a fantastic day.