Business Alignment, Delegation, and Success with Alison Bechtel Clark

This engaging conversation revolves around Alison Bechtel Clark, an entrepreneur, trainer, and coach. Alison extensively shares her journey from running a large real estate company to launching a successful coaching business. She discusses the transformative power of aligning personal and business values and focuses on how to increase profits by working less. Alison also emphasizes the importance of delegation, efficient planning, and bringing personal authenticity to business interactions. Above all, the conversation highlights the necessity for small business owners to leverage their strengths and delegate tasks for growth and success.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:37 Understanding Alison's Coaching Approach
01:19 Alison's Journey into Coaching
02:45 The Power of Aligning Business with Personal Interests
03:34 Expanding Business Beyond Local Boundaries
04:06 Alison's Signature Business Victory Academy Program
04:54 The Importance of Mindset in Business
05:09 The Joy of Witnessing Client Breakthroughs
06:19 The Pitfalls of Comparing Yourself to Others
07:48 The Power of Authenticity in Business
16:14 The Impact of Personal Values on Business Success
25:09 The Importance of Setting Clear Boundaries in Business
27:19 Recognizing the Right Client
27:56 The Importance of Targeting Your Demographic
28:50 Understanding Your Business and Client Avatar
29:37 The Journey of Balancing Business and Personal Life
31:17 The Power of Delegation and Leveraging Others
35:28 The Impact of Delegation on Personal Life
37:59 The Struggles of Delegation and Overcoming Them
41:22 The Value of Time and Memories Over Business
47:22 The Business Victory Academy and Mastermind Program
51:04 Closing Remarks and Future Plans

Introduction and Guest Welcome

I met this lady and I needed to bring her to your attention. I wanted to talk and introduce you to Alison Bechtel Clark, a trainer, a coach, and all around great lady. And I just told her that I want to be like her husband when she grows up cause he does Ironman competitions.

So Alison, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Vito. I mentioned to you earlier that my wife's a coach as well. She's more of a financial home budget. I don't know if she's a coach, but she does help people get in alignment with living underneath their means and becoming more financially independent.

Understanding Alison's Coaching Approach

Talk, tell me about what you do and how you got into it. Yeah, absolutely. So I. I work mostly with entrepreneurs, and small business owners to really get their life and business into alignment. So I find that a lot of times. People get into business and they want to be tacky, they want to get the stuff done, they want to hit the goals, but along the way, they lose who they are or the joy in life because they're so busy doing that they forget all of the reason why they're doing it for.

And so my goal is to get my clients into life and business alignment so they have more fun, they get to work less and they get to enjoy life more with their people, why they're making more money. Very cool. Very cool.

Alison's Journey into Coaching

So how did you fall into this? It all happened a long time ago actually so I used to run a large real estate company that had about 400 agents working for me and there was one day I was in my office and one of my agents came in and He was very distraught with what was going on in his life.

His wife was pregnant and wanted to quit her cushy job and work and not work anymore, which meant he actually had to work. And so what happened was I was able to take my business planning background and we tailored his business plan to be a hundred percent about doing one thing that he loved. And the only thing he really liked to do was to have parties.

So taking what could have been a super big business plan, we narrowed it down to just one thing for 90 days and he tripled his income from the previous entire year in that 90-day window. And so I knew after that experience with him that I was really on to something that I could help people to do. Less work, but make more money in a shorter amount of time.

And so over the last 23 years, I've been fine-tuning how that process works and expanding it to be more just about not just what you do, but who's the person that you're bringing to the party called your business and your life. So it's more fun and engaging and people like to do what they're doing instead of the dread of, Oh my God, I have to go make lead generation calls or I've got to make this happen today.

It's more fun and exciting. That is awesome.

The Power of Aligning Business with Personal Interests

I gotta say that in the years that I did my happy hours, I would do a happy hour once a year, once a month, and I made a rip-roaring amount of money. And then. Every year at the end of the year, we would have something called a New Year's Eve primer party, which went from six to nine, and we would bring in the New Year's from New York.

So we'd see the brawl drop and throw streamers and poppers and all that. And those were great years. And since COVID, we just stopped doing it. So it's a great little reminder that we should be doing stuff. That's fun, right? That's social. Totally. And it creates a connection with your clients in a way that's not just about business.

It's really connecting with people on that one level. They get to see you as a human being too. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Yep, absolutely. That's great.

Expanding Business Beyond Local Boundaries

And you live here in San Jose, do you work with people outside of our great state? I actually have clients all over the place, all over the country, in Canada, the UK, and even a client in Africa.

So yes, everywhere. I do most of my coaching via Zoom these days. But I do in-person training as well, but most of it's via Zoom. So let me ask you, do you have a course or do you have a schedule like a six-month program? How does that work?

Alison's Signature Business Victory Academy Program

Yeah, actually I have my signature program called My Business Victory Academy.

It's a six-month program for entrepreneurs to really take a big picture, look at their values, their visions, where they're going in life, and how we attach their visions and values directly to their business vision so they can get those two things in alignment. to move forward with more momentum. Full disclosure, by the way.

I'll jump in here. Just for full disclosure, I've been able to, I've been lucky enough to participate in that course, and so it's pretty phenomenal, and just hearing you describe all the things you do Allison, and what you do, I was like, wow, that really describes what happens in the course. That's, perfectly well said, and I can testify to that.

Awesome.

The Importance of Mindset in Business

Because we're not here to pitch your idea or your business. We're here to really get people into a mindset of centeredness. And if you're a small business owner, a veteran-owned business owner, or even in, do you work with independent people at all? Or just, yeah, I do. Yes.

The Joy of Witnessing Client Breakthroughs

What kind of breakthroughs are you trying to help people?

What's what's a great breakthrough that you can share with us? Oh my goodness. There are so many. I think for me, my biggest, greatest joy when I'm working with a client is when they have that moment of seeing the one little thing that's been stopping them from everything that they want.

And I find most times the people I work with are already successful. It's just that sometimes there's just a little sprinkle of dirt on top of whatever's going on that has to be brushed away for them to see what's possible. And I have, I've had clients who had a moment of clarity of Oh my gosh, I've been doing this task every day for the last 10 years.

But I get no results. Why am I still doing this? And the second they stop doing it, it's like the anchor's been released and they're like the ship is sailing away and they're going I am now guiding my ship in the direction I actually want to go instead of doing the things I think I should be doing or I'm supposed to be doing because someone else is doing it and it works for them but why isn't it working for me?

And I think most entrepreneurs do that.

The Pitfalls of Comparing Yourself to Others

Like we think If something is working for someone else, it should work for me. And if it doesn't work for me, I'm either stupid or I'm not capable or there are these limiting conversations that happen in the background when we compare ourselves to others.

And so seeing them like release that comparison, that's the greatest gift. Cause then we can tap into their true, not just their values, but their strengths, what they actually, their gifts, what they bring to the table at a completely different level. Yeah, that's great. I think that's what was. Really illuminating to me when you offered a really different way of looking at things, I think, or I don't think I know what happens a lot in, either social media or personal growth or whatever it is.

I think I've even. Pursued a lot of this too, where, Oh, read a book about somebody who's done it right. Or listen to that podcast about somebody who's done it and okay. This is how they did it. Okay. Got it. All right. So now I need to incorporate this by doing it this way. This is good. This is how I will get to that promised land of whatever that might be for me.

And. And that's a different take though. So what you just described is it's not doing it how somebody else has done it. Although it can work, it's take a different look at it and see what works for me or for the person who's trying to figure out the next level. I think it's just a totally different way to look at it.

And there's a lot that can be dug out from there for sure. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I'm, and I'm never one to say it has to be done. ABC X, Y, and Z steps one through seven have to be followed. That's not how it works.

The Power of Authenticity in Business

Like it's really and for anyone who's struggling in business in any way, shape, or form, I ask you to look at what are your greatest gifts that you're not bringing to the party?

Because even if like my client from forever ago, the only thing he liked to do was parties and he was damn good at it. So when that's what he did every single week and here's the caveat I told him, I said, don't become an alcoholic. I already saw Beatles wheels through the hill.

Happy hour every day.

But what I told him was to invite two or three couples who are friends of yours and their ticket to get to your, Freaking awesome party is they bring up a couple that you've never met before. And so he instantly expanded his network, created connections with people on a one-on-one basis as a friend, and trusted him.

And so his income went through the roof, but that's all I had him do. There were no admin tasks. There was no other junk on his list because he sucked at that. He wasn't good at it and he didn't like it. And if it got put on his list, there's no way in the world he was going to do it. So let's just do one thing.

And so if you're struggling in any shape of your business, it's what's the one thing that you're really good at that you really love to do more of that, like start just with that one thing and see how things will shift and change. Cause it's not just the tasks you do. It's the energy you bring to it.

People can feel your authenticity. They know if you're excited about what you're doing or not. And so if you make that tiny little adjustment, it can make all the difference in the world. Yeah, that's, I got to tell you, I'll testify to that, even though we just met I bounced around. I've been in real estate 20 years this month, and I bounced around.

Dropping door hangers to door knocking to cold calling to postcards to Instagram posts. And I still do a little bit of posting on Facebook. I have this thing called R E W T F. And it's just these really obnoxious things that people do to houses. It's pretty funny. Yeah, but that's one of the things.

And to me, marketing is constantly touching without saying, Hey, do you want to buy or sell a house? I always shied away from cold calling. And when I got in, I, fell, I found a lady named Karen Carr who was teaching people agents, real estate agents, how to do YouTube, how to do YouTube. And it's basic stuff like how to sell your house, five easy steps, and, little video tours and stuff like that.

And I fell in love with it. I was horrible at it. I'm at video, but I go out four times a week and the Market update videos, and I don't expect people to watch them. I tell you, because it's like boring, boring 10 minutes of here are the numbers today, and this is what it means, but what it does is there's a little flash, a little tiny signal saying, Hey, Vito did a video on real estate.

And it's a constant reminder that people, to people that I'm doing real estate. And I've had a tremendous couple of years, I tell you, it's just been fantastic. But you keep on talking about that partying and I'm thinking I'm going to go back to the happy hour thing.

But that's what you're good at too. If you don't, you, I think you used to have anyone at your house, right? You'd have a party at your house every, in the that's the New Year's. Yeah, just the New Year's, part of the year thing. It's a primer but since COVID, we've shied away from it because, of liability and blah, blah, blah.

So I think you go to the Brit. You know where the Brit is, right? Not too far from my house. Yeah, you could go there, you and your husband get drunk and crawl back home. No, her husband can train for the triathlon on the way there. That's true. You can train for the triathlon on the way back.

We joke about him only out of pure jealousy. Absolutely. Let's see. I can ask what you do for fun, but I guess you watch them run iron bands. I do watch a lot of that. Yes. And I drive my kids to hockey practice a lot. Yes. That's pretty much it. Either ice hockey or Ironman. Those are the two things in between.

Your husband does hockey or do you play hockey? Oh, no. My, my kids play hockey. Oh, very cool. I watch a lot of hockey. They play a lot of hockey. Are you a good ice skater? I'm horrible. Like me, they make so much fun of me because I'm so bad. Yeah, it's terrible. And you have 25 kids. So it's pretty much, yeah.

It's a busy house. I only see a dog. I only see like a boxer. Oh, you do. Holy cow. You did one, two, three. Holy moly. You must be Catholic. I have kids, my husband and my mother-in-law, and two dogs. You're an amazing soul. You're a very patient person, but I guess the mother-in-law can drive to hockey, right?

I don't want that. Okay. And Alice, you also completed your own Iron Woman, yeah. I did a half Iron Man, 10 years ago and afterward, I was like, I'm never doing a full Iron Man. And then whatever reason, a few months ago, I got inspired to do an actual full Iron Man is 140. 6 miles in a day.

And so that's coming up in April. April 27th is my race day. So I've been training. I don't know why I thought you had done one. No, not yet. No, I did a 70. 3, which is half of it, but you did a half one. Gotcha. 10 years ago. Okay. Yeah. All right. Just thinking about that makes me sore. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. I try to think about it.

I just focus on every, daily workout I have to do and not think about the long day. It's up to 17 hours. You have to do the race. It's a long day. That's crazy. That's like Gran Turismo. I don't know if you ever watched that movie. It just came out a few months ago and it just popped on Netflix or I don't know.

It did. Yeah, I actually, just watched it on my flight to Texas last week. I was doing a training over there and I watched it on the way. Cause my kids saw it and they loved it. Yeah. I think it's such an inspirational message that you do something that you're totally in love with, figure out how to do it and you're going to get knocked down doing it.

Yeah. And there's going to be things that get in your way and you got to figure out how to get around it and reach down deep inside your heart and pull it up in your heartstrings. And, I say putting on your adult pants, because I teach courses on how to get in front of video to agents, because there are a lot of people that have stage fright, including me.

And you got to put your adult pants on, and it's just so inspirational to watch people Go through that fall and fail and not give up. Totally. The other two I was thinking about it because that movie was super inspirational about what he had to go through, but also the transformation that happened with his support group, right?

For when he was willing to race and fail and fail and fail and not be able to get a fourth place to be able to get his actual license finally he did his whole pit crew hated him before that and it's something they're like, I'll race with you any day and his coach was pushing him constantly and his dad who came around like the what I walked away with was When you put like your stake in the ground to say, this is who I am.

And this is what I'm creating. When you stick with it and are committed to it and things start to change, then other people like the ripple effect goes out. That was what was really very cool for me to resonate with me the people who support me are just as important as what I bring to the table.

But I got to go first. You got to put that line in the sand and step over it and then let people see that you can fail and you're okay, because that's part of life, right? You have to learn how to fall. Just if you're ice skating, Allison, get out there and skate. That's the only way you're going to learn is by skating.

I'm with her on that one. I'm a terrible ice skater. I'm a great icefaller. However, I can see that. Me too. Really? Yes. The last time I skated with my kids. Actually, I slipped and fell and my phone was in my back pocket. Killed my phone. That's a good thing you had your phone there because it could have broken my fall.

All my kids skate. I skate. I've skated since I was a kid. I'm from Canada, so I was and I teach people that the only way you're going to learn how to get better at skating is by falling just You know, and that's the same mindset, right? It totally is.

The Impact of Personal Values on Business Success

Now, one thing you talked about earlier or I don't know if we were on screen yet we're talking about I think I brought it up I've heard you speak on this, on connecting your values into your business, and how that can. How that can increase basically your profit, make you more efficient, make you make your business grow because you're in alignment. Could you give me a little bit more on that? Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I remember when I first started in real estate, actually, I was very I felt like I had to have two different worlds, right?

Like my business life was one thing and my personal life was another. I was very young. I was like 20 years old. I wasn't confident enough in who I was as a human being to be able to bring my personal self to my professional life. I felt like I had to act super professional over here and not really be me.

And I realized over the years that the more that I was in alignment with my values, who I am, my personality, and what I bring to the table, the more I could connect with people on a real level. And it wasn't fake. It was more authentic. And so I started teaching my real estate agents and my clients at the time, like, how do you really get in tune with number one, what you value in life because who you are in life is who you're going to bring to the business.

And if you don't people know. They know that you're faking it. And so that inauthenticity actually repels people away. But when you really own, here's who I am. Like I'm a person who values family integrity and connection with people. And when that's where I come from, then that creates a magnetizing effect where the people who resonate with me come to me.

And so, that's how you create real connections with people. And I find that. What my clients can really dig into here are my values. Number one, what's most important for me here is the people I like to work with most. And here are my strengths. Like when we can put all those things into one big ball of awesomeness, that's when things start to click because they're feeling like.

All of the wholeness of them is coming to the table. They get to be authentic and have fun instead of being in the struggle of, I have to act a certain way and live in this box. Like the box goes away and they start to expand where they're coming from. And I think most people also, instead of operating from that place, they want to, they can operate from a place where they want to be able to attract as many people as they can.

And so they're not being authentically who they want to be or who they are. who they are and so they can find their people, right? Instead of trying to, they're, it's almost like a total varsity game, right? So they want to try to get whoever they can, anybody's a client. Anybody can buy my service product or thingy.

And instead, they're not attracting, the people they really want to work with. And here's the other piece of that too, is that when you think that anyone is a client. You attract anyone and then those people tend to be the ones who are the problem clients. Because you're not in alignment, right?

You're not on the same vibration. Like I have a client actually, Patrick knows her too. We were having our call the other day and we're talking about your ideal client. She goes, Oh, my ideal client used to be anybody. She's a stylist, right? She dresses people for a living. Anybody who wears clothes.

Here are you taking them shopping? Are you going to Walmart? Are you going to Nordstrom? Who's your actual client? And it took a while for her to land down on who the people are that she actually serves. But when she did, they got into alignment and now she has clients that are really grateful for her services and willing to pay her what she's worth.

Because they know that it's valuable to them, but people who, if you're trying to serve everyone, they're not going to see the value in the services you provide. That's so true. I've, and I'm thinking about all the times this has happened to me. So just to be honest, like I, this is exactly where I started from.

And I can think of all those times when I said yes to folks that did not resonate with me or not that they were bad people or anything like that. They just weren't my people and they weren't the clients that I wanted to work with the most. And it was a disservice to them, frankly, and it's a disservice to me because they didn't get the best of me.

And it just doesn't always work out to be a winning scenario. It's probably more win-lose. Like they got great service from me. However, I didn't get it. I didn't get compensated for my time. I would say that happened probably a lot. And that's not their fault, that's my fault, right?

That totally makes sense. And that's still a journey I think I'm on and getting better and better. I don't think I'm ever perfect there. However, I can totally identify with all that. I can tell you straight up that I've been doing this, that for about five, 10 years, the avatar I saw idea.

And every once in a while, I get off in my little direction. And I will accept a client and every time I do it, I am sorry that I did it winds up taking more and more time. It takes me emotional energy. It gives me self-doubt. I regret every time doing that. I had a lady who I think was a narcissist at the beginning at the end, but She just, she was so sweet and so nice.

I'm like, Oh, this is great. I'm going to sell her house. And she just turned on me and everything, it was the worst experience for me and, I pride myself on giving good service being there for my people, and answering everything. And at the end of the day, she stabbed me in the back so many times that I just.

I had to relegate myself to just communicating with her through email and have my broker tied into it so that because everything that I said was slanderous and a lie she was perfect and nothing she did was the way. It could have gone smoothly if she doubted everything from the time we got into contract, which was just a horrible place to be.

Yeah. Wow. I was thinking as we were, as you were talking to me on that and I was listening to myself talk, why are you going to fire me? You're a horrible person, you're fired horribly. Cause you haven't started this happy hour thing yet. Okay. Tomorrow I'll meet you at the brick. Anyways, what's he saying?

Oh, I think it took me becoming a dad, and starting a family to realize how valuable time is. Like time is so important. Of course, I knew that already. However, it's just, I understood it at a different level. And so I have to be more choosy about who I work with because I don't have all the time in the world.

I need to be very efficient with my time. Whereas in my twenties or when I was first starting out I had the time. So I need money now, right? I need money now. I need money now. So I'll see whoever I can see. And they're all potential clients. However, it's a recipe for disaster.

And I can go back in time and give myself that advice. Hey, get choosy faster. And things will happen faster. For sure, I believe it stunted my growth by working with whoever I could. I don't think it stunted your growth. I think it made you realize who you're Multi-client is. Sure, absolutely. It just took, it, it took me way longer to do that than it should have.

I think there was growth,, in working with people who weren't the ideal clients. It's just it took me raising, starting a family for me to really oh, I need to buckle this down. This is every time I have a listing I sold a house right down the street from.

From you in Cambrian I had so many people asking me if I would represent them. I was a listing agent and typically I don't like to do it. So I put my guard up and I have really strict guidelines as to how you're going to work with me if I'm going to represent you as a buyer. And first and foremost the only thing I give you as a buyer when I'm the listing agent is you get insider knowledge as to what the highest offer is.

That's it and you have to beat it. Or else I'm not going to represent you because that's my value add. I'm not going to give you any of my commission. I'm not going to get, I'm not, I'm working for the seller. And I had five people contact me and I let them know exactly where we stand on that.

And none of them wanted to play games or play ball with me. And four of them went away and one of them gave me an offer. I said, here's the top three offers. He goes, I'm going to go 1, 000 over the second highest offer. I go, okay, I'm not going to write the offer for you. He goes, okay, let me know if anything happens.

I'm like, you're not going to be my client because you're just nothing but trouble. So goodbye. That's it. And it's part of my ethics and part of my. Part of what we do in real estate is you have to either represent your client or you don't if you don't then Where do you stand?

The Importance of Setting Clear Boundaries in Business

Yeah But doesn't that feel good Vito to have that clear boundary set beforehand, so it's not wishy-washy There's no second-guessing yourself.

You're just like here's who I am and here's what I provide and if you love it great If you don't that's okay, too. And yeah, I've made those mistakes I have been doing this for 20 years and I think people realize it, and my client, like I was showing my client where we work. Cause I have a dashboard of all that.

We have 13 offers, 14 offers. And I was like, this is where it is. And this is where this guy came in. And he's she's what do you think? I go, I think he's a pain in the ass. Let's not deal with him. He goes, yep, let's not. And that was it. And the discussion of me taking two commissions was never on the table because.

Well, second, first, second of all, if that happens, I split my buyer's agent commission and give it back to the seller, not to the buyer, because then it's a much better deal. She wouldn't want it either way, but at the same time, I just had the little spiny spidey sense on the back of my neck saying, this guy is not worth your time.

Just walk away. And there are agents out there that are desperate and will take that money. And I can't come from that. so many different ideas about that Mindset of black. It's just this dangerous. That can As you're talking, I'm thinking of experiences I've had with that too, and it comes back to, uh, what you were saying, Allison, if I'm clear about, who I am and what I want and who I'm working with, it just makes it so much easier to say no to those temptations, because as an advisor it can be very tempting when somebody comes to me and says they have, X amount of dollars somewhere that needs that they need support with, right?

It's Oh let me have at it. Oh, these other things are going on. And this happens very often where I can end up wasting a lot of time meeting with somebody who is not ready to have advice. They don't want any, they don't even want advice, right? They just, somebody told them to meet with an advisor.

They're doing it. And they're better off just leaving their money in. The bank or a savings account. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. It's just what was right for them at that moment. And me having to go through the process of trying to educate.

Recognizing the Right Client

Just so I can get this sale, so to speak, or to get this client knowing, and I already know in the back of my mind you know what?

This person is not right for me. I'm trying to convince them right now. And is it going beyond an education? And this is going to blow up my face. Why do I know that? Cause it's happened before. Helping to be clear about who I am, what I want, and who I want to work with helps. Even in those situations where it's not even nefarious, where it's not a bad person.

It's just not the right person. That's really helped me for sure. It's just been being clear on those things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head there too, where you said, if you feel like, when you feel like you have to convince them to work with you, they're not your people.

The Importance of Targeting Your Demographic

If they come calling you, that's why I don't cold call. I'm just getting back into emailing after probably three or four years, just to remind people that I do, these daily videos. Market updates. But that's really just more of a value add just to remind them because I'm full force on Facebook and that's where my people are.

That's where my demographic, that's where my avatar is. Those are my people and they call me. They call me when they have questions and sometimes it's Hey Vito, do you know a plumber? I'm like, there you go Plumber no, I'm like, hey, do you want to buy or sell a house? Never ever do they call me and say I have to sell the house or I have to sell my mom's house or whatever And it comes to me.

Isn't it? Am I doing a million dollars? A million deals a year. No, but you know what? I am not trying to get to that point. I'm, I'm abundantly happy where I am right now. Yeah.

Understanding Your Business and Client Avatar

Okay, let's go back to your business,. I sent you a text a couple minutes ago. Allison, who's your typical client?

You mentioned real estate, but do you, you have a whole bunch, but who is your avatar? I would guess is a good question. My ideal client is a small business entrepreneur, really someone who has between one to five employees, maybe who's at the point of trying to figure out how to grow my business?

How do I get a business plan? How do I create leverage in my life? Even if they don't have a ton of cash flow right now or resources at the moment, because I'm really good at figuring out ways to leverage what you do have. Because when I first got started, I was running my real estate company, like I said before.

The Journey of Balancing Business and Personal Life

At the time I was not married and had no children. I was working 14 to 17-hour days every day. And I loved it, right? I loved what I did. I loved working with my agents. I would do 10 recruiting interviews a day sometimes, and I'd be like wiped by the time I got home. But I loved it. And then I got pregnant.

And I was like, holy crap, I can't bring a kid into my world. Are you freaking kidding me? This is ridiculous. I would never see this child. I have to fix something. And so throughout the next seven, or eight months, I figured out who I had in my life that I could teach to be me so I could work less time.

And so by the time my son was born, I went from working six to seven days a week to working four days a week. And then lo and behold, nine months later, I got pregnant again. My second son was born. I went down to working three days a week. And then about 10 months later, I got pregnant one more time with my daughter and we figured out what the problem was and we had it fixed so that way I didn't have to do this again.

So my third child. When you say the problem, do you mean the repeated getting pregnant over and over? That part. Yes, we figured it out. No more happy hours in Britain. All good. So when my daughter was born, I ended up only working two days to eight-hour days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, eight hours a day.

That was it. But what I realized was that after she was born, I took a look at my financials one day. I'm like, Holy crap, I'm making like three times more money than I was when I was working 17 hours a day. But I'm not working that much. Like, how did I go from that to this? What did it take?

The Power of Delegation and Leveraging Others

And it really took empowering the people around me and really training and teaching and pouring into others who are there to be able to think like me.

So they could be me while I was gone. And it was the most liberating thought ever because I'd heard some of my mentors saying, anything that or what do they say? There's no task too small to subcontract. And I'd be like, but it's a light bulb. I could fix the light bulb. Oh, the toilet's clogged.

I can fix that. This needs to be cleaned. I could do that. And I was putting everything on to me. But when I let go and focused on the few things that only I could do. Just those few little things that I was super good at. And I really couldn't teach someone else how to do that. That was when everything changed.

I was working way less. I was earning way more. And I got to spend time with my family. And so that's how I got really passionate about what I do, was seeing all of my real estate agents working their tails off. Because a lot of people don't realize, Real estate agents don't get paid unless they close a deal, right?

And so that's how most of our businesses work. As all entrepreneurs, we don't get paid unless we actually provide the value and the deal closes. And so these people would be coming around going, Oh, show me 47 houses. And I literally had a client, a real estate agent come in. She goes, Oh my God, I'm exhausted.

We saw literally 23 houses today. And I'm like, What? How many miles did you drive? Oh, 400. How much did you pay? How much did you spend on gas? And when we really started looking at that, she realized she was putting herself in the hole every day by over-giving to people instead of setting a boundary and going, this is what I'm good at.

I need to improve at showing properties. So figuring out how to leverage that part of it is something that I'm really passionate about. So these small business owners can do everything because they start the business knowing they're good at that thing, but then they realize they're not just the producer of the product itself, but they got to do all the marketing, right?

They got to do all the financial stuff. They have to do everything. overwhelming sometimes. A able to get rid of all the narrow down to a few thin I find like the real rub you're able to go to get some momentum and start m

I'm not sure if I answered your question, but that was what I wanted to talk about, no, I feel like your passion comes through there. Like you started, you got in the zone like this. You were totally on it. It was like, Holy cow, sign me up. I want to, I want your permission to share this video with my video editing clients.

I also have a video post-production company called Video Ease, and it's huge. Oh. Lost DeVito. I think we lost DeVito. Wait, so you guys froze. Oh, there you go. No, you froze. So my video editing company, can you hear me now? Yep. There we go. Okay, my video editing company. I think we could really my clients and my prospects could hear that message because that's my USP.

Your job is to sell real estate, not sit and edit a video for four to six hours. Totally. You can absolutely hire somebody, but then you're spending time managing that person and tracking them down. So that's why my company exists. And that's growing. And yeah. So I'm going to share this with them as well.

Awesome. Yeah, that's the fact, right? And leveraging other people so that you can, we talked about it at the beginning. Doing what, I need to spend my time doing what I love and what's best about me and bringing that to my business as opposed to all these other things that drain me of energy, that get me out of the mood, that don't excite me, and so on and so on.

Totally. Yeah, because here's the other thing. So I actually have videos that need to be edited. For me. And they sit in my box knowing they need to be edited. Unless I send 'em to someone else, it's never gonna happen. Because if I were to do it, one of two things is gonna happen. The first thing is I'm gonna sit and stare at it and be really frustrated because I don't really know how to do it very well.

And even if I did edit it, it'd probably be a pretty crappy edit and the end product would not be very good. Yeah.

The Impact of Delegation on Personal Life

And then during that time, I'd be struggling to try to get this. thing done, my energy would be completely drained. I'd be really irritated and frustrated. And then by the time my kids get home from school, I'd be a grumpy mom instead of a happy mom to see them when they come home.

So it's like your business life gets into your personal life when you put too much weight on yourself as opposed to letting go of the stuff that is really not in your zone of genius. Let it go and do what you're really good at to make more money from those few things. to pay for the leverage piece of it.

Oh, I like that zone of genius. I like that. I can totally attest to that because. I am creative and I can spend eight hours on a 10-minute video and I love it. And it's so rewarding to me. But then I look back and I go, I could have been at a happy hour, networking with people, bringing in business. And for the few dollars that it costs me to edit that, I have somebody else do it. I could have been making more business and then, so like my whole bit, my whole real estate business is tied around how to leverage other people, right? I have a project manager, I have a project manager, I have a transaction coordinator, I have an escrow team, I have other agents that do other things for me and I sit here and bring in business.

That's my job. And that's, this is really what I like doing. I love talking to people. I love networking. And that's what at San Jose State, we do our financial intelligence program there. And then we do, we talk to amazing people like you. And this is the stuff that I enjoy. Would I love to spend eight hours a day editing videos?

Probably not. But doing it once in a while is a great joy. And it's just something that, I'm a do-it-yourselfer. You're, you can't scale your business out as a do-it-yourselfer. That's right. That's right. And as you were talking about all those compounding effects from staring at the video all the way down to grumpy mom, when kids get home, it's like the second and third order effects as we use in the military.

It's it's not just the one thing you're fixing by leveraging somebody else. There's compounding effects here that ripple out. I think that's what I mean by that rubber being the road when you can dial it in that way. Don't discount the impact those things can make. Yeah. I think delegation is the most important.

A difficult thing to train people. And it took me a roller, I like to have control. And so for me to delegate is to delegate correctly because you could be a complete control freak, right?

The Struggles of Delegation and Overcoming Them

Yeah, if you're a control freak and you're like micromanaging every minute of everybody's time then we're you're not scaling your body out You're not scaling your business out and it's strange for me because being in my 27th year of Military service like as a nco in the military I've actually been pretty good doing it there And for some reason I haven't been able to translate that into my business as well Oddly enough and I don't say that Because I think so, I know so from feedback that I'm effectively doing it there.

And so it's not that I do know how, I just, I've been, I haven't been so good at it in my personal life for whatever reason. Huh, I was going to ask you, actually, ask you about that because I would think in the military you do a lot of leveraging and delegating. So what do you think is the difference between The structure of the military of being able to delegate easier than you do individually on your own.

I know. I can answer that perfectly for Patrick. His wife is in charge. He's the one. We all know that. That's the facts. That's pretty facts. It might be me, but it's a fact. That's true. That's a whole other conversation there. That'd be a good conversation, but that's a whole other conversation.

Yeah, that's a great question, Allison. I think the structure in the context there, it's almost inherent that you need to, that that you do that and it's built into the the culture, right? That doesn't mean everybody's good that you have the control freak there and it's a problem.

Whereas I feel like I'm on my own here, right? I don't have, I don't have a staff or I don't have people to that, that build that culture into. It's just me, not, it isn't just me. However, I talked to different pieces. I haven't done well in creating that culture so maybe that's your next part of your journey, buddy, man, probably.

I think I have a problem with trusting others with the responsibilities I have with the people that I serve. Yeah. That's an enlisted micromanagement right there. Yeah, totally. And again, I can do it there and I can't do it here or haven't been able to be as good at it here. Yeah. I can just tell from my experience that if I hadn't been put in that position to get myself committed to figuring out how to delegate by getting pregnant, I wouldn't be, I would also still have too much on my plate all the time.

So like putting yourself in the mindset or maybe taking some time to really reflect on what's at stake for not If I keep not delegating, what's the future of my business versus when I get committed to figuring out what resources I have around me, I could utilize to be able to leverage what's possible, right?

Cause there are two, those are two very different conversations and both of them probably go on at the same time, but which one are you really going to get behind to create a different outcome? So you can spend more time with your kids because that's really what's at stake. That's right. That's right.

And you're hitting the nail on the head and through the work I've done with you actually. And the forcing function of having a family has had me really be conscious about those things now. So I say I'm not as good as it yet because this is something that I'm consciously starting to work on. And I realize Hey, wait a second.

This is not connecting. I'm good here, but not good there. Okay, let's work on this. Yeah.

The Value of Time and Memories Over Business

Yeah, from experience, I can tell you that I grew up without a dad. I had stepdads. They were there, right? But they weren't there. They weren't my dad. And my dad was never around. And part of that made me realize that I always wanted to be the parent that was at everything.

And I didn't go to 100 percent of them, but I went to 99 or maybe 95 percent of them. And I sacrificed. A lot. I sacrifice business. I sacrifice a lot every time I go on vacation. I lost a transaction. I deal. It just goes away, right? I just accept it. But that's okay. Because my abundant mindset is going to come back to me.

And I still feel like I wish I had more time with my kids. My son's in college now, he's out. My daughters are twins and they're in junior, and they're juniors in high school. So I'm trying to spend as much time as I can with them. And just realizing that I'm on the tail end of where Patrick is right now because he's just a brand new parent.

I just miss sleep. I just want to sleep. Yeah, you'll get that. You'll get back to that. Catnaps, dude. Just look at it from the 500-foot view and you'll not. Be disappointed or regret anything. Don't regret missing out on a hockey game for sure. For sure. That's why I think I've mentioned before that the one benefit, there are many benefits, but a benefit that I'm very clear about being a dad, cause there are a lot of downsides of being a dad at 43 instead of 23 is that I'm so much clearer about the passing of time.

Like I know time is just like not in ample supply the way I would love it to be. And it's been making, it's just made it very clear to me to be very present when I'm with my kids, and when I'm not, that makes sure what I'm doing is efficient and powerful and that what can I need to start working on these things to leverage like we were talking about so that I can free up more of my time.

Yeah, that's really helped me with that for sure. And it's still a journey, still working on that.

I don't know about you, Allison, but for me, the sleep comes and goes and as you get older, you're nowhere near as old as I am, but that's right. I find that I have insomnia. When I wake up, I'm always going back to work, thinking about work, thinking whatever. And it's just part of life. And I feel like I've sacrificed a lot.

But I do have memories and that's more important to me than anything. I agree. But you're saying that you can actually have an idea of how to leverage this and scale it out and use other people that use other people, but leverage other people. Yeah. The real thing that I discovered over time is that there are people who actually love to do the stuff that I hate.

That's their strength zone, their zone of genius, is doing like the accounting, the bookkeeping, the task stuff, the paperwork, the things I never want to do. They like, love it, and when I give them those things, I'm relieved, they're relieved it's a win all the way around. It's just finding the right people who can support you to do those.

That's truly it, right? I love doing the project management of getting a house ready to sell, like dealing with contractors and digging in and getting dirty and bringing in staging and doing all that stuff. But that's a good 40 hours per listing 50 hours that I could be otherwise building my business or spending time with my kids.

Yeah. So I do pay, I pay my property manager, and my project manager out of my paycheck. I feel it's fair and equitable to all sides because it's giving me back my life. So I don't know what you need to do, Patrick, maybe administratively or marketing-wise or what have you. Yes. All the above. And yeah, working on that too.

So getting those pieces in place for 2024. And I gotta say a lot of that was due to some, to a lot of the work we did together Allison. So I'm very, I have a lot of gratitude for that because it really supported me. Not that you gave me answers just to be clear, but it helped me. I guess gave me a framework to think about these things in a way that with just many more supporters get to a decision faster, if you will.

Awesome. Yeah. All right. I think that's pretty much it. I didn't ask you where your favorite restaurant is. Oh, I love the Vegetarian House, actually, in downtown San Jose. Vegetarian House. Are you a vegetarian? Mostly, yes. I do eat shrimp and salmon. A pescetarian might be better.

But I'm also gluten-free, I don't really eat much meat, but the rest of my family does, but I prefer vegetables. One of my daughters is a total meat eater and the other one's a vegetarian and I always, I go I support your vegetarianism 110%, but the caveat is I get to bust your chops about being a vegan.

So everything is, she's a vegan. She's I'm not a vegan. I'm a vegetarian. I go, it doesn't matter to me, but she does. I'm goofing around. That's funny. Yeah, we're good. We didn't cover it, but just just so you know veto. Allison also used to be a competitive and dominant swimmer. Oh really?

Yeah. Yes. How do you swim in Arizona? You come from Arizona. Yeah, there are pools everywhere in Arizona. But it's dry. It's like a dry heat. It's a desert. Oh, it's seriously, like 110 in Arizona feels way colder than like 100 degrees here. 90 degrees, even 95. It's a totally different animal. It's so hot here compared to Arizona.

I don't know if I'm gonna buy that one. For real, I'm telling you. It's true! And I didn't realize it until we moved here and had our first summer in San Jose. I was like, dang, it's only 90, but it feels like 105 in Arizona. It's so different. It's not the swampy humidity, but it is humidity and the humidity versus the dry aridness of the desert.

It makes a huge difference. It does. It's true. I have one last question for you, Allison.

The Business Victory Academy and Mastermind Program

I know you do the Business Victory Academy, which is like your flagship course where the people you talked about that you'd like to work with go through a process, right? Is there anything else that, is there any other ways to work with you or is that the way?

No that's one of the main ways to work with me for sure. That's like my foundational piece for entrepreneurs to get their businesses in alignment, right? To lay the foundation for their values, their vision, where they're going with their business, and get, their strategic action plan, which is my one-page business plan.

47 pages, it could be like a narrowed-down business plan. And so from there, once that's all in place, then my next program is a leadership program. And so it's the leadership Academy all about how do you lead as a leader of your company? How do you grow? How do you hire people? How do you find the right people?

How to instill a culture in your business, like all the big picture stuff to actually build a, like more of a company, if you will. So you have more going on than just you by yourself. Then I also have a mastermind program for like-minded business owners to come on twice a month to be able to do a mastermind together and talk about what's working, and what's not working, and dig into those types of things.

And I love the mastermind. It's probably one of my favorite things actually because when I get it's like a curated group of people who come together like I get to pick and choose who's a part of it. It's so cool to hear their interactions with each other. And one person's experience leads to the other.

And what I found, I read a study the other day, that group programs actually create transformation five times faster than individual coaching programs because of the group working together and giving each other feedback. You just grow exponentially learning from each other's experiences. Yeah, I bet I could attest to that in my experiences in group type of learning activities like a mastermind for sure.

Yeah, I think we experienced that just today, the last 54 minutes. We got together, started throwing ideas, and grew together. Yeah, totally. We'll have to have Alison out to the happy hour. And then we'll have your email now, so you can't get rid of me. You get to meet John who will convince you how to have to train for your Ironman.

Exactly. I'm not going to do it now. No, I'm too old. What? That's the one thing I will not do is run. I got run into the ground in the Marines and I hate the PFT sit-ups, pull-ups, and running. Those are the things I hate doing. My husband is 54. I know how old you are, Vito. I probably have better. He probably has better hips than me too.

How did I put that into the gutter all of a sudden? Oh boy. Oh boy. All right. Alison do you have a trial or any kind of way of. for us.

Something like I'm open to doing 30-minute coaching sessions with people like a laser-focus coaching session to get them on track with one thing. I can certainly do that. And you deal with not just service small businesses, but you do parts of product sales too right? Correct. Yeah. We should send them over to send her over to Wayne.

Yeah, I was going to say that's awesome. Allison, as you, you would offer, and just on clear you're, you will let anybody we send your way. Just to get experience you get and get some coaching for no more than three minutes on a laser focus obstacle or challenge or having to move forward.

Wow. Totally. And I'm sure the caveat is, one per week or one per month or what have you, but it's also a great opportunity for you to check them out and see if they're coachable and pliable, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I can send you guys a link for that too, if you want. Perfect. Awesome.

Closing Remarks and Future Plans

Thanks for your hour today. That was awesome. Yeah, my pleasure. So nice to meet you, Vito. I'll see you at my happy hour. Awesome, I can't wait. Never make sure you get them appetizers to be vegetarian appetizers. There you go. Of course. I'll get shrimp. I'll get shrimp special for you. Thanks, Alison.

Thanks for coming guys. See you. Bye. Thanks, everybody. Cool.

Get your free 30-minute interview with Alison here: coachbechtel+FI@gmail.com

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