✴️ How I'm Making... #13

Before starting Finit, I founded GOM Admissions, where I worked with exceptional student founders on growing their business.

I have spent hundreds of hours coaching students 1-1, and produced thousands of presentations, teaching exercises, and pamphlets that have helped students around the world reach their goals.

Through my experiences I learnt that most of what I thought I knew about teaching was simply incorrect - bad practices inherited through bad teachers and learning habits.

Here are some common mistakes most people make when teaching for the first time, why this often does not work, what you should do instead, and what a “good” outcome looks like.

✏️ Summary

• Teaching is essential for business

• Simplify your lessons - build bridges of context

• Scaling your business means scaling your teaching

📈 Lesson 1: Teaching is a business skill

“Why should I care?” I hear people talk about this a lot.

At a certain point of growth, you cannot do everything yourself. You must hire someone to take care of your marketing, your fulfillment, your customer service, etc…

There are only 2 ways to hire someone, and have them do a great job.

1. Hire the best talent that comes “batteries included”

2. You teach them how to do it

Option 1 is fantastic, but will cost you a lot more than option 2.

If you know that you can teach someone to do the job you can get a bargain on a smart, ambitious person who does not yet have the experience you’re looking for.

Knowing how to teach will save you money.

📈 Lesson 2: Teaching is bridge-building

Teachers often regurgitate information, and expect the student to remember it.

This means the success of the lesson depends on the student’s ability to organize and store information. We are relying on “batteries included” again.

I don’t like relying on external factors for my own success - because that means it’s out of my control.

Instead, I want you to think about teaching as a bridge-building exercise.

We have a gap - a knowledge gap or a skill gap and the goal is on the other side.

If we throw out a few chunks of information out there, we are relying on the student’s ability to build in-between the pieces.

But, if we lay out the information neatly, and build bridges of context that connect the pieces, we make the journey much smoother for the student.

In general, it’s better to make the lessons and steps as small as possible. If your student is smart, it’ll give them extra room to think - if your student is struggling, it will still allow them to reach the goal.

📈 Lesson 3: School vs the real world

The world is different to school. In school, we have a set curriculum, right and wrong answers, and a specific goal. The real world is rarely so simple. You don’t get a letter grade after every lesson, and it can feel like there are external forces impacting your business (Covid was a good example of this).

But here’s the good news. If you’re a business owner training your employee, you can set the goal post wherever you want.

You are the teacher. It’s your job to make the goal clear, and get your students from A to B.

Here are some tricks to make this happen:

1. Build standard operating procedures, record repeated lessons

2. Measure inputs, not outputs

3. Put processes in place to ACTUALLY measure the inputs

4. Take your best performers, learn what they’re doing differently, build that into the SOP.

Master this, and I promise you will have no problems scaling your business.

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What’s Next?

All of my attention is going to the Finit - building it and testing offers. Looking forward to what’s coming next!

That’s all for now!

Thanks to the people who reached out last week! I won’t be able to take on any more 1-1 calls for a while.

I hope you get a lot done this week!

Ben

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