Fixing Your Firefighter Management Problem: How to Break the Habit & Get Back to Doing the Work That Really Matters – In Just 7 Minutes with Alecia Huck

Resources/Links:

• To get more FREE awesome insights on how to keep winning while growing, click here: https://www.maverickandcompany.com/bigger-is-different

Summary

Do you feel like nothing is just ever working especially when your business is growing? Do you want to save yourself some time and money and find the best solution for this?

Management isn’t all about training, hiring, and managing employees, it’s also about looking into the structure of the business. It’s not always about the people, sometimes it’s about the infrastructure.

Alecia Huck is the founder of MAVERICK & Company and specializes in developing leadership teams and helping them spend less time-fighting fires and more time building what matters.

Listen to what Alecia has to share on how you can spend less time, stress, and money on your management problem by diving deeper into your systems through her life-changing reflection and tips.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:44 – Alecia’s ideal client: Typically, the people that I work with. My specialty is going to be the executive teams of fast-growing companies. And those are typically between $5 and $75 million.
• 02:40 – The problem she helps solve: So a lot of people start a company. You work really, really hard, right? You grow. And that’s what you want– both in size and, hopefully, in profit. And then one day, things just don’t work the same way.
• 04:04 – The symptoms of the problem: So you guys are gonna love this because you can’t just say it’s a certain revenue mark, and there’s no number of employees– it just varies too much from industry to industry. But there are five really good, reliable signals, right?
• 05:44 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Alecia: They’re going to think you can hire their way out of it. Right? I’ll just get more people. They can add more cooks to their kitchen without better systems. And they’ll spend money on things like software, right?
• 06:41 – Alecia’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): So if you want to break out of that firefighting, where you’re just running around solving problems, here’s what I want you to do. It’s really super sophisticated. See this? Get a sheet of paper out. Write good on it.
• 07:20 – Alecia’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): To get more FREE awesome insights on how to keep winning while growing, click here: https://www.maverickandcompany.com/bigger-is-different
• 08:15 – Q: What do I want people to know? A: You don’t have to be somebody you’re not in order to win. You don’t have to have a room full of binders. You don’t have to sell your soul. You can win as you.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“You don't have to be somebody you're not in order to win. You can win as you.” -Alecia Huck Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
A very warm welcome folks to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. We’re gonna have fun today. I’m joined today by Alecia Huck who is just a fun and interesting person and is one of the most intimidatingly organized people on the planet. She even has QR codes for things. I mean- it’s just, yeah. And she’s got one right there, see! She’s, for those of you who don’t know. Alecia, good day! A very warm welcome for Down Under, by the way. Where are you hanging out?

Alecia Huck 00:36
At Denver, Colorado! It’s a beautiful, perfect fall day as we record this.

Tom Poland 00:40
One of the best-organized voting states. And this is THE day of the midterm elections in the US, folks. So Alecia has been out and voted at her favorite art gallery, which is what you can do in Denver. You don’t have to stand outside the library for three hours in the rain. She’s voted. She’s also the founder of MAVERICK & Company. She specializes in developing leadership teams and helping them spend less time-fighting frickin’ fires, and draining swamps. We’re talking about politics, and more time building, what matters. Do you know how stuff just gets in the way of what you want to do? Life gets in the way. Alecia, I used to get so frustrated with having to do stuff, you know. And so you, you make that- if you don’t make it disappear, you shrink it. So let’s find out about that. The title today, folks, is, “Fixing your Fire Fighting Management Problem: How to Break the Habit and Get Back to Doing the Work That Really Matters and That You Really Want to Do”. Alecia, our seven minutes is going to start now. Question number one is who’s your ideal client?

Alecia Huck 01:44
Awesome! Thanks so much for having me. Typically, the people that I work with. My specialty is going to be the executive teams of fast-growing companies. And those are typically between $5 and $75 million. And the funny thing about growth problems is that growth problems break almost all organizations in the same way. So I actually have worked with everything from construction to criminal justice and everywhere up and down the scale.

Tom Poland 02:09
Because even though their services might be different, their specialties might be different, the problems are the same across every business.

Alecia Huck 02:16
The way growth breaks through is the same almost no matter where you’re at. So it doesn’t really matter which street the company is on, which is weird and interesting, right?

Tom Poland 02:26
It is! And it’s great because it means that you come with a common problem. Sorry, the problems are common, so the solutions can be equally applied. Tell us then about how would you define the problem that you solve.

Alecia Huck 02:40
Yeah, so a lot of people start a company. You work really, really hard, right? You grow. And that’s what you want– both in size and, hopefully, in profit. And then one day, things just don’t work the same way. And it can be a really confusing and frustrating thing. What’s really happening is your infrastructure is broken, but you don’t necessarily know that. The analogy I use with people is, “If you’re just trying to make dinner for four people, you can kind of swing into the grocery store on your way home and whip something together. But if you’re trying to make dinner for 400 people every single night, you need a different set of infrastructure.” You need to expand on how you’re gonna get by.

Tom Poland 03:17
That’s a terrific analogy. Me? I just go through a drive-thru. You know, “400 Big Macs please.” Yeah, that’s a great analogy! And I guess any little issue when you go from four to 400 gets magnified. So the things that aren’t a problem with four are a problem with 400. So what-

Alecia Huck 03:38
Absolutely! And you don’t know that it’s an infrastructure problem.

Tom Poland 03:42
No. And then those sorts of problems grow with the business. They grow in size, and the frustration grows, and so on. What would you say- so, just over four and a half minutes left. Let’s go to question three. What’s going on in the life of one of your executive leaders in their business life where they’re going, “Hang on, I’ve got symptoms of this problem that Alecia could help with!” What are the symptoms?

Alecia Huck 04:04
So you guys are gonna love this because you can’t just say it’s a certain revenue mark, and there’s no number of employees– it just varies too much from industry to industry. But there are five really good, reliable signals, right? Here they are. The first one is you have good people, but for some reason, it’s really hard to get good work out the door on time. Everything just is slow, and you don’t really know why. The second thing is you’re going to feel like you spend all your time in meetings, just trying to figure out what’s happening and you don’t have any time to do your actual job. That’s a clear sign your infrastructure is broken. The third one is people are going to miss things they shouldn’t. You’re going to see quality issues pop up and you’re going to hurt your best clients. It’ll be really frustrating. And then you’re going to think to yourself, “I can’t believe my people don’t get it. As I’ve explained before, I don’t know why they don’t get it.” And last, instead of having leaders that really step up and solve problems, they’ll pass them up the line to you and it’ll drive you crazy!

Tom Poland 05:01
Right. That’s a nice little list of painful symptoms. How it came to do you think that leaders just blame their people and do not understand it’s systemic? It’s an infrastructure issue.

Alecia Huck 05:13
It’s really common for you to think it’s your people. “I don’t know why I can’t get them to step up. I don’t understand how they don’t get it.” You see how it’s all tied together and even what you’re doing to contribute to it.

Tom Poland 05:23
And do you sometimes get that, “They just don’t seem to care as much as I do, but-” Anyway, I’ll move on. I guess some of them do. Sorry, I’m cutting into your time here. I should stick to the script. Question four, three minutes left, what are some of the common mistakes that people make? One of the big ones is everyone has to work harder, everyone has to work longer. Anything else that you can think of?

Alecia Huck 05:44
Yeah, they’re going to think you can hire their way out of it. Right? I’ll just get more people. They can add more cooks to their kitchen without better systems. And they’ll spend money on things like software, right? Project management software will fix everything. The new ERP and it fixes nothing! It just makes it worse, very expensive.

Tom Poland 06:03
So working longer, working harder and hiring more people, throwing software at it, which could actually serve to just confuse people. So they don’t even more if they don’t get it right. And obviously the-

Alecia Huck 06:11
And what you want to remember is you can only solve infrastructure problems with infrastructure solutions. You can’t solve them by hiring more, spending more, and working longer hours. It’s just not the way to fix it.

Tom Poland 06:23
And I guess people go to working longer and hiring more because that’s kind of the default, the easiest thing to do.

Alecia Huck 06:29
Absolutely!

Tom Poland 06:30
And this is why they need you. So two minutes left. One valuable- top tip! Question five is a top tip. What can people do that’s not gonna solve the problem, they’re gonna need you for that, but it might get them started on the road.

Alecia Huck 06:41
Yeah, so if you want to break out of that firefighting, where you’re just running around solving problems, here’s what I want you to do. It’s really super sophisticated. See this? Get a sheet of paper out. Write good on it. Write down what’s working. This takes 15 minutes, by the way, and then get a second sheet of paper, and write down what’s bad. What is not working? And then write down what is ugly. And when you have all that in front of you, I want you to pick one project. Like “We need to retrain people on our front lines”, or “We need a better tool for reporting. We need something simple to gather some of that information so our meetings are shorter.” Do this one thing, it’ll get you into big-picture thinking and out of small-picture thinking.

Tom Poland 07:20
The simplicity of this was pure genius, and it was fun. Good bet, I believe! Thank you, Alecia. One minute left, where can people go to find out more about what you do? I know there’s a QR code but for the sake of time, I’m gonna give them the answer. It’s www., you hold up the QR code. I’m gonna do the URL, the old-fashioned way, www.maverickandcompany.com. If you go there, you’ll be able to access this next part., but it’s from the homepage, but it’s /bigger-is-different. Maverickandcompany.com/bigger-is-different. What are they going to find there, Alecia? Real quick because I got one more question after this.

Alecia Huck 07:57
This amazing download that’s going to walk you through how to find the best high-value targets, and what structures you want to build next in your business. I put all of the stuff for years of client work.

Tom Poland 08:10
Go get it! 15 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t? And the answer in less than 10 seconds.

Alecia Huck 08:15
What do I want people to know? You don’t have to be somebody you’re not in order to win. You don’t have to have a room full of binders. You don’t have to sell your soul. You can win as you.

Tom Poland 08:25
Perfect! Alecia Huck, thank you so much for your time.

Tom Poland 08:33
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.