Why Delegation Won't Fix Your Outdoor Living Business Until You Trust Yourself w/ Jon Valenta from General Pavingstones

And it all comes down to taking responsibility for your life and not blaming others for where you are or where you aren't, and not blaming your wife or your kids or your, the customers or the weather, and just saying, "You know what? How could I be a better leader? How could I trust myself more so that I could lead this team stronger?" Welcome to the Sales Made Simple podcast. This podcast is dedicated to helping overwhelmed outdoor living professionals, landscapers, and hardscapers just like you increase your closing rate to over 75% without doubling your workload so you can build a seven-figure business that doesn't need you. I'm your host, Joshua Gillow. Let's dig in. [rock music] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Sales Made Simple podcast. John Valenta's back on with me this week. What's going on, John?

Hey, Joshua. Always a, always a great time hanging out with you and talking about our many years of experience in this industry and hopefully helping some people out.

I appreciate it, brother. I always enjoy our time together, too, and, you know, after all the years we've been together, you know, uh, out here doing bit similar things and only, what, about, uh, two hours away from each other [laughs] the whole time, it's pretty wild.

Yep.

But, uh, today I wanna get into something that, uh, hits right in the, the center nerve of, of most business owners when it comes to the idea of growing, right? Everybody wants to grow. They wanna bu- build their business, make more money, take more vacations, whatever it is for you, but there's the idea of growth, right? Nothing in nature stops growing. It's, it's growth or death. There, there's really no, like, middle ground. You know, a tree grows and grows and grows, and if it stops growing, it dies. It's quite simple, right? So it's the same with business. The same, the way that God wired us is, is for, for growth and for purpose and mission, right? So with all of that, uh, the one thing that I learned along the way that I find has really ... I look back at it, it's, it's so simple, but so powerful, is this idea that trust starts in the mirror. We all talk about scaling businesses, but we run into the problem where when I go to delegate stuff to other people, they just don't do it the way I do it, so I don't trust them or they're not gonna do it in a way that I think is great, so I don't trust them. I'd rather just, just do it myself. Like, what's, what's the point in spending all that time trying to train somebody? They're just gonna mess it up, right? So at the end of the day, we struggle as business owners to delegate things and to trust people, and I'm gonna challenge you listeners this week to wonder if it's a trust in other people or a trust in yourself. That was what I had to face. Was it that I didn't trust other people or was it that I didn't trust my ability to lead them or to guide them or to set up the SOPs or to follow those SOPs once I set them up? To put standards in place, all those kinds of things. Did I know how to do that as a leader? Did I even wanna follow that as a leader? Is that the reason, reason why I got in the business? Was it to create these things and be the, the steward