Benj Miller is a serial entrepreneur – I call him the “Atlanta Richard Branson” – he has three businesses over the 7-Figure mark with a fourth on its way! He is passionate about helping small business owners build their businesses and provide the assets they need for growth.

1. Syrup Marketing works with companies ($3-30MM revenue) to help them understand their brand and visualize it and take it to market with digital marketing services.
2. CodeSmith Development is custom software development and integrating multiple softwares to help companies work more effectively.
3. Transcend is a commercial real estate brokerage that helps small companies find office space that reflects their company culture and mission.
4. Traxion is a SaaS platform for companies that run EOS.

LINKS Connect with Benj Miller – Website Twitter LinkedIn

EOS Model – entrepreneurial operating system – Traction by Gino Wickman

Toggl – app to track what you do to create your “Stop Doing” list

Email your top take-aways and learnings to Casey@CaseyGraham.com

TOP TAKE-AWAYS STOP DOING LIST Syrup began in 2004 as a way for Benj to quit his job as a creative director and start his own company. In 2009, the company grew 300% and by 2012, they broke the 7-Figure revenue mark. One of the best decisions he made was to elevate another leader in the company to run the day-to-day operations of the business. Benj realized he was a great visionary, but not a good operator. With that decision, he was able to do what he was best in the world at and empower others to do what they’re good at. Ultimately you’re going

“CEOs are a tuxedo in the front and a hospital gown in the back”. The quicker we can turn over to others the things we’re not good at, the better our company and team environment will be.

HIRING TIPS Force yourself into pessimism – look for the reasons to NOT hire someone. Then if you do hire them, you know where they will need coaching.

Realize what gear they work – make sure you’re hiring people that work in the same gear as you. You don’t want someone that will cover more or less ground than you will in a given day.

Be thorough with what you expect for the job. One way to do this is to walk through an exercise with them that could take a while, but will be beneficial in the long run!

• Provide a list of the roles and responsibilities you expect from the new hire
• Ask them to chart how they rate themselves at each role and responsibility of the job (How well they like it and how well they would perform it
• Ask them, “How do you think we should measure how well you’re doing at each of these roles and responsibilities?” and create their performance measurements together.

MUST-HAVE BUSINESS PROCESS Understanding who you are as a business is the most important thing you can do for your business. Asking who you are, what you do, who you serve, etc. are the most important questions you can answer before you spend money on any other thing to grow your business. You have to start with who you are and who you are helping with your product and/or service. Going through this exercise every 3 years is crucial to continued growth.

KEY METRICS In addition to looking at your financial reports regularly, you need to define and measure the most important numbers in your business. For example:

1. Magic Number – Future Revenue divided by Fixed Monthly Operating Costs (tells you how long of a runway you have if you don’t sell another contract or product)
2. GAP Number – The amount required to hit your profitability goal for the month

Having key numbers like this will simplify what you’re looking at and keep you on track.