Hey everyone, Daniel Contreras (@dlucs_) here founder of The New Era Of Barbering. Welcome back to another podcast on this episode. Well, before I go into today's podcast, we've been talking about perfection a lot, especially not only a couple of YouTube videos that I posted already. As of recently, a couple of have lined up and a few of the past podcasts as well, too. I feel like they've been more centered around, or at least I added that, that I've edited that's somewhere in there. It's worked its way in there. And it's been a hot topic in terms of like Intel inside the elevate dementia program of Barbara's that work with to help them scale their business up in Congress, understanding, you know, what this is takes perfection at least, and why, why it is super necessary in a business. And I thought it would be important to kind of maybe go into a little bit deeper into this topic at least kind of give it a little bit more, cause I know I, I, if I remember correctly on last podcast, I talked about perfection requires action.That's iterated on to take get towards perfection, something along that lines. I can't remember word for word what I had said. But it was something along that line. It's like perfection. Isn't just like you get it immediately. It requires action and then iterate on that action and then you'll get it eventually. I kind of wanted to break that down a little bit more and kind of go kind of explain the process a little bit, because I think sometimes from these podcasts, because I, of course I have calls with individuals who are looking to join the Elva dementia program to you know, allow me to work with them on their business to scale it up to, you know, 15, 20, 25 plus K per month affect efficiently and like not make some stupid mistakes on it, right. To break the business and get there very quickly.And sometimes when I hear somebody like talking about a podcast they've listened to they'll like, I'll kind of ask questions like, oh, what interested you about it? You know, what kind of peaked your interest? What'd you get? What did, what was like the biggest takeaway from that? And sometimes it's never like, I'll hear somebody explain like what they took away from it. I'm like, that's not what I meant. Right. And so I felt like maybe I should make, like, if I have a good topic to talk about, maybe I should dive a little bit deeper to go in a couple more aspects or just give more examples and hit the, hit this idea from different directions. Just so everybody listening can understand fully, because I also see this in the program when I work with barbers, sometimes when I talk to them and I'm explaining to them like what's going on in their business and like what the solution needs to be and like breaking it down.Step-By-Step what needs to happen sometimes. And it should break down communication sometimes like the, the individual, like, I'll be like you, like, you know, tell them this, the strategy of like what we need to implement to get this thing up. And I'm like, you understand or like that clear and they'll be like, and you know, the kind of go off and, and they won't do what I told them to. And I'll be like, dude, what the hell? Like I just gave you the breakdown of why didn't you, what, what happened here? Right. And most of the time it's always like, I, you know, once you kind of get down to the deeper root of it and kind of unravel some things, right. It's always like, they just didn't understand what I was saying. Right. Or it just what I said to them didn't make total sense, which is fine.Right. I think everybody has breakdowns communication. I mean, I, can't not like the best at communicating. I'm not saying like, you know, it's going to be like, perfect. Of course that's what I'm striving for. And against you, this is this kind of weirdly enough kind of plays into it, like what I'm going to talk about. But you know, that, that's kind of like what, at least my angle is maybe like, if we get a topic, I don't know, whenever this thing dies out, maybe maybe a podcast or two, and then we touch on something else. It's like real dynamic lodge. Just kinda like right before I do the podcast. I'm like, what the am I going to talk about today? I'm like, well, what's the problems going on? What, what have I heard recently? What's like consistently coming up and like, I'll talk about that.But anyways, so on the topic of this, like perfecting the action iteration to reach perfection cause I broke this down for one of the barbers in the program I thought, well, that was like really simple. And it was like really, really clear. I was like, Hmm, maybe that's why she like explaining that. So you know, this, this idea, of course, the idea of perfection, like why you should go after it, obviously you want to, you know, if you want to be the best or if you want to have a great business and not something that like dies off eventually, or like just, it's like a flash in the pan, you should probably be striving for perfection. You can look at musical artists, athletes, or anything of the sort the ones who always have their eyes on the perfection thing versus just getting the result always do best.Right? So for sports athletes, some people optimize for the result. Once they sign a, you know, a deal, a check they're not the same player anymore. Right. And you can tell that in their game, like they had a hunger, they had a drive because what their hunger and drive was was optimized for was to get that deal. That was the only thing, the result of that deal. And then once they get that, they signed that deal. They're like never the same. Right. There's like there, they start playing to be quite honest versus like somebody like a Tom Brady or even maybe like Kobe or a Michael Jordan. Or you can even say somebody like Drake and music or Michael Jackson, like these, these artists. And I think even sports players are artists. They're just looking at perfection. They're not giving a about like, cool, like one super bowl or cool, one billboard hip or cool one platinum album or cool, like, you know, one award they're like, that.All right, cool. Like, like they kind of come back after that and they see the mistakes that, you know, had occurred or where they can get better at, because like obviously like there's, you're never going to be perfect and that's always good because that's what makes the quote unquote the perfect thing to optimize for, because it's, it's like this never ending game right now. That's kind of like the why's. Another reason is, is because well, everything dies, right? You can't escape natural law at the end of the day, natural law is, you know, some days there's going to be a company that is better than Amazon some day, there's going to be a better company maybe than the new era of Barbary. And I'm, I'm fully aware of that. Right. And maybe one day there's, well also too, there's going to be a better musician or rapper than Drake.They're going to be a better, you know, every anything, right. Everything can get beat out and anything can like, well, everything's going to die or everything's going to, there's going to becoming an end to something right there is going to be an end to the new era of barbering. Like that's inevitable, right? It's not just going to continue going on forever. I would love it to be, to go on forever. Like I think that's the pur to perfection idea, but you know, I don't think anything has lasted the test of time like that. That's, man-made everything deteriorates. And you kind of have to understand that and the way you build things, right. If you build it properly and you focus on perfection and you do it the correct way, it can last a very long time. It doesn't mean it's like bulletproofing than survive forever, but it's gonna survive a lot longer than people who want to make noise.And that's why I talk a lot about being a doer versus a talker because talkers they'll be here for one day next day, there'll be doing something else, talking about something else do where's, they're just locked in. You're just locked in on one thing. Right. and I think when you, when you build your business, like a barbering business built on perfection, like we can all see those individuals who will have, you know, they get hot for a quick second and then they just kind of fizzle out and they stay at the same level for a while. And that's nothing bad against them, whoever that is. I'm not even thinking about anybody in specific. But w I mean, I I've, I've definitely known individuals like that. Worked with them , but like the very, very first shop I worked out or just going to barber school people, right.You kind of look back and you're like, that person's still doing that. And that's not a bad thing. Like maybe that's what they want, but I think again, to what most people listen to this podcast, they probably want to do pretty well. Right. Like, I don't think you can be average listening to this, or like have average aspirations because you probably just get off listening to me, you'd be like, oh man, this guy is too serious. Oh, he's, this is just barbering, man. Like, we're just for the people keeping community, like, you know, those, they'll just spew off some, some like really weird stuff at some point in time making excuses for why their business is pretty average and then just stop listening. Right. so that's my assumption. At least I could be wrong. Right. But getting back onto my point, if you want something great that lasts the test of time that you, you can at least like you can look back on and you, you don't have to have that.What if moment? Or like, like, what if I just, like, what if I actually took it a little more serious? What if I actually built a thing properly instead of around? Right. What if I just didn't listen to all the dumb asses and actually did something that was like, correct. Right. I never wanted to have that. So I always took things stupidly serious, focused on perfection, cut out the rest of the noise. And like I said before, with the perfection, like, you know, cars, action iteration, and then that will eventually get you to perfection, to go a little bit like an, a notch deeper, I guess, into that. I think first, right. Cause there's, I broke it down to three points that that's a little bit more maybe understandable. Cause like, action. I don't know. You could, you could say action is waking up in the morning and taking a like technically that's action.Right. So what, what is this thing? Well, first of all, you have to become aware of the weakness. That's holding you back, basically the problem, you have to become aware of that. Right. and what I mean by that is you can't just say, cause like what I hear a lot of times from barbers let's say if they're on the, on a call with me first, I'm looking to get in the program, like, all right, cool. What's going on in your business? Like, what's, what's the issue, what's the problem? They'll often say there's no problem or they don't know. Right. And that if you don't know, that is a problem. And you have, you ha there's always something that is holding you back. Like it's just not like the world is conspiring against you for no reason for, for why you cannot get to that next level. There is something going on. And if you cannot critically think about that may God help you? That's all I gotta say. Right. You have to be like, you have to be aware of yourself. Like you know, some of the, some of the greatest athletes or even musicians like you, you have, they have not, you haveThis, like, I don't think anybody think Drake listens to this podcast,But like they obviously, at some point in time became hyper-aware that their music sucked at some point in time. Right. They got a feedback loop, they listened to it, like, this thing sucks. Okay. And they were able to, from having that awareness of the weakness, able to then, you know, figure out why is that thing weak and what do I need to get it to? And how can I solve it and how can I get it better? Right. even an athlete, they come up and do a situation. Let's say, let's say they are thriving off like really good. I don't know. Natural, physical, gifted, like they're physically gifted. Right. Naturally. And they've survived that way since like, you know, been the best athlete in like grade school, high school, college. They could probably get away with it coming to the NFL and where people are more technical staff savvy.And like, they're more it's much more strategic and they're there they'll get their killed. Right. They can't go anywhere. They're not going to make, like, they're not going to get all the rewards or maybe they do, but they never make, they never get to like that next level championship. Because like, it's, it just doesn't work like that. You have to, you have to be aware of like that weakness of like what's what is, what are you really, really poor at doing in the WIC? What's the biggest thing that's holding you back now for barbers? Most of the time when I T you know, the awareness or the lack of awareness is what really shoots them in the foot of building a business. And this might be your position. It's not bad. Like, I think this is like, you always have to at least have like this sobering moment.I think I had to have it at some point in time. And I think everybody should what most bar, what most individuals think a lot of times is like, you know, to, to, they think the problem is they need to make more money, so they need to charge more there. And, but they're afraid to charge more because they'll lose clients. And then they're just like, oh, I just need to get motivation and like, say, it. I'm like, Jesus Christ. You're going to your business up at some point in time. Like, there's so many things that's wrong with that. And I could, you know, w we'll go over like those, like at least poor points, because that's, that's really improper thinking just because you're not making enough money, that you should raise your price. Like, there's different variables that you should look at.And it's almost like into, I've talked about this many times before. That's almost like a cop-out what I've seen at least like you, especially from like individual I've talked to this doesn't mean everybody, right? Like, don't, don't think like I'm talking to maybe like, oh, he doesn't know my business. I should be honest. I don't, but I'm just taking the information that I've gotten for myself. But you know, you, you have to be aware truly of what the problem is, the problem isn't that, you know, you need to, or the problem isn't that you don't charge enough. The problem is more than likely you have poor business disciplines and you really don't know how to run the business at all. That's the biggest problem I see is, you know, it's very, very basic understanding of business. Meaning I cut hair, therefore you should get a haircut from me.The worst thing I see all the time, like are those posts of like, support your local barbershop or support your local barber? I'm sorry, but the market does not work like that. The rule does not work like that to support little people at all. Like it is, that's not what happens. You have to build the thing that people want to be a part of, and you have to build the power business that gets people into it to make money not, Hey, you should support me because I do this. No, no, no, no. That's like coddling, right? That's like, mommy, it's like a mommy thing, right? No. So, you know, again, to the problem, isn't most barbers, the problem isn't that you need to raise prices. It's just an awareness of, well, what's going on in that city who I go to next, what's going on?Like, why do you feel like you need to raise prices? And then typically goes into money. All right, well, what are your finances like? And, you know, kind of gets it. It goes different ways. Most times it, you know, Barbara is under like a 5k per month mark. And it's like, well, no. Like, you know, you're making 4k a month and you're spending all the money on stupid. So you think raising prices is going to solve it? I don't think so. Right. That's not, that's not the correct thing. Equally as such like raising prices and just saying, it to go up, could be very, very detrimental to like longterm Weiss. Cause again too, you don't want to do something. That's a ego stroke just to say you charge so much versus having an actual good business. Having a good business is so much more deadlier than just having, or just promoting a price raise.Now, the second thing after becoming aware of the, you know, the weakness that's holding you back is figuring out basically the trigger, right. And remind yourself to improve on that. It's very, very simple. Right? become aware it a little bit sobering. You have to look and you have to, it's mostly like the awareness is where you're afraid to look at meaning. Like for most people it's their bank account. They're afraid to look at that bank account because they don't want to see a low number because they know it's low and they avoid it and they avoid, they know they just had a weekend out and spent a lot more money than they should have. And now they don't want to look at it, like that's the worst feeling to, to face. Right. So you have to, you know, for that individual, they would have to look at the bank account.Right. And then you have to find out the trigger. Why does this money keep on coming out? Well, yeah, probably go out or like, you know, you probably put yourself into situations or I don't know. Maybe, maybe there's just some, I mean, there could be a ton of reasons, right. There could be, you know, a lack of that thing called when people need to like, feel appreciated. It's not appreciated. It's not, that's not the word I'm trying to say, but a sense of security or like, you know, when, when people need to like buy things to like show off that th that quote unquote, that they're worth more than what they are. I don't know. I'm completely blanking out on that like term, but I'm sure you can, if you're listening to this, you understand what the hell I'm trying to say.You know, maybe that's maybe that's like the trigger, right. Not feeling like worthy enough or like feeling the need to show off or things that you don't. I actually have. Or even just, I don't know, like going out and having more like, like, in terms of like, having more fun than what you should be. And that's like, I was like, that doesn't sound right, but it's kind of true, right. If you have like under five K in the bank, like probably shouldn't be going out, like, what are you celebrating at that point in time? I don't know what they're, what there is to celebrate. It's more of like, get locked in, like, stay, stay under a rock, like be good with your money. Right. and this could also be like, cause sometimes I think I don't want to just get on this podcast about like say buddy, all right.Cause that'd be kind of weird. But this could also be, let's say if your haircuts are not up to par, so to speak, right. Your skillset. Well, first of all, you have to have the awareness that you're not that good. Right. I had to have that slap in the face that I was not that good. And I will tell people like all the time in the program, I could not cut hair to save the life of me. I knew how to run a pretty good business. I didn't know how to cut hair the best, no problem. Right. because most people think that you have to cut hair really, really well to run a, like, get people in the business and that's not it at all. If you know how to run your business properly, you, you don't have to be like some section God by any means. Okay.Got a little thirsty. But simply you could, you could just be aware of like, all right, cool. What are my weaknesses? My haircut. Well, maybe like my lineups are shaky. My beard lineups. They're not as crisp. They get bumpy. My fades they're too stretched out. And like, it gets too bulked up at the top. And this just takes you to like, again, to it's it's always that like moment when you just kind of shy away or turn, turn your shoulder away from the problem, just to pretend it's not there. And you just gotta, like, you know, I don't want to say grow up, but like, look, this is, this is your business. This is what other people see. And it's not good that you keep on trying to be blind to the fact that this is what people see about it, about it. Right. and it's probably best that you become aware and then fix it as soon as possible versus just kind of like, oh, I'm not going to look at it and I'm not going to, I'm going to pretend like it's not there.And then, you know, figure out like what happens in that moment? Like, why do you keep on? Like, I remember I had to tell myself like this, what, why am I keeping on FA why do I keep on up this line up? Or why do I keep on up this fade? What is going on? What am I doing wrong? And most times it's, it's going to be a lack of attention to detail. It's going to be laziness. It's going to be, you're just on default mode. And you're not really trying, like, I've always found it. Just, I just don't, you just don't try, like you kind of, you have this perception, like I've had this perception, let's say like, if it was a haircut or even running the business, a new era barbering, right. I'll have a perception of like what I think the effort level to get the result is.And it's so far below the actual like effort level required to actually get the result that I actually want, if that makes sense. And so it's always again too, it's always best to just assume that you are underperforming all the time in every aspect, because that will put you on a radar of like, I am up. I need like, first of all, that should wake you up, like immediately like, oh, okay. If I'm, if I take that approach, I'm like looking at everything and just always looking at it through the lens of like, holy crap, this is like, crappy. This is. I need to do something to figure this thing out and get it better. But the, what most people will do and I've fell into this. Like I only say this because I fell into this many times is like, ah, this, you know, this looks good for what I can do.No, no, no, no. Like forget what you can do. What, what is the best? Cause you can do the best, right? Forget what your perception of self is. And what good is to you and figure out what good is, what great is or perfection is in general. And that is what you must be. And cause it's just takes work and like non laziness and identifying again, awareness figuring out triggers. And then always in that moment of, you know, let's say you're checking the haircut afterwards. Oh wait, wait. Yeah. I remember like sometimes my lines get shaky. So let me look at the haircut from this angle. And if it's shaky, let me go back and actually, you know, re not redo it, but like, you know, touch it up a little bit and improve the thing. So it actually looks better.So this time I know I actually did my due diligence. Right. So you put, you set yourself up like habits because I'll be honest, like I'm I have asked like mostly everything to like naturally, and I know that I'm very aware of myself. I'm very aware of my patterns. I'm kind of lazy. And because I'm aware of these patterns, I know my triggers that I need to look for. So like, if I'm going to do something, I know I can't, I know I can't rush it and I know I have to proofread and check it over again. And it's kind of like just this, I guess this system that, that I kind of like built and S a standard system of like, oh yeah. Typically I ha I, I don't give my best effort at first. So let me check over.And then also before I even do the thing, let me understand what is the perfection that I kind of want to emulate first, and then let me try to work this thing to that level, if that, that can make a little bit more sense. And you know, this can be like working out. This can be like diet wise, this could be sleep. Even just meant, like, you know, mentoring other barbers in the, in the Elvin mentorship program. And working with them, like I'm always working on trying to get better. I'm like, ah. You know, I should have done that, but I should have told them this instead of this, or I should have like, had them do this instead of this. And you know, the person will be getting like phenomenal results and I'll still be like, ah, that's not good enough.Like this isn't where I'm supposed to, like this. Isn't what I want them to do. I want them to be like better. Like I got to tell them this. Or, and like, if you don't have that type of like, I guess, gear in yourself I, you know, cause nobody against you, nobody's born perfect. Perfection comes from again, being aware, figuring out the trigger, reminding self in us in that moment. And then again too, once you let's say like, once you get that improvement, this is the third thing. By the way, once you get that improvement, let's say you make this a new habit, right? Because technically this is just building proper habits. And understanding it's understanding yourself, what you typically do on, on natural day to day basis, and then setting up habits that can, or reminders of, Hey, make sure you remember in this time, before you either ship that thing out or finish that haircut or whatever it may be that you check for these and you make sure that they're up to this standard because sometimes they're not, or most time I should say, they're not.So once you actually get the improvement, cause you do that multiple, multiple times, you became, you, it's made, become a habit. It's like second nature to you now. And you've almost ingrained that into what you do. Now. You look for the next thing, because guess what? It's never ending. And if you're in business to retire, I don't know, to me, that's kind of like silly, like this is an ongoing game. And like, I don't ever, this is it. That is the game. And it's fun. It's never ending. And it's, it's almost never attainable, right? Because you could have it for like a day. And then the next day it's going to be something else that's going to be wonky or out of order, or really. And that's really fun because it always required you to be on, on your best game and understanding, you know, there is, there is no like thing is, I mean, I, this is why people that say like, there's oh, passive income there.I don't think there is anything called passive income, unless you want it to be average income. Like that might be a better way to say, say it. Cause like, you know, you want to be like really you know, for yourself, set yourself up financially really, really well and be great. Well you need to be great as an interview habits wise and you need to cut out the. And that's just what I said for myself, right? And that's, what's worked for me again. I'm not everybody and I'm definitely not. You whoever's listening. I tell this to students all the time, look, you know, this is just what I've found. That was what has worked for me. And I, and this is what I think from what I'm viewing and hearing from the individual. Well, how I would attack back this problem that I've seen in my experience get results when I attack it this way.So this is what you should do. And a lot of times it gets results. Sometimes we need to iterate it to fit the individual a little bit better, or maybe I just didn't get enough information to properly diagnose their issue and give them the proper advice. And that's pretty fun for me, honestly. So this is a lot of theory. And I kind of like wrote out those three things. I'm like, Hm. You know, there's some, there's some theory in there. Like I know what kind of gave some examples, but like what's some like actual real world I guess examples of this thing, right? Because I think I've said this before theory and practice are two different things. Theory is trying to communicate and to another individual, what the practice is. And there will always be things that are left out because you can never really articulate what the practice is.It's kind of like almost intuitive when you do the practice or see somebody doing the practice intuitively you can pick up on things that cannot be articulated as perfect or as perfectly as you can just by watching it or even better doing it. So I try to, I mean, I would love to have more examples of practical stuff. But here's a couple that I just wrote up. So we're going to go business life and then what you can do to practice this, right? So like I said before with the business side, right. You know, most, a lot of barbers that I'll talk to at first, they'll just say, oh man, you know, I just need you to say, it. I'm going to see and get motivated and just actually, you know, raise my prices. Oh no, my worth. And like, I'm listening to them and I'm like, dude, this is, this is, I don't mean to interrupt, but this is not a good decision.The business is poorly built and you have no clue what needs to happen to scale. And it's almost as if like, you know, you just want to raise prices just as an ego boost rather than a strategical chess move because that's what business is it's strategy. Right. and this is let me see. I mean, I'm trying to come up with that at least, cause I have something on here, but I'm trying to see if I can come up with a different example that can better like, almost like a metaphor type thing, I guess the best metaphor. And I have it written down here it's almost like, you know, let's say somebody is in the gym and they are, I just said, squatting. I mean, you could be, could probably do this with like biceps or like chess, workout, whatever the thing may be.Right. And let's say the person got some gains at first or they got a little bit stronger, but then they kind of plateaued, right. It's the same thing in a business. Like you'll get, you'll make money. And then you'll plateau kind of same thing. And let's say the individual just thinks from once they plateau, they're like, oh man, you know what? I just, you know what I need to throw on more weight. And I need to get bigger or stronger and that's how I'm going to do it. I had just in a bunch more weight and some theory, right. This might be correct, but what you need to do like, and I, cause I I'm doing this even right now. I still try to always audit like my workouts and stuff. Like before I looked to go on, add on any, any weight I'm like, let me make sure what I'm doing right now was actually correct.Because like, you know, in this example, what I have is the individual is basically squatting with some weight and I'm sure people have seen this in the gym before and they have the worst form possible that doesn't allow like certain like muscle fibers to be hit and stretched out and you know, worked out actually. And they're not even, you know, what they're doing with the workout is because they have poor form because they have poor posture. The muscles that are supposed to be getting the I guess the majority of the exercise or getting the workout are not even being close to being hit. Right. what's a good example, like bicep curls, let's say right. You know, a bicep curl and was given an example. Cause I think everybody knows what a bicep curl is. Squat off the back of my, I mean you could even say squats or bicep curls, we'll go buy some Crow.Scott just said that. Right. So let's say some individual is just like, they're swinging their body all the way up. And like, you know, there, they're just not even like doing the proper form. Like they have their elbows out, their able aren't tucked into the sides. You know, they're kind of like hunched over a little bit, like a terrible, terrible form equally as such like with the squat, right? Let's say you do a squat, your knees are all coming forward. Your back's all arched. You don't even go down all the way. Like you kind of go down like five inches and then you'd like, come back up. And you're like, oh man, you know what? I'm just not, not getting the gains that I wanted to get. You know, watch, I think I need to add more weight on guess what's going to happen when you do that.You're going to injure yourself. Right. If you have improper form and let's say you like try to double, triple, quadruple that weight that's on there wholly like you're you are going to hurt yourself right in the gym. And what the individual should do instead is if they're not getting the proper results that they want to, they need to check what the hell they're doing at that moment in time. Meaning like, what's your form? Like, are you actually performing the exercise as it should, as it's, as it's meant to be, are you actually hitting the muscle group that's supposed to be hit? Are you having the muscle, the mind connect or the mind muscle connection that's supposed to be there. So you can really make, get the most efficiency out of that workout and really like stress that muscle and the muscle fibers and really stretch those things out to get the most growth possible.Right. And the most strength and also to what is, you know, your, your baseline is your core tight is your back arched back is your, your like current, like I'm, I'm doing it right now trying to explain it. Are you like hunched over or are you standing up tall, like wide chest? You know, is all these things, you know, matter like again too, like, are your needs going forward? Are they shaking? Or the uneven, like, what's, what's kind of going on. Like all these things would actually help an individual at that current weight too, to get the proper growth. And we're probably like, like they wouldn't even need to like, like add weight for a while because that core fundamental of proper form properly exercising the muscle and hitting, you know, opening up the right muscle fibers, stretching the things out properly and not just like having ego lift.That's what most people in the gym do. If you look at people in the gym that have terrible form, you're just looking at them like, what are you even doing in this thing? And I feel the same way with Barbara sometimes when I'm on the call, like, I'm like, what are you even doing? Like, why are you trying to go up like that? You just need to work on the basics. Right. Get this thing actually in order. And they don't know what to do. It's like an individual who's in the gym who is like, oh, I just need to add more weight. And you're like, oh please, don't, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're going to break an arm. Or like, you're going to like tear up Tara, like tendon or something. Right. And when I see this in, in, in the barber industry, I'm kind of bullish.Right? cause I, I don't, if something, once the long-term success, I don't think I sh I think it's pretty irresponsible for me to like, be preaching that they should raise their prices. Instead. I think I should do my due diligence to at least inform somebody what they should be doing, which is look, you know, have at least like seven to 10 K if not more in the bank, if you're not, if you, if you're, if your thing is to make more money raising prices, isn't going to fix a thing. You're making four K plus a month and have nothing in the bank. It's probably poor spending habits. If you're not at that 4k per month mark or higher, it's probably just a work ethic, which raising prices isn't going to help. It's actually going to make you probably lazier because you just got a reward for being a lazy and you didn't work hard at all.Right. That's not good. It's like a newbie in the gym trying to, you know, who's never like really lifted, never had good form, a good posture, or like, you know, taking care of like the fundamentals of how to actually lift weights and they just go on steroids and then thinking that like, you know, that's going to get them the body they want. And like, everybody's looking at them like you dumb, right? Like, what are you doing? Like, you're just wasting all that. And just, just for an ego lift or like, I don't even know what that person would do. Right. So just like, you wouldn't want to go into the gym doing improper form, adding more weight because it due to injury. It's the same thing. When I look at a business, especially as a barber, right? There's a lot of, not the best information out there on how to scale a business.And what I think should happen for a lot of barbers is get the core fundamentals down, right? Have a builds, good business disciplines, just like having good form and staying at a lower weight and doing proper reps and like working on the fundamentals, we'll get you a proper workout disciplines so that when you do start adding weight, look, you're not going to injure yourself. In fact, you're going to get the proper gains and probably the, the results that you want body-wise right. Especially with like, if you work on diet, sleep, all this stuff like these, these things actually like connect to each other, honestly, like, you know, you could just see how somebody lives their life and the decisions they make. This is why I always talk about make good decisions, like, think about things. Because you know, maybe somebody that's listening to this is like, I'm that person in the gym.And that's actually how I'm like, I'm also thinking about my business and I'm going to injure myself. Well, you know, try working out properly. Right. Don't try to go in for an Eagle lift, probably like lower the weights. Think about like what you're supposed to, what is actually supposed to be activating when you're, you know bench pressing bicep, curling doing a pull-up Jesus, like all these core fundamental things. I just do look for exercises every day, pull up, push up squat and a leg curl, you know, push pool to, to everybody, to lower body. And all it focus on is great form breathing mind, muscle connection. And I'm not the most in shape, dude. Like, you know, I'm not like jacked or anything, but it allows me to, to not get injured for one, it allows me to build some really good strength and you know, I'm not being, I'm being very aware of like what, what I'm actually supposed to be doing.And honestly, that helps me run my business because I can also understand the same principles in a business instead of like, thinking like, oh man, I need to scale it and do all this stuff. I'm like, whoa, hold on, hold on. I don't even have the basics down. What the hell am I even trying to do with this thing? First, let me get really good at like, you know, doing the basic fundamentals and like understanding what these parts are, having great disciplines with this before I looked to like, do anything else. Right. and I think you should do the same. I think everybody should, because like I still do it to this day. I'm not like, perfect. I just, I try to be as aware of as of what I'm doing as possible. And like, you know, I'm not afraid to say, Hey, I'm wrong.Right? Or like, Hey, I'm up. I need to like, tighten this up a little bit. And I think when you start doing that, you'll start seeing, well, first of all, like I always like when I do it, I'm like, I'm glad, I'm glad I didn't make that mistake. I'm glad I went this directly, the correct direction. Instead went for like an ego where like a image driven type of thing and just stayed with the truth. Right? That's it's always the best thing. Cause you'll get the best results. So hopefully taking this different angle on perfection, allowed you the listener to get a better idea of like, you know how to actually improve this thing. And you, like, it's not bad if you're somebody who you know, in a position where it's not the best, you're like, you just called me the out.I'm up. Like, this is actually good. Right? Cause you need to do, you need to have like a little bit of more awareness. You need to have like this thing on your radar so that you can improve it. Right. And this is, I mean, it's like what? I work with Barbara in the elevate and mentorship program with right. It's like, it's just all about, Hey look, this is how you run a proper businesses, Barbara, this is what needs to happen before you scale it. You need to have this, this, this, and this. We need to implement this tracking. So we know what the hell is going on because what most people do is they're in the dark. They don't know how to acquire new clients. They also don't know how to do it more efficiently as well too. And their financials are out of whack.So we need to have these things in place. Once we have that in place, let's really get this thing locked the in. Typically they'll take like, I don't know, eight to 10 weeks, maybe, maybe more depending on where the person is at when I start working with them. Right. But once we kind of get that down and locked in and everything's like ready to go, we can scale up pretty quickly. Right. So you know, if that is you meaning like, you know, maybe you're in a position making four, 10 K per month. And look, maybe you have, you don't have a clue what the hell to do, which is fine. Right. In terms of like, look you want to, this is the most part that you want to double or triple what you're making per month. Meaning like you want to get to the 15, 20, 25, 30 K months without doubling or tripling or quadrupling the amount of work that you do because most barbers they'll just think again, like if I want to go ahead and make that much, I have to cut a lot of heads and that's not correct.Like we got, what was it? Chris was doing four to five K a week on like 35, 40 haircuts. And that's just what the haircut and haircut with beard. Again, another thing too, please do not add any other services. That is not a way to scale. That's a way to really put your back against the wall, but I can't tell you what to do at the end of the day. But look, if that is something that you want to do and also you want to get my help with it, meaning you want to work with me in the elevator measure program. You might've been listening to a lot of podcasts and other things and you know, you've been kind of like, eh, maybe, maybe not, you know, maybe this is the time that you go ahead and book a call and see if it's the right fit for you to join.Right. And well, what I'll do is I'll put the link as always, if you listen to apple music or Spotify, I'll put it in the link. I'll put in a little description below. If you're listening on the P on the website, there should be a little box down below, say, we'll book a call. You can schedule a time and we can talk about like, what's going on right in your business and see if it is a good fit. Most of the time, like 75% be very transparent. It's not a good fit at this moment in time because Barbara's do fall into this category. Right? And so this is kind of like also why I'm like, look, you know, it could help people in terms of that actually want to join. Cause there's a lot of individuals that are like, yo, I want to do this.I want to work with you. Cause I want to scale this way up. I'm like, I just have to be very transparent. Like, dude, I can't work with you. Like I'm very I'm very honored that somebody would, would, would be thinking of working with me and joining the program that I've built out. And think very highly of it, but it's not always the best fit. And I try to always like make a good diagnosis on somebody's business of like, look, look, you're at this. This is a problem. I can't like to get you the best results. This might be something to you need to work on on your own prior to us scaling the business and 75% of the time, it's it comes down to that, right? Because the individual has not again had great business chains. They haven't built it up to a four, 10 K per month.Mark. They don't have, you know, again, two, they don't have good cash reserves at least have like 10 K that's like, you know that, that gives you a cushion because I, you know, to scale, the last thing you want to be doing is trying to raise prices and you have under 10 K in the bank, that's just like a recipe for like again to Russian roulette right there. And you know, the reason why we run a business is so we can keep money in the bank, not just spend money. So, you know, w we want to already have, I try to always look for individuals who already have like those great disciplines, because we can get you the best results very, very quickly as well as if you have the drive to do it. So again, too, if that's, you you've been listening to other podcasts or maybe YouTube content again too, if you haven't watched the YouTube content go to deluxe on YouTube I post one video a week, but again, two of that is you you've been watching this stuff or maybe, Hey, look, you've come across some stuff.Maybe this is a podcast you listened to. Maybe it's time to go ahead and jump on a call and we'll see what we can do with your business. And if I can work with you, if I can't, I'll be very honest with you and be like, look, it's not the time right now. Let's take a month. We have, I'll give you some homework and some things that you have to take action on, and then we'll kind of regroup and see if it's a good fit for you. And if it is again to make sure you're ready to take action, that we can actually dive in right then and there and get you started so we can start rocking wrong. Cause I love getting individual results. And I like working with people who have the drive to, so please actually like, you know, don't think that I'm just gonna snap my finger, snap my finger, and think everything's gonna be fixed.This is not a, like a easy money thing. This is still building a business. So please come with the right mentality. Otherwise I'll smell that. And I'll probably also have to like say it's not a good fit. So get into it. That's you good call down below. Again, this is the podcast. So this is your first time listening in welcome. Typically I will upload a podcast maybe every week or so. Been pretty good about it for the last month. And I'll kinda just go over topics that I see as like, not as close to truth in the Barbara history and it kind of just get my advice like I would give or not that I would give, but just my cause my point of view on things, if you really want to scale a business, big of doer versus a talker and actually build something great, right?That's not a flash in the pan and it doesn't suck to work in cause sometimes being a barber. Well it's not that it's not the best thing if we're being honest, right? It's, it's, it's a lot of hard work standing all day. Your body hurts hair splinters suck like and you know, you could definitely be doing a lot more than the four, 10 K per month mark. And that's just the reality of it. But again too, if this is your first time listening welcome if this, I guess this podcast, if you found some value of it or any of the podcasts too, by the way, not just this one, but I feel like I have to say it after everyone. If you found any value out of this podcast, feel free to share it with one person. I actually cause like sometimes I feel like she'd just come on a podcast and just talk about my, like, what's kind of going on with me.But I was actually looking at the the breakdown of where people listened to. Like I have people in like, there's like people in Australia, Germany, Russia, there were some countries I didn't even like, it was like, how the hell do I have people? Like, I'm just gonna open this up right now. Cause I'm on, I'll do this on the laptop. So statistics. So of course, a lot of people in the United States, Canada, Brazil, which is interesting as well to Spain, France is a lot of people, UK Ireland, Netherlands Belgium, which is interesting Germany, Czech Republic, interesting Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and other interesting ones. Sweden. That's another interesting one. Russia, China, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Is there anything else native, if I go back, this is just like, what is it the last three months, last three months of data. So if I'm pretty sure if I go back, let's go back to last year. Anything else? Pop up? No, that's about it. Oh, Venezuela. A little bit. And Gola South Africa, Somalia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Japan. I'm also just wondering like, anybody's like from those men, she gave you a shout out Norway. I don't know how to pronounce this one somewhere in Africa. I don't want to like brutally like Tenicia I thinkWhere else? Croatia.Israel. Nice Kuwait. Very cool. So if that's any of like where you're listening from, shout out to you guys. But I, I always think that's really cool just as kind of like look over like where everybody's from, who listens into the podcast. And again, to have the, if you're listening to this or any podcasts that you find value, but my one request is like, look, just go ahead and share it with one person who you think it would bring value to as well too. And like, look, if somebody did pass it on you know, the person who ever shared it with you actually cares about like, Hey, look, this is something that might be helpful and useful for you to push your career forward and also get better at things. Like, I always try to just think about how, how can I like, just have a piece of content or a podcast or a YouTube video that would actually just help somebody in like a position and like just information that might allow them to get a little bit further and get more to the truth. And again too, if you know, if you received it, go ahead. Why not pass it on? So so with this podcast, guys, thank you guys for always listening in and I'll talk to you guys next.
Daniel Contreras is spearheading the industry with his New Era model that helps overworked and undervalued barbers to work less and make more. His students are some of the fastest-growing barbers in the industry and he has helped them gain market dominance in their respected areas of business and online. If you're interested in getting out of the old traditional model of barbering and start your New Era journey, click the "FREE Demo Breakdown" button above to request a strategy session.