In this practical episode, Matthew Sanjari, Founder and Strategic Consultant of PRIME Consulting, shares how he discovered where one of his passions truly lies – helping other leaders and entrepreneurs live their best lives and seeing their businesses thrive, not just survive.
You will discover:
– The crucial differences between success in the Fun stage and success in Predictable Success.
– Why is it not enough to do the right things? It would help if you also did them in the correct order.
– The 4 steps to industry-leading profitability
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is yet another high demand coach in the one and only, Matthew Sanjari, who, as the founder of prime consulting, leverages over 15 years of business ownership and public speaking experience to empower entrepreneurs and business leaders through both coaching and consulting, focusing on pragmatic strategies for scaling businesses and achieving personal growth. With a track record of helping brands surpass their limits and a successful exit to his own name, Matthew’s holistic approach blends operational strategy with personal development, aiming to elevate clients from day to day, operations to executive roles. He stays true to his motto, build people, build business. Matthew, welcome to the show. Glad you’re here. As I was researching the episode, I came across a little section of your website. I can’t remember what page it’s on right now, but you kind of lay out these four tenets, purpose, productivity, predictability and profitability. And the thing that like instantly jumped off the page to me is the order of those things. Because I actually could agree more, I think they fall in that order, and I want to unpack why that is with you over the course of the episode. But what I’ve found is that most like stressed out, overwhelmed, tired, exhausted entrepreneurs, folks that that tend to be looking for coaching and consulting typically want those in the opposite order. They want profit, right? They need it now. They want predictability, because they’re tired of the roller coaster productivity, sure, but like, there are other bigger fish to fry and purpose. Yes, we have purpose. Why is it that they’re in in that order? Why do we have to start with purpose first?
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, great question. I really do think, as Simon Sinek once laid it out, your why just kind of frames everything and sets the order for how we go about things. I like to use the analogy that you know. When you take a plant, if I water the plant and put it in the right sunlight in an optimum condition, it’s going to grow. If I yell at it and tell it to grow and and just start picking it up and moving it around, probably not going to grow and, and that analogy serves the purpose of healthy things grow. And so let’s build health into our organizations. Let’s set things up properly, which even, which is still possible, even if you’re in the middle of something, right? Maybe you didn’t start that way. But in order to get the result that we want profitability, more revenue, more sales. It’s actually should be a byproduct and a result of the things that we’re doing in our business, and that allows us to build something sustainable and scalable.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, what happens when you try and skip ahead? So another way of putting this is someone’s listening to this episode. What might they be experiencing right now? That would be an indication that they might have missed this step or not taking it to its fullest.
Matthew Sanjari
Great question. You know, I love asking the question to people. I say, Take numbers off the table. You can’t use money. You can’t use a number. What does success look like for you and everybody? Everybody always goes into this, like, weird panic, because they’re like, Well, I want to say it’s seven figures. I want to say it’s eight figures. I want to say it’s this and, you know, it’s this exercise where they have to use and find their why. And sometimes that may take a few additional questions, but when they do that, I lay it out for them, and I say, Look, if your goal is seven figures, we can get to seven figures. No problem. We can implement strategies, structure, systems. We can do all those things. But if we keep doing it the way you’ve been doing it, then you’re not going to get the success that you just said, which might be spending more time with your family. It might be getting your time back. It might be having that mental health balance. So when I take numbers off the table and you show me your why, what you’re actually showing me is how you want to build, and if we consider that as our foundation to build instead of a number, it’s only a matter of time before we actually get to the number.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that, because what happens so many times? I’ve found when, when we use a number a couple things. One, it’s always arbitrary, right? There’s nothing actually different about that number. And $1 before it and and two, it’s usually someone else’s number, right? We’re and we’re trying to catch up with, you know, Dad’s success, or, you know, the guy in our CEO group. Or, like, we heard once, that that’s what made a successful business. And so what happens is, for you know, the best, even the best founders, they get across that line, right? And they look around, it’s like, this is it looks exactly the same here. I have all the same problems that I did. Maybe even more, is this really it? Is this really what I’ve given myself for? So I love that, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m wondering if we could just flesh this out for a second, because I think it’s so important. What are a couple examples that you’ve seen of really powerful purposes?
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah. I mean, hey, I’m going to use me as an example, because I find when I tell my story that often will spark something in people. For me, I started as a numbers guy. Said, Hey, you know what? I grew up first generation. My father’s a refugee, my mother’s an immigrant. I said, I’m going to wholesale reject all of that, and I’m going to make sure that I never do that. And so I was so numbers driven, we’re going to do this. We’re going to get this. Right? And even though I hit those targets, it left me frustrated, exhausted, and just like you said, I got into rooms that I wanted to be in and said, This isn’t that great, this isn’t that exciting. And sometimes it actually made me want to chase even bigger things that only led to the same feeling, right? And so he has started to realize, I said, Okay, what are the things that matter. The reason why I wanted to make money and find financial and time freedom was because, you know, my why was that? My parents were so busy doing it, we never spent a lot of time together. And so when I discovered that time, buying back my time, my friends and my family, those personal connections, is what mattered, then the way I built had to follow that, and so the success I’ve been fortunate enough to experience has now been collaborative and involving other people, because I really located my why, and for a lot of people that why is family, it’s relationships, it’s moments, and more than anything, I often hear it’s time.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, I love that, so let’s take a step forward here. We’ve talked about our purpose, we’ve laid that out. Next is productivity. So why should we focus on productivity before predictability?
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, I mean, Scott, you know this better than anyone, especially with your track record. There’s a huge difference between working in the business and working on the business. And I think people in our society, in our culture, we’re busy as a badge of honor, hey, I’m busy. Things are busy. Things are going on. And oftentimes when I peek under the hood, and then I give them the space to peek under the hood, we start to realize, sure, you’re working, but are you working on the right things? I love to keep the example. You know, if I have a client, their operations manager was making $80,000 a year, $40 an hour. When I laid it all out, the average return on investment of the task she was doing was $22 an hour. And I looked and the owner in the face and said, you’re paying 40 she’s doing 22 she’s unhappy. You’re unhappy. What needs to change? And so productivity isn’t a matter of busyness, it’s are we getting the return on an investment, financially, emotionally and culturally, so that we keep working on the main thing? What’s the main thing?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, we had a past, an episode in the past, where the past that a guest came on. He was talking about was Justin. He was talking about the root of the word business. It’s not a mistake that it is one letter away from busyness, and we get so caught up in all of the stuff that we miss why we’re doing what it is going back to the idea of purpose, ahead of time, what are some of the key things we should be focusing on as we look to improve productivity.
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, a big thing for me is, as basic as it sounds, everybody needs a job description. You’re a business owner, you need a job description. Make sure you people have job description so there’s clarity in their role. They you know what’s expected of you, and your job description is probably going to allow you that dumb little paragraph at the top that sometimes we can get past to get to the task. It’s going to allow you the clarity to say, okay, what are the outcomes that I’m responsible for? And then now you get to triage. Are the things I’m doing helping me get to the outcomes? No, then great. That’s an opportunity for me to automate, eliminate or delegate?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yes, so good. All right, so we’ve established our purpose, our why not just a number? We’ve got our team clear on what they’re responsible for and capable of dramatically improving their productivity. Next is predictability. So why predictability before profitability?
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, yeah. You know, this is that’s a really good question. I get asked that a lot. I think for me, predictability is this idea that, I mean, let’s take health. I know that if I go to the gym or if I start putting healthy mechanisms into place, it’s only a matter of time, even with tweaks or optimization, before I get to the result, the result won’t happen tomorrow. It might not even happen three months from now, but basic predictability in doing the right habits and the right things will lead to profitability. And so for me, you know, I have people all the time. Well, Matt, I’ve got ebbs and flows in my business. Sure, we have ebbs and flows in every business, in every stage of life, but building some form of predictability and taking back some of the things we can control inevitably will affect our bottom line. And so that could look like financial forecasting, that could look like actually building out a sales or a leadership pipeline, right? Some of these are people based in human capital, right? Yeah, just quickly, I have a client whose team was frustrated because they’re always hiring externally for management positions. And I said, Do you have a leadership pipeline? Maybe that starts with taking one or two people out to coffee every single week and building into them, and now they’ve built an organization with a with a leadership pipeline that they can now promote internally.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. I love that we talked. A lot here at scale architects about the different stages that organizations go through, and two of the more enjoyable stages are fun relatively early on, young, nimble and predictable success and and one of the key distinguishing factors, because they’re both great seasons, but one of the distinguishing factors about predictable success, and a prerequisite I’ve found of scalability is that the predictability aspect, and I love that you highlight. It’s not just a revenue thing, right? There are lots of folks who talk about Predictable Revenue, but it’s predictable revenue. It’s predictable financing, right? It’s predictable leadership. However, there’s a brilliant, brilliant version of that as well. And having the time, taking the time to systematically look at the organization and the systems that are in it so, so important to building predictability across the board. All right, so last step in the process, the one that we’re really have been waiting for all along, is it is profitability. Now, you kind of alluded to this earlier, and I had a similar question, if we’ve, if we’ve identified our purpose and really communicated that well with the team, if we’ve aligned everyone in their job descriptions and have them all highly productive and working toward that and we’re doing it in a highly predictable way, what’s left to do to increase our profits even more?
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, great question. So it’s so funny, because I find this almost automatic every time, where, if those three things are aligned, it’s inevitable that there will be more money left over than there was before. But that’s not just how I view profitability. Profitability. Then our next step to answer your question would be, let’s do a deep dive on some of your services and your product offerings to find out what’s the most profitable, right? Sure your business is profitable. I have a client you know, up in Long Island, New York, and her business was profitable until I did a deep dive and found out 60% of her clients were not. 40% were carrying and the rest of them and so a deep dive now allows us to go, Okay, what? Where did we miss the boat here? What are the things to ensure every client becomes profitable? That inevitably, is the next stage of profitability, and it’s a, it’s a really effective, a way of maximizing all the money and all the experience that’s on the table.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, to add another kind of flavor to that, one of the what I hear you saying in that is, in that fun stage, at earliest age, we usually get there by saying yes, right? It’s like we needed those clients at one point in time, at least some of them, many of them, when we’re looking at predictable success, when we’re looking at the highly profitable, scalable businesses, they get there by saying no right, by learning what it is that we say no to in order to move on. And I love that distinction. I love that process. Those four steps are so important. There’s so much gold in there for folks. Now I’m one we’ve I’ve got one more question for you, and this is actually a question I ask all my guests. I’m interested to see what you have to say. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, you know, I say to my bio, and people ask me about it, because I think they think it’s a cliche. But for me, it’s not. If we build people, we will build business, right? I’m a huge tech guy. Love AI love some of the technical, technological evolutions happening, but at the end of the day, business is really about people solving problems. And so if we build people, if we treat our people well, right? Even if you’re a solopreneur, you’ve got clients, you’ve got outsourcers, you’ve got people in your in your network. If we build on people, and we actually build on them, they have will build business and so more secret sauce, I just think it’s, it’s a great way to live.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good, so good. Well, Matthew, there are some folks listening to this, and they’re, they’re right there right now. They’re ready to build. They want to be more profitable, but they realize there’s a process for getting there, and they want to do it right. Tell us. How can they find more out about the work that you do? Where can they get in touch with you?
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, hey, you can look me up on LinkedIn. Matthew Sanjari. Love connect with people on there. Or you can go to my website, consultingbyprime.com consultingbyprime.com
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, Matthew, thanks for being on the show. Just a privilege having you here today. Fantastic conversation, and for those of you watching and listening today, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Matthew Sanjari
As the founder of PRIME Consulting, Matthew Sanjari leverages over 15 years of business ownership and public speaking experience to empower entrepreneurs and business leaders through coaching and consulting, focusing on pragmatic strategies for scaling businesses and achieving personal growth. With a track record of helping brands surpass their limits and a successful exit to his name, Matthew’s holistic approach blends operational strategy with personal development, aiming to elevate clients from day-to-day operations to executive roles; he stays true to his motto: build people, build business.
Want to learn more about Matthew Sanjari’s work at PRIME Consulting? Check out his website at https://consultingbyprime.com/ or connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-sanjari/
Podcast Booking Status: Open
We are looking for podcast guests, and we want to share your story.
Are you a coach, consultant, or advisor for entrepreneurial organizations? If so, let’s do a great show together – and we can promote you to our audience on all our social media channels, website, and email list.