How to Increase the Profitability and Productivity – with Louis Spagnuolo. PART 3
Louis David Spagnuolo
?? C.E.O. ?? Entrepreneur ?? Investigator ?? Family Office ?? Partnerships ?? Insurance ?? Proven.ai ?? Click To FOLLOW ME ??
How to Increase the Profitability and Productivity of Your Business while keeping Overhead Costs Low
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : It shows them exactly where every piece of the puzzle is in real-time. So they could see the people that are in the beginning, what they’re doing to people in the middle, and the people in the end, and then they have their own goals and objectives that are assigned each day. So then, everybody really knows what needs to get done for the day. And then at the end of the day they could see a recap and see what got done, find out it didn’t get done, and then if anyone’s behind or ahead we can analyze that in real-time so we keep our schedule consistent.
OWEN: Good. And so, you say you have the framework, you have your own proprietary built, I guess project management tool. What else are we not talking about that you guys uses part of your every day workflow that helps with this whole ability for your business to run without you? If there are other things you can share please do share all of those.
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : Yeah. I believe in keeping things simple, so we kind of believe in the kiss metaphor where it’s keep it simple stupid. So the simpler we could make things, I think the less chance you have of kind of going off-track. And basically we have it set-up where it’s almost like the army where it’s so structured that everybody knows what they need to do. It’s almost an assembly line. There’s checks, and balances, and cases, any issues or hiccups. So it allows me to basically initiate the project, explain what the goals are, explain what’s expected. And then I could pull away, and then there’s maybe like once a week I get to check-in to make sure everything’s running on pace, and I could look at the system that we have, charting where everything is in real-time. And then by the end of the month I actually do a follow-up and the project’s completed, and we’re ready to roll it out.
OWEN: I want to go back to when you realize that you had that problem. Was the first thing that came to mind for you? Was it to build this custom-based project management tool? When did this get thrown into the mix?
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : That got thrown into the mix when we had the meeting with everyone in the boardroom and we identified what the challenges were and where the disconnects were. And we realize that when you have people working on one task in multiple areas of expertise, it’s best that they all know where everyone’s at in real-time so then there’s no surprises. So basically that eliminated the surprises. And once we eliminated any surprises, it made things much more fluid and it made things much more efficient.
OWEN: Okay. So you identified that you needed an app. I’m trying to figure out how you went about building this very– because from the listener’s standpoint now, they understand they have a problem. In your case you went about building your own custom solution. But assuming that maybe they might be interested in this, I’m trying to give them kind of like understanding of how you went about even doing that?
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : What we did is we just took our programmers who knew an understood the business the best and say, “Listen, here’s where the disconnects are, here’s what we need to keep track of and have checks and balances for.” And they basically were able to create it specifically for what our needs were and what we would do in our business instead of buying something off the shelf or looking towards other vendors. We thought that our internal people would know best, so we basically made a system that was specifically built, and basically utilized for what we were doing.
OWEN: Okay, so if someone who’s listening to this who’s probably considering going that option, what will you say is something that when it comes to building your own custom workflow solution for your business, based on lessons you have learned that they should keep in mind when they’re trying to implement theirs.
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : Well, you definitely have to have [Unintelligible 00:21:51] programmers that understand what the goals are, what needs to be integrated in, what features you need. And I think it all comes down to pre-production planning is the most important. Because I see a lot of times people rush into it, they said we want XYZ but they don’t go through A, B, C, D, E, and F. And I think you got to do pre-productions very important so you designate and put together what exactly this needs to encompass and what exactly this needs to achieve. So when you hand it over to the programmers they know exactly what to build because they know what the result needs to be, and what the challenges are, and how to bridge the gap between the two.
OWEN: Okay, great. And so, given that you have a custom-built solution for your business, I’m also wondering one of the things I want to find out from you is like how exactly do you now track and verify the results being delivered by your employees?
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : Well, we could view it every day in real-time. So all I have to do is just go online. I could see it and we know where each department is, what they need to accomplish for the day, the goals are lined out, where they are and the goals get checked off. So in real-time we know exactly where everything’s at, if someone’s ahead of schedule, behind schedule. So, usually what we do is if there’s an area that’s behind schedule, we take the employees that are ahead of schedule and let them transition, help the ones that are slowed and then vice versa. So we basically have it that we’re using the employees to the best of their ability in the most efficient manner. So if they do things quicker than expected, we can utilize them and the increase manpower in areas that are taking a little longer than expected.
OWEN: Now that you have the business in such a way that it runs without you, what will you has been the longest time you’ve been away from it?
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : The longest time I’ve been away from it. I kind of consider myself away from it now. Like I said I check in maybe a half hour a week if that. I maybe spent 2 hours a month just overseeing things. It pretty much runs like a machine, the guys have it really down pat right now because there are so many checks and balances so if something does go wrong you get identified immediately. So really, I just continue to see myself putting a half hour a week into it, overseeing it, just making sure things are running smooth. And if I need to go away for a couple of weeks and travel, whatever, it’s not something I’m worried about. I can login from anywhere in the world and see what’s going on. So maybe the longest I’ve gone is like a week or two, something like that. But if I had to I’d feel comfortable going longer.
OWEN: And how will you say your company has been transformed as a result of systematizing the business?
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : Well, I feel it’s much more efficient, we’ll be able to get projects done much more faster, much quicker. I think we bring a better product to the end-user. I think we’re able to take on more projects, keep our overhead very low, and we maximize the production of each employee. Because we do a 16-22, I think in a normal company it probably takes 30 employees to accomplish what we do. So I think by having these systems in place it allows us to decrease our overhead while increasing our production.
OWEN: And how will you say you personal life has been transformed as a result of systematizing the business?
LOUIS SPAGNUOLO : Well, it’s definitely been less stress, that’s for sure. Because when there’s problems and there’s hiccups, that causes challenges, there’s no question about it. So the stress levels gone down, the confidence in the business has increased and it’s basically freed me up to take on other opportunities.
OWEN: So speaking of in a frame of time, what areas of the business do you now focusing more your time on now?
领英推荐
LOUIS: More focus on now is accumulating more intellectual property assets, because I know the business could leverage them, utilize them. So basically I’m always on the hunt for distressed assets, intellectual property assets, companies that have gone bankrupt that have great intellectual property whether it’s patents, licenses, things like that. So I could generate more opportunities for the company by not having to run the company on a day-to-day basis.
OWEN: Awesome. And so, what will you say is the next step that someone who’s listening to this interview all the way to this point should take to get started, trying to get their business systematized?
LOUIS: The most important thing is to get with your entire team and identify where the hiccups are. And where the slowness, or the pipe get squeezed so to speak, where you need to unload it and open things up so you can get a better flow. A lot of times businesses have a sponge point where everything’s going good and then it comes through a snail’s pace, and then it picks up again. And if you could eliminate that point where things get compressed, then I think your business will become much more efficient, much more profitable, and allow you to do more many more opportunities.
OWEN: Are there any books that maybe have influenced this way of thinking, and also, name those books and why.
LOUIS: I wish there was a book on it because it would help me a lot. Really it’s just trial and error, and business experience is really what it comes down to on how to become more efficient, and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. And I think fire and mistakes, we’re able to learn a lot and learn what we don’t need to do, where the problems were, and what we needed to do to fix them. So I don’t really have books I can recommend or anything like that. I think the best thing you could do is like I said, get with your team, speak to each individual person in the group and say what’s your biggest challenge, where’s the biggest disconnect, and what’s slowing you up the most. And once you identify all those on a white board you could then identify what the solutions need to be and then what systems need to be put in place to address them.
OWEN: Okay, I get that maybe you don’t have any books to share. But what other business resources that you feel have a very big impact on you personally and have influenced this way of thinking?
LOUIS: Well, me personally the biggest influence has been joining and being part of the group of what’s called Tiger 21. Tiger 21 is really the lead peer-to-peer learning group in the world. We have CEO’s, we have business people, we have some investors that all come together and kind of act as a board of directors for you as an individual and you as a professional so you could balance ideas off them. Tell them what the problems you have and then get input from people that could give you honest advice as to, “Hey, you know what. I ran into that same situation. Here’s what I did, here’s an example, something that worked for me. Maybe you should try implementing this.” So that’s been a big game changer for me. I’m kind of having a pseudo board of directors of guys from other industries where we could take techniques that they’ve done in their industry that was successful, and then apply it to ours.
OWEN: Is that like an online virtual group, or is it– how does that [Unintelligible 00:28:26]?
LOUIS: No, it’s a group where there’s about 250 members from all of United States. You can go to Tiger21.com. You can learn more about it. It’s a very high-level group of successful entrepreneurs, business people, investors, and you could really gain a lot of knowledge and insight from that, and I felt that’s really helped me and been a big difference because I never really had a mentor so to speak. But by being a part of the group I actually had a whole slew of mentors in each area of expertise that could help me and I could ask advise on, and help me expedite what I needed to do as far as overcoming my challenges.
OWEN: Awesome. And so far we’re coming to the end of the interview. I’m wondering, is there a question that you wished I had asked you during the interview that I didn’t get to ask you. And if so, post the question and the answer.
LOUIS: Not really, I think it’s pretty basic. I think the key advise that I would give to people is to keep it simple. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Use what’s already been established to work, instill simplicity in your employees and don’t make it too difficult for them. Because when you make things complex, complexity creates more time that’s needed to solve those issues. And by keeping things simple and clearly identifying what the objective are and what’s required to them I think makes your whole company more efficient as a whole. I think companies get into problems when they try to make situations too complex. And they want to have too many meetings, and too many reports, and too many things that really don’t grow the business where it should be much simpler where you have a task, the effort to accomplish it by a certain amount of time and then you have checks and balances.
OWEN: Awesome. And so what’s the best way for the listener to connect with you and thank you for doing this interview?
LOUIS: To connect with me, I would go through my marketing department with Stacey Schrager and Sue Reddy would be probably be the best way to connect with me. And they would definitely pass on the informant, and I would do my best to help whomever and answer any questions they may have.
OWEN: Awesome. And so I’m speaking to you the listener now. If you enjoyed this interview and what we like for you to do is leave us a review on iTunes, hopefully a positive review. And to do that go to sweetprocess.com/iTunes and the reason to leave a review is because the more reviews we get, the more other entrepreneurs get exposed to this interview. And the more exposure we get, the more excited we are to go out there and get guests like Louis to come on here and breakdown how their business works. So go behind the scenes and talk about how their business works. And also, if you are at that point in their business, your business where you’re tired of feeling the bottleneck, feel free to sign up for a free 14-day trial of SweetProcess. And Louis, thanks for doing the interview.
LOUIS: My pleasure, thank you for having me.
OWEN: And we’re done.
LOUIS: Thank you so much, that was great.
#LOUISSPAGNUOLO #LOUISSPAGNUOLOFORBES #LOUISSPAGNUOLOTIGER21
Founder & Entrepreneur of the companies Oil Flow of Mexico SA de CV & World Maritime Services, C.A With +34k networking in this magnificent network. Living between Venezuela and Mexico.
2 年ready....
I propose tailor-made services by finding the best solutions to your private air travel needs. / Retired Pilot?????? Integrity. Efficiency. Excellence.
2 年Great read! Thanks for sharing.