The Blind Spots That Break Businesses | 045

It. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you've joined us today. You are going to want to lean into this conversation, because I have an amazing expert with us today. This is Kemi Safdie, and let me tell you a little bit about Kemi. He's been in the business world for over 30 years,

primarily in imports. He still works in that industry, and he's opened a strategic advising business, helping clients focus on the big picture in their business, as he has noticed, and is passionate about helping owners and entrepreneurs who get sidetracked and lose focus, which causes so many issues in

their business. Welcome, Kemi. We're so glad

you're here today. Great to be here. Thank you so much. Before we get started,

tell me a little bit. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself, and then we'll jump off from there.

Okay, so my accent does not give it away. You're right. I don't know why people think that, but yes, I am from New York. I don't hear an accent, right? You don't hear it. That's it. Born and bred. I am married with four kids. I have four boys and and still in Brooklyn, been been there for a

long time and not planning to go anywhere else, hopefully. And I've been working like, it's like you said, been in the import business for the last 30 years, and I like to show my journey to teach people to you know what they can do to improve their businesses. Awesome.

So actually tell us a little bit about your journey. We'll dive into, like some of the nuances, but tell us a little bit more about where you started, why you're doing what you do now, and how that helps people.

Okay, great. So I got married. I was in the retail business for a while, and it was just working Sundays and long hours and stuff, and I wanted to get into the into the import business of the wholesale business a little bit easier in terms of hours, not really in terms of work, but So a friend

of mine was looking for a partner and we went into business together. So the first couple of weeks we were getting started, a friend of mine that was successful in the business says, Listen, I'm going to give you your first lesson in wholesale sales. Covers all sell. Just focus on your sales.

And you know, I was a rookie, my partner was in the business for a little bit, but and we were selling, we really focused on sales. After year two, we got the business up to about 13 or $14 million and we're doing okay, making money. Everything's great. And now all of a sudden, you know, we're looking at the

business a little bit, but we're not really focusing on everything. And all of a sudden, you know, you have a wheel that's turning and turning, and it's great now, all of a sudden, the wheel slows down a drop. You're like, what's going on here? Will slow down. And all of a sudden, we're real. There's no

money in the bank. Sales are there, but where's everything else? So we hired an accountant, not a consultant. That's another story, not a big consultant guy, but we can get it to that after. And he was saying, you know, you guys, do you understand, you you know, you're doing $15 million in sales, but you have $3

million of inventory in the warehouse. And, you know, you thought your margins are 38 points, the 32 points. And all of this seems very, very simple and common sense. But you know, common sense is not so common. A lot of times, you know, you're bringing in merchandise for a customer, and they need 1000

pieces, and the factory needs you to order 800 pieces, 1800 pieces. Okay, yeah, now those 800 are sitting in stock. Now what happens? 800 here? 800 here, 800 there. Before you turn around, you're so focused on that, on one aspect of your business, that you're not looking at everything else. And

I'll never forget this guy's name is Donald. Heck, I don't think he's still alive today. And me and my partner also were doing a lot of, you know, minutia type of stuff. And we went into his office one day and he wrote on the big board, clerks are jerks. Never forget that. It's probably 30 something

years 30 something years ago. He said, You guys that don't who's going above grant and looking at everything in the business, if you're not focusing on your big picture, you're going to go out of business. And what's a big picture? Always looking at the strengths of your company, your weaknesses. Every company has

weaknesses. What opportunities out there that I'm not pursuing? What are the threats? Who's coming back? Going to a couple of examples after about threats with big companies, but you're not looking at those big pictures. And inevitably, by the way, I would love to tell you it was a happy ending. It wasn't we

closed, we closed, we closed our business. And you know, I learned a lesson the hard way, and and I like to share that lesson now. I would love to tell you, Hey, I learned all those lessons. I reopened a new business. I'm doing 100 million a year today, and everything's great. That was not the case

either. I actually partnered up with another company after we closed. This company in the 90s, was doing about $150 million a year. So you can imagine what that volume is. I was there for about six, seven months, and had to send money overseas for deposits about 10 grand, and the owner told me, I'll send it out

next week. Next week. We came next week. We came next week. So I told my friend. I said, this guy's in trouble, and he's telling me, you crazy. Sound with trouble. We're selling Walmart. We're selling target. They went bankrupt about seven months later for the same reason, because you weren't

focused, you weren't looking and and again, that's that's my thing. I really just like to show people that you know, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a businessman, there are strategies and there's ways to gain clarity, to make sure that you are all looking at your overall business.

Yeah, this is, I love that story and and we'll get into more details about where you went and all of that, and talking about those big companies. However, I this popped up for me while you were talking in my book, legendary business, from rats to riches, there's a rat. Her name is Maya

rat. She's a near sighted rat because she's so hyper focused on only one part of her business that that she's focused on and in the in the book, she's actually focused on the things she wants to sell, not on the things that her clients are buying. However, that myopic view of your business as this is

the only thing that's important, even if that one thing is sales, if you're not aware of the of what it's costing you on the other side, then you can't have a successful business. That's what's going to happen. You're going to be overextended, you're going to get in trouble. You may close your business if you don't

have a have a grip on all of those pieces of your business. So that's a really clear, brilliant example of that myopic view. So thank you for that example.

Yeah, and you know, it's very cliche, but really it's true. Common sense is not so common. We just that's the nature of the beast. We just get so focused on 1s and we forget everything else we it's in your head a little bit, but, you know, it's a small piece of what really should be a much

bigger picture.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think that that's it's so easy to slip into that it's not that you've done a bad thing, it's that you don't know what you don't know, and understanding what it takes to run a business and a successful, profitable business is, is enough? Is is it's

another level. You know a lot of people, and I don't know if you've experienced this, but they come into running their business as an employee, so they only have, like, the mindset of an employee, not the mindset of a boss and a CEO. So that's another shift that that business owners have to make sometimes,

yeah, it's funny they say, I mean, just to use a sports analogy, they'll tell you a lot of times, you know, third base coach in baseball is one step away from the manager's position, and that's like, but once you step into that chair, you got to be right. It's a, yeah, it's a totally different,

different world, because you keep right that employee mindset versus that leadership mindset is very, very different, very different.

So, Kemi, you and I were talking before we got on the recording, about opportunities and threats in business. Can we talk about that for a

little bit Sure? You know we're talking about opportunities and threats. So everyone on this podcast that's listening knows knows about Netflix, right? Everyone knows about Netflix, but before Netflix was, I mean, you know, at my generation, we remember blockbuster, yeah, Blockbuster.

Blockbuster was doing billions of dollars of business, and Netflix came along and, okay, some little DVD mailing company, and they started streaming. And so that's a threat. That is a threat to your business. So had, and you know, I was doing research on a while like block. First of all, it's interesting,

by the way. Side note, Blockbuster, Netflix offered blockbuster to buy them for $50 million and they laughed at them. They laughed and they turned it down. But you know, if someone was sitting in that room and saying, Is this a real threat? Let's see, what's the internet? What are the

potentials? What's this? You know, and they pretty much ignored it because they were, you know, so high and mighty and dominating the world. And we know what happened. They went out of business, and Netflix today is still thriving. But the point is, it's very important when you're looking at that is,

first of all, I would tell you, if you're an entrepreneur or a businessman, whatever it is, get away from your space. Could be once a month, could be once a quarter, but go to a different spot. If you're an entrepreneur, you want to go to Starbucks or whatever is, shut your phone and start thinking, Where am I? What

are the potential threats out there? You know, my market's strong. My product strong. Any. Thing else out there in the market that potentially could hurt me, any innovations I know AI is the big thing today. Yeah, how is AI a threat to my business? Can it impact it? And if you're a leader, obviously

you'll sit with your team and get their thoughts on that and see where it is. If you're an entrepreneur, okay, maybe you get a mentor. Maybe you talk to yourself, but whatever it is, but you know, sometimes it's a threat that you don't think is such a big deal. But you know what? Think about it a little

more until you really could say, hey, Blackberry is another example. BlackBerry is another example. Well before

we move on from that, I wanted to jump into that point that you made, because what happens in our business is when we're focused on just our business, we're so inward focused. And this is something that I see with business owners a lot. They're focused on their point of view. And I like to

tell them, like, leave your business and walk in like a customer. Pretend like you've never been there before. Look at the walls. How does it smell? What does it sound like? What's the experience of coming into your space? We do need to step away and have that experience, that the different experience,

and I think shifting trends, shifting technology, all of those things can be opportunities. When you identify the threat, when you see something that could be impacting your business in a negative way, sorry, when you see something impacting your business in a negative way, it's

important to to to look at it and say, This is a potential threat, or it is a threat, and then what do I need to do? Do I move out of the way, or do I step in and embrace it and and how do you, how do you determine that and looking at it as a big picture thing, like you said, with blockbuster, thought

videotapes were never going to go away, or DVDs were never going to go away, and they didn't understand the power of people wanting to stay at home and not go out to the store. So there was a whole paradigm shift of how people were interacting with the product that they either ignored or refused to

embrace, and that is the thing that will make your business stumble. Those are the things, the threats that we don't see because we're not looking. And kemi's point is, stop and look. Look around. See what's going on. See what's trending in your business. Is AI, should you be embracing AI? How do you do

that? How do you change what you're doing so that you're incorporating AI into it? Or do you go the other direction and go, we're AI free. And there's, you know, if that works for your business model, there could be, you know, people that are attracted to that, because it's not AI. You have to sit and look

at those things and make the decision and informed decision, and I will tell you this, and Kemi just said it, you're not always going to have all of the knowledge. You need to go to someone else who's more knowledgeable about it and find out, like it's not all about what goes on inside your own

head whenever you're running a business, you know.

So you brought up a couple of very interesting points us now, you know, first of all, you're right. It's, you know, as a leader, sometimes you should look at the customer's point of view or not, through your lens. You know, it's interesting. The watching this couple of years ago, maybe it

was during covid, the CEO of blockbuster was talking, and he said, When he got recruited, he was in a totally, I think he's from France, or something totally different industry, nothing to do with electronics. And they asked him, they a headhunter came to take the job. I said, I have no experience in

the space. We feel you'll be good. You know, sometimes when you don't have the experience in the space could help, because you have a different perspective. And a lot of times in business, concepts are the same. Like, I've been a lot in the import business, I've been a lot of different industries.

I've been in picture frames and cosmetics and different things, but the concepts are the same. But another interesting thing you said is, don't you can't look at it from your point of view. And you know, if we want to segue a little bit into leadership, I've seen so often that leaders think it's about

them and their point of view, and they know, and that's how I got here, and they know. But no, you don't know. Best Don't be the smartest guy in the room. Yeah, you don't know because you're so sometimes either myopic or I know, well, maybe you don't know. Yeah, you know why?

Again, sometimes you're so close to it, like, you know what they say, if you're inside the pickle jar, you can't see the label, or whatever. You're so close to it, it's your business. You see what you see. It's like whenever you write something, and then you read it, and it looks perfect,

and you. Go, I'm just going to publish this. I'm going to send it out, and then there's spelling errors, punctuate whatever. There's errors in there that you didn't see. Because when you read your own stuff, you read what you think you wrote, you see what you actually wrote. So you have

somebody Troy for you, same thing in your business,

yes, yeah. You see what you want to see. Yeah. Because, and you know what? A lot of times it also could be ego too. You know, you feel sometimes you'll feel threatened if, if, if it's not your view, or it's not the way you want to see it and you look at it, you know, also another cliche, it's

business. You know, it's not a personality contest. Everyone wants to make money. Everyone has the same goals. And oftentimes, people will take something personally and think that, Oh, it's a fault in me, if I don't know it, that's not true, right? We're always growing, if a president's not

always growing and gaining knowledge and realizing, hey, you know, I heard a very nice quote once the rabbi that speaks a lot of times about education and stuff, and every time he gets up, he says, I have a terminal illness. I'm human and I make mistakes. We're not robots. We're not Androids, you

know what? And as you grow as a leader, that doesn't mean you always know more and the more a leader should really a good leader get good people and listen to them, because you know what, they're in the trenches more than you are. Yeah, at least they should be. Because if you're in the trenches, you got

a bigger problem, because as a leader, you really should be taking up that bigger view and relying and trusting them and their input.

Yeah, that's sometimes a really difficult position that business owners and leaders put, put on themselves, because they go, Oh, it's it's me. I should know. I should. It should. It should come from me. And I have heard this expressed that an expert doesn't have to know everything.

You don't have to know everything. You do need to know where to go to get those answers, which, in and of itself, gives the gives the permission and the autonomy to say, hey, it doesn't have to be all you, and it's other people as well. Like I like to say, if it takes a village to raise a

child, it definitely takes a village to build a business, there's other people that are going to come in and give you expertise and perspectives that you need to have as a leader. And if you're shut off from those you're actually limiting the ability to grow and scale.

Oh, I was just gonna say that's so true. I mean, I've seen it. And you know what happens also, you you shut those people off. But I think, I think, I don't want the stat is, I know it's in Europe, but I think maybe in the States, maybe 30% of people are engaged in work. Maybe, I don't know if

it's 30, but the truth is, a lot of times it's because you have, and I've seen it firsthand, you have quality people, and you don't give them the ability to do what they want to do. And what do they shut down. They mail it in. Okay, no problem. You know, everything. Have a party. I'll do my job, but now

you want me to really, and it's so, I tell you truth, it's so, such a stupid mentality, because at the end of the day, a guy is working for someone, and if you're a leader that shuts them out, and you're a leader that thinks they know it all, inevitably, these guys are going to shut down your key people.

They'll mail it in. And who's losing, who's losing the money you are, yeah, at the end of the job, you're losing out.

And they like to leave too. Yes.

Oh, it's interesting. I went to, I was working at a company once a I went to a management seminar on Hong Kong was in conjunction with Stanford University. Is very interesting. So a blue collar worker Number One On The List of salary white collar workers, I think it was number

10 or 11 on the list of things, was salary. They want, autonomy, freedom to do this. And you know, and I think today's world that post covid did change. I mean, I'm not super pro, you know, working remote all the time, but look, the world did change, and I think leaders have to, you know, leaders do have to

embrace it to to a point. Obviously, you know, if you have the right people, you have to embrace it to a point. But the world did change, and you have to adapt to that

also, yeah, and I've heard that people don't leave jobs. They leave bad leadership. They leave bad managers. They leave, you know, an environment that is not serving them and and feeding them. Because, if you especially if you're a creative, I'm a creative. I like to share my

ideas. I like to, you know, have some input, and if you're in a job, and I this actually did happen to me, where every time I came up with a good idea, or let's try this, my boss was like, No, we've done that. No, I don't like that idea. No, no, no, no, no. And eventually I stopped trying to continue.

Yeah, pause. There was no there. It wasn't received in any way that was positive. So, yeah, that happens a lot. And as leaders, as business owners, as employers, we need to be looking at not just what we're doing, but are our people happy that are working with us, that are working for us, are they

actually fulfilled? Because now they'll just quit, they'll leave, they'll take your somewhere else.

Yeah, and the old days? Yeah, that's it. You parked my desk for 30 years, 40 years, and that's it. You don't care today? Yeah, it's a new John. It's a new world today, right? You have to be, you know, and you know, to a point that's better, you know. You need, you need a work life balance, and

your work today, right? Needs to be just a part. It used to probably be, in the old days, that that was your life. Today, it's not yeah and right? As a leader, if you're not making sure your people are happy? Yeah, it's a big problem. I think it's a bigger problem than people let on, but it's tough.

Oh, you see it? The stats show it. Why 30% of people engage in work? Why? Because you're not making them happy?

Yeah. So changing gears a little bit. When I work with my clients, I talk about the seven pillars of profit, the seven areas in your business that you need to have systems and processes locked down, you need to have solidified so that you can actually build and expand and

have a profitable business. And you're coming at that sort of the same problem in a different way, and I love it, because you're more about the big picture. So talk a little bit about you did talk specifically about the big picture in your job, but talk about, like, for for the people that are

listening today, what are those big picture things that like, maybe two or three big picture things they need to be aware of right now.

So as a general, because obviously, if it's business specific, then it would be in, you know, if you're bringing in product costing and sales and pricing properly, etc, etc. But in a big picture, it's really looking at, I mean, it's a famous thing, a SWOT analysis. It's really looking at what you

do well, what's your strength, and what could you do with a capitalize on that strength? How could you make yourself stronger? Weaknesses. What weaknesses Do you have? And again, it's

really, I don't have any weaknesses. I'm so awesome, right?

Look a little more as somebody else, because there's something there, yes, and guess what, there's something there. And if there's not by some miracle, fine. So find out what that strength and keep making it stronger. There's always a threat, there's always there's always someone coming

around the corner. There's always somebody coming around the corner. I have a friend of mine that was doing a lot of business with a big retailer, and there's a little guy that was coming around the corner, and someone said, Hey, you heard Bob opened up this company. Yeah, no big deal. No big deal.

Bob took his entire business away because you didn't look at maybe there is a threat. And let me see, where am I at? Am I price right? Am I giving value to the customer? And again, it could be an entrepreneur, whatever it is, am I giving the real value I could to the customer? Because, guess what?

Sooner or later, you know, everything that's created can create can be created better. There's a new wallet, a new this, a new that. So you know what? You don't know. You still got to start thinking about it. Maybe that guy, you know, there's always threats. I would tell you the two, probably the

two main things I would look at all my strengths and my threats,

talking about threats whenever you you made the point of, you know, so you have your business, and it's great, and then Bob comes around with something, and you don't think it's anything that's that's the big picture, you know, Being aware of what's going on and reassessing, just

because what you did worked yesterday doesn't mean it's going to work today. Being aware of how is Bob who came around the corner with some little thing, maybe Bob's doing it differently, and maybe you need to go and look at what's Bob Bob is doing, and figure out, is there another angle? Are they

coming at your customers with a different viewpoint, and then assess, is that a change that I should be making as well? Sometimes you get really, like, tunnel vision, like, this is what we've always done. This is what always worked. You talk about the bookstores, you know, like, oh my gosh, bookstores are

another one, right? These amazing places you could go in these posh libraries. They were so great. And now they're they don't exist anymore. Yeah, these they go away because they're not paying attention to what's going on for the customer. And we have to be customer focused. How do they want to receive their their

products? How do they want to do it? Do they want to walk into your establishment? Or do they want to do it online, where you know you might I always want to be a mom and pop, so I want them always to walk in and I don't want them to have to do anything online. And if everybody shifts to they only want to do

something online now. Now, where are you and. What happened to the bookstores? The bookstores were no, we're not, you know, we're not really. We're not focusing on that. We're focusing on this experience that people have. And then what people wanted shifted. So we have to be aware not only of what we're

doing, but what does our client base want, and how do they want it, and are we serving them in the way they now want to be serviced. And that's a big picture thing that people forget about.

Yeah, you know, going back to examples, you know, when Facebook came out with a mobile app, MySpace was the player. MySpace had over 100 million followers. They didn't even think of it. No one wants to, no one wants to look at their at their social media on a phone, even, I mean, again, it's

2030, years ago, but like you said, they didn't. They didn't pay attention to it. They didn't. Who's that people want to be on their desktop? And they didn't, and they just totally ignored what the customer now wanted, that shift in the market.

And we're not saying follow shiny objects, please. We're being clear about this. We know, don't follow shiny objects. Find the shiny object, investigate it. Is that a shiny object, or is that a change in trend? So and it's not just what you think, just what Kemi said, do the research.

Read, read up on business you know, websites and magazines and what are the experts out there saying? What are your customers saying? Have you reached out to your customers to ask them what they want? Are, you know, when they when you do business with them? Is there an exchange get the information from outside of

yourself so you can make those informed decisions? Well, you

used to run another great you know, by the way, right? We're not, by the way, you may be fine, and your business may be healthy, and you may not have to do anything and continue on your trajectory. No one's it's not always an automatic that your your business is going to blow up. It

could be every but just make sure that you're looking at it and everything can be fine. That we're not always telling you that all of a sudden, oh, everything's a disaster, and you got to change everything, no. But the thing is to look at it. No. You know, we get so the myopic we get so stuck in the

minutia sometimes that you don't that's, that's really my main thing just is take a step. It could be once a month, could be once a quarter, whatever it is, but take a step out, leave the office, leave the space, and say, Hey, are we is like you said, is that right? Don't follow the shiny thing. Is it?

Maybe it's not, but at least you know you looked at it and you could say, hey, we made an educated decision. We made an educated an educated guess, and we're looking at, you know what, we're on the right track or whatnot. But it's not always an automatic that you're on the wrong track, right? That's not

pointing that out. Yeah, right. Very important point, and so I love that. So make a commitment to yourself that you are going to either once a month or once a quarter. Put it in your calendar, put it in your tickler, put it on your to do list. However you keep track of how you're managing

your business once a month or once a quarter. Step outside of your business and look at what's going on outside, what's what, what is going on and and see it from a different perspective. That's such a powerful recommendation. Kemi, I love it. I'm going to steal it. I'm just kidding. I will give you credit

for that. I just I think that that is something that we forget about in the every day of the business, even when we set ourselves up as CEO and we're working our business that way, that might be the one thing that you kind of forget to do is step out.

Yeah, right. That's it, right? By the way, you forget. You just get so busy you forget? Yep, every time I said remind on my phone and I swipe it, and then I totally forgot about it, right? You just forget because you're so caught up. Yep, you know, you know, I'll tell you. And this is all

my own personal opinion, and but I would, you know, a lot of times, like, I do use AI a lot, and like, sometimes, for an entrepreneur that is alone. It's not a bad idea. Talk to Charlie. Hey, this is where my business what do you think? I mean, it's a crazy thing. The whole, the whole AI thing, is crazy, but

that's another story. I mean, it's insane. But, you know,

give you it does give you a wider perspective. And it's, it's a consultant, if you will.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And if a guy's an entrepreneur that's alone, it's not a bad tool. Hey, this is where I'm at. Am I missing something? What do you think? And really, to an entrepreneur that's alone, a lot of times, he may not have the headspace to really look at the business, so that could be a

good tool for that single owner entrepreneur.

That's a great idea. And also the phone reminder is I forgot to add that to my list of how you can remind yourself we have our recycling comes for recycling every other week. And so my husband kept missing it. And so finally, I was like, just put a reminder on your phone. So now every other

Tuesday, we have a reminder that comes up. It recycling out. Yeah, yeah. You need it. You need it, because the world, the world, moves pretty fast, right? World fairs, you know, you gotta, you gotta get up being

crazy tech. Technology was supposed to make our lives easier and made it like, I don't know, we just became crazy fast. That's another story. Everything moved it's supposed to move slower, because everything's supposed to be easier. And it just became like there's not a second to

breathe. You see at a red light, everyone's on their phone looking at their text

like, what happened? Yeah, yeah, being being available all the time really did change how we live our lives. Well, Kemi, I am so thank you so much for being here. I'm very appreciative. This was an amazing conversation about a really important topic that we forget about. So thank

you for that. And you do have a gift for our audience, and I'd love for you to tell us about that.

Yeah, so I offer a free one hour consultation to you know, anyone that's interested. It's my pleasure. If it goes somewhere, it goes somewhere, it goes if it doesn't, it doesn't, it's my pleasure always to talk and to help and to give some insights. You can email me at Kemi. You'll

put in the we'll

have it in the show notes. We'll have it. We'll have it for you, so you don't have to write it while you're driving and listening to

your podcast. Yes, and yeah, I'm always there. Love awesome. So if you

want to get Kemi for an hour. I highly recommend it. He's got a lot of business experience, and we were just talking about an outside perspective, and I think he probably has it for you. So be sure to go to profit connectors, dot club, that is our portal, where we have our community. And

you can get information from all of our speakers. You can get kemi's gift. There it is, profit connectors, dot, C, l, u, B, that's the website. So go to profit connectors dot club. It's free to join. Just go in there and you can find kemi's episode. And click on get his gift, and it'll be the information where

you can get that. You can also get all of the other gifts from all of our other guests that we've had on the podcast, and information about how to get in touch with all of them. Thank you so much, Kenny for being here. This has been a great conversation. Would you like to send us out with one more little

golden nugget?

I have a couple golden nuggets, you know what? Yeah, I'll leave you with the golden my mother always says, your thoughts create your life. Ooh, thoughts create your life.

That's a good one. Yeah, so your thoughts create your life. Love that. It really is very, very true, and your mother is very smart. So thanks again for joining us. Congratulations on showing up. You mute yourself. Well, thank you, yes, and remember, it's your impact. Go out and make it

matter. Yep. Okay.