Summary: I know people who have been in business for decades and they've held onto clients 5, 10, 15 years longer than they should have, because they never got this simple thing down. Declare independence from poor quality clients. If you've got a way to generate new clients consistently, like clockwork, you don't have to deal with that. You can become independent from poor quality clients, but you have to have that plan in place.<br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. It is Independence Day in the United States, and today co-host Jay McFarland and I will be declaring independence from underperforming business tactics. Welcome back, Jay.<br> <br> <br> <br> Jay: Hey, thank you so much David, and happy 4th of July to you and everybody else, and once again, I love this topic because I think there's a lot of things that we're all doing that we really haven't stood back and assessed. Is that productive? Do I just do it because I've always done it. A good analysis of these things could probably save you a lot of time and effort.<br> <br> David: Yeah, absolutely. And personally, I just love the 4th of July. I love Independence Day. I love the idea of independence. I think a lot of people do. And whether or not it's actually achievable on a personal or a business level, because it's probably not. I mean, we're all dependent on other people to some extent or another.<br> <br> But to the extent that it is possible, I like to sort of look at what are the things that I would like to become independent of? What are the things that I'm dependent on that I'm not comfortable with? And then say, "alright, what can I do to change that?"<br> <br> So I feel like that's a reasonable starting point. Understanding that, are we really going to be completely independent? Well, no, we're going to have to get our food from somewhere. We're going to have to have customers. There are a lot of things that we're dependent on.<br> <br> In most industries, I mean, we're going to be dependent on suppliers, prospects, customers, supply chains, availability of cash or credit. That's not going to change. We will be dependent on some of those things, but what are the things that we can become independent of?<br> <br> That's what I think starts to get interesting.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah. I totally agree with you and I've, had this experience where somebody from the outside has come in, and maybe they're just new to the company or maybe they're a consultant and they look at what we're doing and they're like, why are you doing this? And I sit back and I go, Well, I'm not really sure.<br> <br> And then I've had the same thing where people have asked me to come into their business and within seconds, sometimes I can identify things and we get in that tunnel vision, and we don't take time to step back and say, you know, why are we doing those things?<br> <br> I would really like independence from this thing, but I feel like it's necessary. And maybe it's not.<br> <br> David: Yeah. And if you consider the things that you really want to sort of separate yourself from, the things that you really want to become independent of.<br> <br> Like when I think about that, for me, it's like, okay, I know that I'm going to be dependent on suppliers to some extent, but can I become independent of poor quality suppliers, right?<br> <br> Jay: Mm-hmm.<br> <br> David: I know I'm going to be dependent to some extent on prospects. But can I become independent of poor quality prospects? Poor quality clients, right? If there are clients that I'm interacting with because they're in there and I'm afraid to let go of them, what do I have to do to change that?<br> <br> What do I have to do to become confident enough in my ability to generate new clients that I'd be willing to let go or sacrifice some of the old ones?<br> <br> And that's where I feel like this conversation has valu...
