A note from Hugh
Most of us got into this work because we were good with our hands and good with people. The business side came later, usually by accident, usually the hard way.
My conversation with Nick Alter put words to something I have watched for years. A gifted tradesperson can know every detail of the craft and still be lost when it comes to building a company that runs without them.
Nick's fix is not a new tool or a new ad. It starts with something much plainer. Can everyone in your building define the words you all use every day?
Hugh Hornsby
Blue Collar Smart
01 / The real problem
Skill got you here. It will not get you there.
You can be the best plumber, roofer, or installer in your county and still watch the business stall out. The craft has a system. Pipes, pressure, sequence, code. You learned it. But running the business is its own trade with its own system, and most owners were never taught it. So they work harder at the part they already know and wonder why the number will not move.
02 / What experience taught
You cannot control what you cannot define.
Nick Alter spent years running a digital marketing agency, working with what he says was well over a thousand companies before selling it about seven years ago. What drove him crazy was that the same playbook would work for one company and fail for the next. When he finally stepped back to figure out why, he landed on something simple and uncomfortable. We use words every day that we have never defined. Ask a mechanic about an engine and he can name every part and tell you how they work together. Ask a leadership team what marketing is and you get a different answer from every person in the room. Nick's point is that a word only has meaning when everyone shares the same definition. Without that, your team is aiming at different targets and calling it alignment.
- 01
Name the parts of your business.A good mechanic knows every component and how it connects. Do the same for your company. If you cannot name and define the pieces, you cannot fix them.
- 02
Find your location before you pick a direction.Nick maps where a business actually sits before suggesting a next step. Kindergarten does not need trigonometry. Be honest about your stage, then take the next step, not the flashiest one.
- 03
Ask what makes you uniquely better.Nick's question is blunt. Are you the forty seventh flooring company in the neighborhood with the same flyer? Write down in one sentence what you sell, who it is for, and why it beats the alternative.
The conversation
Nicholas Alter
Creator of the ThriveSide framework
Nick joins Hugh to talk about why so many skilled operators stall out, his seven stage market maturity model, and why he maps where a business actually is before talking about where it should go. He also makes a hard point about exits. If you stepped out of your business today and it stopped working, you do not have a business to sell. You have a job with helpers.
Listen to the full conversation 03 / Your Yellow Pad challenge
One word. Five answers.
Take out a yellow pad. Write down the names of everyone on your leadership team. Then go to each person separately, on the spot, no warning, and ask what marketing means. Write their answer word for word next to their name. Do the same with one more term your team uses constantly. Sales. Quality. Service. Pick whichever one you hear most.
Read the answers side by side. If they do not match, you have found something worth fixing. Sit down with that group this week and write one shared definition everyone can repeat. One sentence. Then watch how much faster decisions get made.
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What word does your team use every day that nobody has ever stopped to define?
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