Welcome to the Inside BS Show. My name is Dave Lorenzo, and today we're talking about your thinking. That's right, entrepreneurial thinking.

What do I mean when I talk about the way an entrepreneur thinks versus the way an independent professional thinks versus the way a CEO thinks? Let's start with the independent professional. You're a lawyer and you're listening to this, and maybe you own your own law firm, but you're the only lawyer in your firm. You think about finding work today that you can work on, and then working on that work, and then finding more work, and then working on that work, and finding more work, and working on that work.

You never think about leverage if you're an independent professional. And this will work for you up to a certain point. I've worked with independent professionals who can get to a million dollars in annual revenue.

It's a struggle, but they can get there. And they're the only lawyer. They're the only CPA in their firm.

And if that works for you, God bless. But that basically is a job. When that ends, you got nothing to sell.

You basically just close it down. Now let's think about the way an entrepreneur thinks. An entrepreneur thinks about building something that is bigger than him or herself.

So you've identified, as an entrepreneur, you've identified a need that you can fill in the market. And you go out and fill that need. Very rarely do you, as an entrepreneur, do the work yourself.

So you have people who can deliver for you, or products that are created that you pay for, and then you ship somewhere. Even if you have a drop ship business, you pay for the product, the product gets shipped to somebody and they pay you for that product. So you're employing some form of leverage in order to be successful as an entrepreneur.

Now, the CEO of the business doesn't just think about filling a need in the market and employing leverage to fill that need. The CEO thinks about the business as an investment as a whole. So the adage of the entrepreneur working on the business versus in the business is great, but the CEO works above the business.

The CEO views the business as investors view the business. And the CEO not only looks for leverage in delivering the product or service, he or she looks for leverage in acquiring the customers. He or she looks for leverage in how the money works for them.

So when the bills are paid at the end of the month and everyone has gotten paid from a payroll perspective, the money that's left in the account goes into what's called a sweep account and gets sent out to be invested so that it provides a return on that investment. And the business as a whole continues to grow and continues to pay distributions or dividends to the owners of the business on a regular basis, monthly or quarterly. And then the business increases in value over time and it's sellable because it's treated like an investment from day one.

These are the three ways that thinking in a business happens and you have to decide who you are. Are you the independent professional creating a day-to-day job for yourself? Are you an entrepreneur working on the business with blinders on, although you're employing some leverage, you have blinders on and you don't think like a CEO? Or are you a CEO and you're thinking of the business as an investment overall? When you set your expectations for your business, when you first start out, as an independent professional, your expectations are pretty simple. I gotta get money and I expect that I'll make money to pay my bills.

And if you're a solo practitioner or lawyer for 25 or 30 years, that's all your expectations are. Maybe you buy a house, you buy a boat, you have a couple of nice cars, you go on vacation once or twice a year with your family, but that's pretty much the extent of it. You're an entrepreneur and you think to yourself, I'm doing a great job as an entrepreneur.

I'm a dry cleaner and I'm providing great dry cleaning service in Coral Gables, Florida. Let me open a second store in Doral, Florida and hire a manager to run that second store. And that's what my life becomes.

Then you got something. You've got an asset you can sell as a business perhaps, because you've got a business that runs without you, that second store is running without you. But then you start thinking like a CEO and you're thinking like a CEO means that you are now investing.

So you go perhaps and borrow money and you open three stores at once. You open a store in Doral, Florida, you open a store in Homestead, Florida, and you open a store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to go along with your Coral Gables store. You hire three managers and you have a management training program which always has somebody getting ready to be your next manager.

Now you're thinking like an investment. Those are your expectations for your business from day one. Your expectations as a CEO from day one are that you're gonna have multiple stores and multiple managers running the stores.

Your expectations as an entrepreneur is that you're gonna kill yourself from nine to five and maybe you find somebody else to help you from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. or you find somebody else to run that second store for you but you never think about massive leverage. And then you as a sole practitioner, you're not thinking about anything other than paying your bills. You've basically bought yourself a job.

So what does it look like when you start out? All of us start out, whether you're the sole practitioner, you're the entrepreneur, or you're the CEO. We start out by thinking A plus B will lead to C. A plus B equals C. That's what we think. But what it really is is A plus the number seven times the number three minus X equals C. So in other words, there's no straight line path.

Whether you're a sole practitioner, there's no straight line path. I mean, that is probably the straightest line path is I'm a sole practitioner, I get work, I do work, I find more work. That's the straightest line path.

The entrepreneur's path is I start my business thinking I'm filling this need but the customer comes to me and they have a different need. So either I adjust and fill the different need and take the money and make my business about that or I pig-headedly move forward and continue to try and fill the need that I thought was there that isn't there. That's the entrepreneur's path.

The CEO's path is very different. The CEO fills whatever needs that are out there in the market over and over and over again and he finds, she finds people to fill those needs over and over and over again. So the true path for the entrepreneur and the CEO is not a straight line.

It's a flat line while you're figuring it out and then a hockey stick line up once you figure it out. And that's the thing I want you to take away from our time together today. Your path is not a straight line path forward.

Your path is a flat line as you try to figure things out and then a hockey stick line up once you figure it out and you start filling the need for your client, for your customer. If you have an idea for a business or if you're in business now and you wanna break through, let's say you're a sole practitioner and you don't wanna be a sole practitioner, you wanna become an entrepreneur or you're an entrepreneur and you wanna elevate your thinking and employ more leverage and become a CEO, I've got the coaching plan for you. All you need to do is send an email to my email address which is down in the notes here.

Send an email to my email address or send me a DM on LinkedIn and I will be happy to set an appointment with you to talk about my coaching program. If you've got time and you've got money to invest, I wanna help you employ leverage and become a better entrepreneur. So just send me an email or send me a DM with the word coaching in the email or the word coaching in the subject line and I will talk to you about my exclusive program designed to help entrepreneurs become CEOs, to help professionals become CEOs and increase the leverage they employ and secure their financial future.

I'm Dave Lorenzo, this is the Inside BS Show and we'll see you back here again tomorrow.