Knowing What To Focus On 🤔

Hola from Playa Del Carmen!

One of my biggest issues in business has been focus. I own a number of businesses and have started way more than I want to admit. So I’m taking my own advice and focusing on one thing.

But how did I know WHAT to focus on? It came to me during an interview with Jimmy Rose from Content Snare recently why I had so much trouble focusing over the years.

How do you know what to focus on if you don’t have anything that’s clearly winning or even working?

More on that and so much more in today’s newsletter! Let’s dig in…

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS! 🎯

I had an amazing opportunity to talk to Jimmy Rose a couple of weeks ago about focus. He vocalized the thing that has tormented me for ages, and the reason I have started so many businesses.

A lot of people have asked me over the years “why do you have so many businesses Jason?” I didn’t have a great answer for them except that I was trying to do something that was more profitable than running a dev shop and marketing agency. But in reality, the dev shop / marketing agency just wasn’t growing fast enough or big enough and I was looking for a magic bullet that would go bigger, faster.

Here’s the lesson; if you validate your idea well, when you finally focus you figure out the solutions you’re looking for that bring you the growth you’re looking for.

So I took the advice I’ve given to so many people and never taken myself. FOCUS ON ONE THING and take it all the way to the end. It either works and makes its goals or it doesn’t and you shut it down and focus on something else. But there’s nothing in the middle. Either do or do not, there is no try.

All of this brings me to my next point…

Going ‘All In’ 🔥

The interview with Jimmy Rose came at a great time because I was in the process of focusing and immediately getting distracted by shiny objects. The JHMG team and I have been rebuilding the website, the brand, the services, and the company since March of this year, and a few weeks ago I had a deal fall in my lap. Someone wanted me to come in as a turnaround CEO (again) and offered me a LOT of money to do it. That money came with a lot of stress as well, and I took some time to think about it.

When I started asking my advisors and mentors, I got some pretty rough answers like:

There were others as well, but here’s the lesson. I needed to stop being swayed by shiny objects and I decided to go all in on JHMG.

So, what have we done and are we doing?

• Big Goals

• New Mentors

• New Teammates

• New Brand & Messaging

• New Forecast

• New OKRs

• Focus On Specific Vertical

• Website Rebuild

• New Services

One of the top items we pursuing right now is a full-time salesperson. So if you know someone looking for a role in outside sales, send them my way!

But What Does Going ‘All In’ Mean For JHMG? ♠️

For me, it mostly means a lot of work, starting off with 120 service pages that cover all the stuff we’ve been doing for the last 20 years but never bothered to tell anyone about.

The problem the company has had for its entire existence is a lack of a vertical or industry focus:

• You needed a website, we did websites.

• You needed ads, we did PPC.

• You needed SEO, we did SEO.

• Who did we do this for? Anyone who came in the door.

  (Disclaimer: we still do all that stuff)

But now, we’re focusing on B2B SaaS and software development for enterprise B2B businesses and their investors. Specifically, we are trying to find ways to partner with small-cap private equity groups to be their go-to group for growing or revitalizing assets.

Will it work? I think so. So far, we’ve closed a deal with a business doing over a billion in revenue and have several more lined up. I’ll let you know at the end of December.

Focus Also Means Making The Hard Decisions 😓

I remember Jeff Hoffman, the founder of Priceline and the inventor of the airport kiosk, telling me about how when he would start a new company he would get a list of all the skills that the team needed to have to do what needed to be done. At one point, he was starting a new company and he had his whole team in a room going through the skills needed and at the end, there was one guy who stood up and said, “I don’t think you need me on this one Jeff. I don’t have the skillset you need.” Jeff agreed and got the guy an amazing job elsewhere.

Well, this is the case here too. I’ve had two Executive Assistants since I left Experience Care. At Experience Care, I needed both of them, but afterward, I just didn’t want to let go of such amazing people, so I held on.

Now I am focusing on one thing and I am letting go of one of my long-time assistants, Valeria. If you’ve interacted with me, you’ve almost certainly seen her in my emails, heard from her, or had my time protected by her. Well, after several years working together, she could be your Executive Assistant and protect your time.

I can’t speak highly enough about her and I highly recommend you reach out to me about her if you’re looking for Executive Assistant help.

Just respond to this email if you want to chat with Valeria about work.

Letting go of Valeria is about more than just focusing on JHMG though. It’s about putting other things down. By letting her go I am cutting costs so that I have more money for JHMG, but it also means that I CANNOT work on the other projects I was doing. She has been my right-hand woman to help manage those other projects. Without her, I literally cannot do anything except focus.

Finally, don’t feel too bad for Valeria, amazing people always have a line of people waiting to work with them and Valeria is certainly in this category. She already has people starting to line up.

Other Cool Stuff 🏖️

Michelle is doing another SaaS Messaging Webinar on Tuesday!

Our Director of Operations, Dr. Michelle Cobb, Ph.D., is doing another webinar on SaaS Messaging along with website breakdowns tomorrow - Tuesday, August 27th. If you have the following problems, this is probably for you:

• Are your sales flat, even with an increased ad budget?

• Are your competitors snatching up all your business?

• Have you dropped a ton of money on a website that’s not getting you new customers?

• Are you losing sleep over how much you’re spending on Facebook ads?

• Are your leads losing interest before you ever get to ask for a sale?

• Have you resorted to gimmicks or high-pressure tactics?

• Is your marketing agency the only one making money off your ads?

• Do people even understand what you’re selling?

Spoke at the Montreal Startup Festival

I spoke at the Montreal Startup Fest, spent a month in Montreal, and visited friends in Toronto. My 2-day trip to Toronto was AMAZING! I met with a friend whom I’m on a board with and had never met in person. That person introduced me to a hedge fund manager, a big-time VC, and a CEO running a 20M/yr business whom we may partner with at JHMG. Next, I got an entire day to hang out with a mentor of mine, which was what really drove me towards focusing on JHMG. Finally, I got to hang out with amazing entrepreneurs during my time in Montreal. Video from the talks will be coming soon and I will do a post about it when I finally get it back from the editors.

HealthTech Checkup Podcast Interview

I was interviewed on the HealthTech Check Up podcast from careviso and they got so much out of it that they made TWO episodes! The first was on the problems and some potential solutions for the US healthcare system and the second was on how healthcare tech SaaS and software companies are and are not effectively using UX and what they could do to improve. I was ON FIRE for these two podcasts, specifically the UX one. Take a listen if you get a chance!

Another Financial Forecasting Webinar Coming Soon

I am going to be running one of these in either early September or early October. I’ve already got a number of people on the waitlist. If you want to get on the wait list as well, just respond to this email and I’ll add you.

There are about a dozen more things…

It’s been months since I’ve done a newsletter, so I am way behind on telling you about all the good stuff I’ve been working on. Here’s a short list of what’s upcoming:

• I have a very cool go-to-market process spreadsheet I put together that intersects market segments, problems, and your systems or company’s solutions and some simple math that shows you what to address first. I don’t have the video done on how to use it yet, but feel free to play around with it here.

• The forecast readiness spreadsheet that covers everything you need to put together a SaaS forecast is almost done. I am working on the dashboard pages now.

• I got interviewed on Coran Woodmass’ podcast, The Truth About Acquisitions, and my notes on working with private equity as an operational CEO are covered there. The podcast will be going live upcoming.

So much more to talk about, but this is a great start!

Until next time,
Jason
CEO, JHMG
www.jhmediagroup.com
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