How 'Who Not How' Principles Transformed My Business Mindset | #22

I'm going to talk about my strategy of implementing the Who Not How principles and that is from the book Who Not How, by the way. I'm Aaron Henriques. I've been an entrepreneur for about 15 years. I was previously a police officer for 10 years before pivoting to entrepreneurship.

The book Who Not How I believe is the most important and impactful book that I've ever, and I'm going to share with you some of the principles and the reason behind these principles, that I've actually been using for years, but didn't realize until I actually read this book, Who Not How. the link is down in the description. Now if you like this episode, please like it, comment and subscribe. Let me know that you're interested in this type of content so that I can do more.

Because actually, this is the sort of stuff that I spend considerable amounts of time on developing myself.

Now the main principle around this book, around Who Not How, it's pretty obvious and it's one point that is made throughout the book in many different ways. it's a fantastic book. I would highly recommend it. Dan Sullivan's book. Amazing. it is available in audio format. It's available as a physical book I've read both. I listen to the audio book, so many times.

I've read the physical book so many times, in my view, the most impactful book that for my stage of business, that when I came across it, I realised that actually some of these principles I had already been applying in my life, I just didn't have any way to comprehend talking about it.

Now what had I been doing for quite a while? With my first company, the cleaning company that I've had for many years, I wanted to structure it in such a way that I was not going to be important to the business at all. I didn't want to be involved with it day to day, I didn't want to have any real involvement. but being able to still maintain profit and make some money along the way.

reasons that I've already shared in another video before, I'm really protective of my time, I don't allow things to take up my time if I can avoid it, certainly not for the longterm. So in that company what I had done, one of the things I used to do a lot, which used to take up a lot of time, was I would have to physically go out to meet new cleaners who are applying for a job. I optimized that as much as possible, but then it got to the point where I was still physically doing it.

if you know the UK I was based down in the southeast in London. I had a franchise in London I had a franchise in Cardiff. I had a franchise in Birmingham. at the time, also, had a franchise down on the south coast of England. I used to spend considerable amounts of time driving between these places. And, it soon dawned on me that, why don't you just, find people locally to do this, to save you the time. They've not got to go miles.

They're staying pretty local to where they are, and they can get the exact same job done that you were doing without you being there. All you've got to do is pay them. But literally, I would stack up, 10 interviews back to back. I would drive to Cardiff, which could take 3-4 hours. I would do all the interviews then I would drive back. I did that a couple of times. I was like, that's terrible. honestly, dangerous as well, like driving, after all that driving and whatever, all in a day.

I then started, I would, do ten interviews, I would stay in Cardiff overnight, cost me £150 or whatever for a hotel, then I would drive back. And then I started realising, do you know what, if I was just paying people locally, like a local recruiter to do this for me, pay them £10 to £15 whatever, per interview, it's still a humongous saving, just on the hotel and the fuel costs that I would normally incur, let alone the amount of time that I would spend on it.

So that was the first thing that I outsourced. Then I started realizing the same around, actually, do I want to be taking the calls from the clients and be dealing with these cleaners as well? Then I outsourced that. And, then I outsourced my marketing, I outsourced basically everything.

The only thing I couldn't really outsource was dealing with my accountant at the end of the tax year, I still had to speak to him, and uploading a bank statement twice a month because basically I don't want to give access to the people I outsource to directly to my business bank account. Although I probably could do, it takes me literally two minutes a couple of times a month to do that. Yeah, that's what I had done.

And it was only when I found this book, Who Not How, I realised what I had done. I actually thought, yeah, damn, you've actually done something really good here. And you need to start thinking about how you can apply these other principles to your life.

Now, what this book does really for entrepreneurs, it just tells you how you can change that link that most of us are bought up having, like in our minds, we're bought up thinking, you get paid by an hour, you do your 40 hours a week of work for X amount of money. and it took me a bit of time and, learning a lot about money and investing and other things prior to Who Not How, to be honest with you about, really changing my money mindset. About things like that.

And I knew that I didn't want my time to be linked to the amount of money that I was making. It really wasn't linked through that company. And I realised by outsourcing all that stuff, the time that I was spending on that, I now had all of that time. So let's say, imagine it was 10 hours a week. I don't know. It might not have, 10 hours a week on average, but the occasional time I'd then go and have to do the interviews. And also the other important thing.

That I completely forgot about this is that because it took up so much of my time to arrange all those interviews, to do the initial phone calls, arrange the interviews, people wouldn't even turn up or whatever. I would have these gaps of two or three months between doing these interview trips. And so that meant sometimes that we'd get new clients on and we weren't able to fulfill them with a cleaner because I didn't have the capacity to go and get those cleaners.

Whereas having the person local meant that if I know that I need a cleaner for next week for someone new, I can get that sorted out like that. So anyway, I didn't want my time to be linked to like my earning potential to be linked to my time, if that makes sense. I didn't want my, I didn't want it to be that I can only earn X amount for X amount of my time. So there are ways that you can then deploy that and people do it in other ways. I just talked about cleaners. my clients are doing that.

They're saving time 2, 3, 4 hours a week. where they're not having to clean the house and they're paying someone else to do that because their time, in other ways, is more valuable. So the long and short of it is, is that when I'm looking at doing new things, whether it's a new business idea or getting involved in a business, I want to outsource it. most tasks other people are capable of doing.

If you think that you're running a business and other people are not capable of doing the thing that you do, you're probably deluded. There are some circumstances where that is the case, but then you argue, do you have a business or do you just have a job that you have more flexible time with because you're controlling it? there's infinitely smarter people than me out there. Who may enjoy doing something that I hate, so why would I do it if I can just pay them to do it?

They can do it well, and it frees up my time to do other things that I do want to do.

So I had to then start to learn to get comfortable with delegating, And I had to get comfortable with letting go of that control. And I think that's a lot of the thing that people don't like is that You do something in a certain way, you might give that to someone else. They might not do it in this prescribed way that you do. And you're like, no, it has to be done in this way. And for them, it doesn't work like that.

And then they end up doing a shit job and then you fire them because you think they're shit. Whereas actually had you just let them run with it, they may have actually worked out how to do it themselves in a better way that you would have done it. And one of the things that I realised really with one of my business partners is, I realised with her early on I was very, controlling in a way, it was that thing of no, this is how I've always done it so do it that way.

And then she'd do something different and I'd be like, no. And then I realised one time, after reading this book several times by now, that I needed to allow her to make mistakes. I needed to give her the breathing room and the confidence to be able to just go ahead and do something, and realise, it's not going to be a catastrophic mistake, no one's going to die from this. you might lose a bit of money, so what, we'll get it back.

I needed to give her that space to be able to make decisions for herself. And that was something I needed to get really comfortable with just letting go of that control. Because I wasn't even meant to be running the business anyway, but I found myself chastising her if she didn't, do things in the right way, or if she made a decision on her own and got it wrong and realised that's a terrible thing to do to someone.

Whether it's your staff, your business partner, whatever, it's a terrible thing because it makes them too scared to try things in the future, And really it was from this book that I realised, shit, I need to let go of that control and let her go ahead and do things.

And, I got this from Andy Frisella, this other part I'm about to say is, he does a thing where, I do it sometimes naturally, but he does a thing where, a staff member business partner or whatever, will come to him and be like, Oh, I've got this problem. I don't know how to solve it. what do I do? And then he will put that back on them and like, well, what do you think we should do? And then they will say X, Y, Z, I think we should do this, and this because of this.

And generally from what he said is that he would then, as long as it's not like clearly something catastrophic, that's going to fuck up everything and cause a massive legal issue or something like that. He would let them go and make it. Even if you didn't think it was like the best idea, let them go ahead with it and work it out. just turn around and be like, okay, that sounds like a good idea. Do that. And it just made so much sense.

And I tried that a few times and I realised that how much more confident over time, my business partner got. she didn't always get things right, but she was had that confidence then because she was really worried all the time. Constantly like that fear factor of displeasing me and, getting things wrong. She was really worried. And now I think I've seen that change over a period of time, about six months now, she probably doesn't even know that's the case that's what's gone on.

if she watches this, then she will know, but that is the biggest change I made. And it made such a difference to her, her confidence, and her ability, and her drive, everything, so much better. And so I just think that using the principles from this book has really changed my life in so many ways. and really I just think, going back down to basics, If you're running a business, get comfortable with paying other people to do stuff and let them get on with it.

give them outcome, this is the outcome that you want. But let them go and find their way to do it. And if they've got questions, if they really don't know something and they can't work it out for themselves help them along the way. Give them some ideas and whatever, but let them go ahead and do it. And if they do fuck it up and make a mistake, don't chastise them for it.

let's learn what the lessons were, how do you think you could do this differently and, okay, let's now go and try this thing instead. that will give them the confidence to keep going and keep succeeding rather than being worried about it.

And this book, Who Not How, if you want to unlink your earning potential from your time, that is something you really need to get good at, is being able to get other people to do the things for you. And I don't just mean in business, I mean in your everyday life.

Whether that's cleaning, whether that's cooking for you, whether that's, getting a taxi instead of driving somewhere, because that 30 minutes that you would have spent in the car, you'd have started getting stressed by, crazy drivers out there. And you've also lost 30 minutes where you could have been doing something more productive for yourself. And you turn up relaxed if you'd been in the back of a taxi versus having to drive yourself and all sorts of stuff like that.

Can you make more money with that time then it will cost you to pay someone else to do it? If the answer is yes to that, go and do that thing. Go and outsource it to them. That is the principle that I've taken from that, and that is what I'm living by now.

anytime I'm catching myself, I'm reviewing what I'm doing day to day, anytime I'm catching myself in that process of I'm doing some task that someone else could easily do, that I can afford to pay them to do it, and I'm going to make more money potentially. Or even if it's not more money directly, because I'm not on sales calls and stuff all the time. If it's not money directly, it could just be something else that someone else can do.

That isn't necessary for me to do and therefore let's keep that time free which I spoke about in a

previous Episode let's keep that time free so that I can fill it with things that I consider more valuable Anyway, that is all I had to say about that. Please like and subscribe. Please leave a comment, comment about it Like share what you're doing and maybe if there is some change that you might be able to make in your life and maybe some, maybe you've made some changes in your life that are like similar types of principles and live by it and what's the outcome?

For me, the outcome has been nothing but positive. if you haven't got much money for certain things, you can, outsource to VAs or whatever, if you can't afford direct staff, VAs abroad are just as good. share it with someone who you think this could really help because a lot of people are out there trying to do everything themselves and they end up failing and really they could free up so much of their time just by spending a little bit of money.

into other things and have the potential to then make way, way, way more money in other ways because they're not wasting time on cleaning their house. They're not wasting time on doing their garden. They're not wasting time on driving themselves around and stuff like that. So yeah, that's my last two cents. Anyway, watch this video next and yeah, stay tuned. Bye.