The Leveraged CEO

mattdart21
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For business owners who want to stop being the bottleneck. Matt Dart breaks down the systems, automations, and mindset shifts to build a business that runs without you.

  1. 6d ago

    Ep138: Your Staff Aren't Lazy, You're Just a Bad Boss

    Most owners reckon their staff are the problem. They're lazy, they look busy, they don't follow the process. But nine times out of ten it comes back to the owner. In this episode I break down why your hires keep failing, and what needs to be in place before you bring the next person on. A farmer who just joined the program is paying $220k a year across two staff who aren't getting the job done. There's no checklist, no SOPs, no onboarding and no real hiring process. The work is simple and repetitive once someone's trained, so finding and training the right people should be easy. It isn't, because the system isn't there. You can't judge someone against a standard that only exists in your head. Here's what I cover: -The hire, fail, fire cycle. You hire someone, they fail, you fire them, you jump back on the tools and hire again. Same result every time. A roofer I spoke to this week has been through four or five people in 6 months. That's stressful for everyone and it's not good for business. -Donkeys and stallions. Donkeys are good to have in the business. They'll do the task, but only if the system and process is there for them. Without it they do nothing, which is exactly what was happening with the farmer's team. -Map the outcome before you hire. Write down what you want this person to achieve, what they're responsible for and what they'll do each day. Then check the systems and processes are ready before they start. If they're not, start there, otherwise you're setting them up to fail. -The 30-day onboarding road map. Take them through the vision, the purpose and the mission of the business, then train them on the job. By day 30 they should be fully handed over and you're out of that role. From there it's just checking in. -Money isn't enough to keep people anymore. People can move around. If you want them to stay long term they need to be connected to a vision and a purpose, otherwise you've just got a revolving door. Timestamps:00:00 Intro: your staff aren't lazy00:38 Three new clients and my $100k/month tracker01:18 The farmer paying $220k for staff who don't deliver01:51 Why it always comes back to the owner02:07 The hire, fail, fire cycle02:21 The roofer who's been through 5 people in 6 months02:43 What a hiring playbook fixes03:14 Donkeys and stallions03:54 Map the outcome before you hire04:21 The 30-day onboarding process05:31 Why money isn't enough to keep people06:31 The recap: outcome, SOPs, onboarding, check-ins07:10 How to grab my hiring docs If you're a business owner doing $250k to $2m a year and you keep hiring people who don't work out, book a free Leverage Audit with me. We'll go through your systems and processes, work out what to automate, delegate or delete, and get the hiring and onboarding sorted so your team can run without you. Then you get your time back and can put those hours into growing. Link's in the description. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback1

  2. Sep 22

    Ep137: 3 Ways Your Business Is Bleeding Money Right Now

    You won't find the leak on your P&L. It's not a line item. It's sitting in how the business runs day to day, and most owners don't even know it's happening. In this episode I break down three places money is leaking out of businesses right now, straight from the calls I've been having, and how to fix each one. None of these cost money to fix. They're costing you money because they're not fixed. And the third one is the biggest of the lot, because it's the one expense nobody ever puts a number on. Here's what I cover: -Slow lead response. If you're on the tools all day and you don't get back to a lead within 5 minutes, you're throwing money away. The second someone clicks your ad, Meta shows them your competitors, and the fastest reply wins nearly every time. A concreter I spoke to has a $10k average job and only lands 20% of what comes through. Reply and pre-qualify inside 5 minutes and that's an extra 5 to 10k a week. -The locksmith rule. My son locked himself in the car. I called the first person who could get there and didn't care about the price. That's your customer. They've got a problem right now and whoever answers first gets the job. Fix it with an admin person, a CRM automation, an AI agent, or a commission-only appointment setter on 5% of contract value. -Admin that's late or never happens. 150 emails in the inbox, a couple of days to catch up, and the person who asked for a quote has already gone somewhere else. Rule of thumb: anything that happens more than five times gets a template or an AI agent trained on it. Onboarding becomes a workflow. Invoicing gets automated. A VA or an inbox agent sorts what needs you and what doesn't. -Your hours, the biggest one. 40 hours a week and only 5 of them on anything that moves the business forward. Get 20 back, put 10 into sales, close two extra deals a week at $10k, and that's an extra $80k a month in contracted revenue without changing anything else. Delete, delegate, or automate the rest and watch what happens over 12 months. Timestamps:00:00 Intro: three ways you're bleeding money00:30 Number 1: slow lead response01:01 Why paid ads make speed to lead even more important01:33 The concreter losing 80% of $10k jobs02:13 The simplest fix: someone who just replies03:00 The locksmith rule: first to answer wins04:18 AI agents, CRM automations and chatbots05:01 Commission-only appointment setters05:43 Number 2: admin that's late or never happens06:42 Inbox agents, VAs and the five times rule07:53 Number 3: your hours08:42 The $80k a month maths09:30 How to apply to work with us If you're a business owner doing $250k to $2m a year and you're on the tools all day while leads and admin pile up, book a free Leverage Audit with me. We'll go through your systems and processes, work out what to automate, delegate, or delete so you can get your time back and put those hours into the stuff that actually makes money. Link's in the description. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback1

  3. Sep 15

    Ep136: 5 Signs Your Team Isn't the Problem (You Are)

    Most owners I talk to reckon the team is the problem. Nobody follows the process, everything comes back to them, and they're putting out fires all day. In this episode I break down five signs it's not actually the team. It's the way you've set the business up, and that comes back to you. I'm pulling all five straight from the sales calls I've been having the last few months. Same story every time. Good people, no systems, and an owner who's the only place anything gets decided. Fix the setup and the team just figures it out. They're a lot smarter than you probably think. Here's what I cover: -Every question in the business defaults to you. One owner had run it this way the whole time he's had the business, then wondered why he had no time. There's no ownership because there's nowhere else to go. Fix is a definition of done in the SOP and a "here's what to do if this happens" section. 80% done by someone else beats 100% done by you. -You've got SOPs and nobody uses them. A bloke built the whole set two years ago, then kept changing the process and never updated the docs. Now he's got zero SOPs and everyone's back at his desk. Update the SOP the day you change the system, not two years later. -The AI bot I built for an allied health clinic. Their admin manual was 40 pages so the team just asked the manager instead. We built one-page SOPs for the main tasks and a bot the team can chat to that's read the whole manual. The manager stopped fielding questions and so did the owner. -You're the only deadline. Financial services team knew the BAS was due and did nothing because the only accountability was the owner asking "why isn't it done." If you have to manually tell the team what's due, you're the bottleneck. An automated task list with overdue, due this week, due today fixes it. -You hired and it didn't stick. Spoke to someone an hour before recording whose manager leaves every 12 months. No hiring process, no filtering, no onboarding. Hiring is the answer, you're just hiring the wrong people with no system to land them. Run it like a funnel, add filter questions, then a proper 30-day onboarding before you hand the role over. Timestamps:00:00 Intro: selected for Australia in the LMS World Cup00:49 Five signs the team isn't the problem01:20 Sign 1: every question defaults to you02:42 Definition of done and the 80% rule03:36 Sign 2: you've got SOPs and nobody uses them04:51 The AI bot that answers the team's questions06:09 Sign 3: you're the only deadline07:22 Sign 4: you hired and it didn't stick08:34 Hiring like a funnel and the 30-day onboarding10:32 Sign 5: you feel like you're repeating yourself11:02 Delete, delegate, automate and the two-week time audit11:58 The buyback rate: 25% of your hourly rate If you're a business owner doing $250k to $2m a year and every question in the business still lands on your desk, book a free Leverage Audit with me. We'll go through your systems and processes, work out what to automate, delegate, or delete so you can get your time back and put those hours into growing. Link's in the description. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback1

  4. Sep 8

    Ep135: 5 Signs Your Business Owns You (Not the Other Way Around)

    Everyone starts a business chasing freedom, and most people end up with a very expensive job instead. In this episode I go through the five signs I keep seeing in conversations with founders right now, the signals that your business is running you instead of the other way around, and what's actually behind each one. None of these are about how hard you work. Plenty of the owners I talk to are doing $500K, $1M, even $3M a year and still working 50 to 60 hours a week. Revenue was never the problem. The business being wired to depend on you is. Here's what I cover: -Sign #1: you're waiting for problems to land in your inbox instead of being proactive. Reacting to everything means you never get into a state where you can actually think, make good decisions, or be creative, you're just putting out fires. -Sign #2: your team asks permission for decisions they're already capable of making. This is the one that kills your ability to switch off, take a day, or actually be present with your kids, because everything still runs through your head first. -Sign #3: you know every password and every system by memory because none of it's written down anywhere else. I talk about a business we worked with where the team kept hammering the manager with questions, so we loaded their SOPs into a chatbot the team could message instead, and it freed up hours of the manager's week overnight. -Sign #4: you've cancelled something with your family because "only you" could handle it. The worst one on the list, and the one that costs you the most if you let it keep happening. -Sign #5: your revenue keeps climbing but your hours never drop. Growing revenue should buy you time back through reinvestment and hiring. For most owners it does the opposite. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: the five signs your business owns you 00:40 Sign #1: waiting for problems instead of being proactive 01:52 Sign #2: your team asking permission for calls they can already make 02:42 What real freedom actually looks like day to day 04:00 Sign #3: every password and system living in your head 04:50 The SOP chatbot that stopped the endless questions 05:32 Sign #4: cancelling on your family because "only you" can handle it 06:03 Sign #5: revenue climbing while your hours never do 06:32 Who this is for and how to apply 07:34 Why waiting too long to fix this costs you the relationship If more than two of these sound like you and you're doing $250k to $2m a year, book a free Leverage Audit with me. We'll go through your systems and processes, work out what to automate, delegate, or delete so you can get your time back and put those hours into growing, and into the people who actually matter. Link's in the description. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback1

  5. Sep 1

    Ep134: 6 Things That Built My $55K/Month PT Business (While I Did Nothing)

    Most people wait until they can "afford it" to invest in themselves. I did the opposite, and it's the reason I ever built a business that ran without me. In this episode I go through the six things that actually got my first PT business to $55K a month with a team of 12 running it, while I did next to nothing in the day to day, including the time I got fired with zero notice and cried in a car park with a gym lease already signed. None of these six things are complicated. None of them are secrets. But most owners won't do them, because most of them cost something, money, comfort, or control, before they pay anything back. Here's what I cover: -The $26K coaching agreement that forced my hand. I paid $10K upfront out of $12K total in my bank account. No backup plan. I've since put around $250K into my own skillset, and every dollar of it made me move faster because I had to make it work. -Why I stopped hanging around people who only talked about business. My high school mates never built anything, so I stopped seeing them and surrounded myself with people already doing what I wanted to do. -The moment I realised I was the actual problem. Twelve staff, and I kept inventing changes to things that didn't need changing. The business grew the second I got out of the way. -Opening a gym right next door to the one that sacked me. Fully booked in two weeks, then a fired trainer, a toxic club manager, and a termination letter left on my desk with zero notice, while I'd already signed a lease and had nowhere to train my clients for three months. -The car park moment. Crying after getting terminated, a gym lease already signed, and $4-5K a month in overheads about to start with no clients to put through it. Still the best thing that ever happened to me. Timestamps:00:00 Intro: episode 134, quick Tesla update00:51 The six things that built the business to $55K/month01:53 #1: the $26K coach that forced me to perform03:17 #2: cutting out mates who weren't in business03:43 #3: changing my environment on purpose04:19 #4: realising I was the bottleneck with 12 staff05:32 #5: opening a gym next door to the one that sacked me07:11 The termination letter with zero notice07:20 Training clients out of my parents' garage for 3 months08:05 #6: crying in the car park, the lowest point09:07 Fully out of the business, running on a team of 1209:37 PT Mastery today, 5 hours a week10:09 How to apply for a Leverage Audit If you're a business owner doing $250k to $2m a year and you're still the one holding the whole thing up, book a free Leverage Audit with me. We'll go through your systems and processes, work out what to automate, delegate, or delete so you can get your time back and put those hours into growing. Link's in the description. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback1

  6. Aug 25

    Ep133: I Gave a Business Owner 3 Days a Week Back (Live Case Study)

    Most people think automation means buying some off the shelf software and hoping it fits. Sometimes it doesn't exist yet, so you build it. In this episode I give you a live look inside a client project we're finishing up right now, a real estate stylist who was running her entire business off memory and a Google Drive, and how I built her a custom system from scratch that gets her almost 3 days a week back. This isn't a hypothetical. I walk you through her actual business, what she was doing manually before we touched anything, and then I share my screen and show you the exact tool I built her, live availability, checklists and all. If you're running any part of your business off memory and spreadsheets, this is what the other side looks like. Here's what I cover: -What her business actually does. She styles properties for sale, real estate styling, moving furniture from a warehouse into a house so it looks better for buyers. Simple business, but the logistics were eating her alive. -Everything she was doing manually before. Checking a Google Drive to see what furniture she actually had, going off memory for availability, meeting the removalist at the warehouse in person, then meeting the stylist at the property in person. She was the bottleneck for every single job. -What I actually built her. A custom job planner with live furniture availability (down to "2 left out of 6"), auto-generated pickup checklists for the removalist, and auto-generated return checklists so she doesn't have to be at the warehouse at all anymore. -How it's built. Mostly vibe coded in Claude Code, with Airtable storing live availability and n8n connecting it all together. Took a few iterations to land on the right stack, and around 30-40 hours of build time so far. -Why we only take 4-5 clients at a time for custom builds like this, and what it should get her back once it's fully live, 20-30 hours a week or more. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: a live case study, episode 133 00:20 She's getting almost 3 days a week back 00:44 The business: real estate property styling 01:23 Everything she was doing manually 02:14 What I built her: a custom job planner 03:14 What's next: remote access for the stylist 03:47 Screen share: behind the scenes of the app 05:10 Built in Claude Code, automations in n8n 05:42 How long it took: 30-40 hours 06:15 Why we only take 5 clients at a time (one spot left) 07:20 Done-for-you vs done-with-you, how to apply If you're a business owner doing $250k to $2m a year and you're still running parts of your business off memory, spreadsheets, or your own two hands, book a free Leverage Audit with me. We'll go through your systems and processes, work out what to automate, delegate, or delete so you can get your time back and put those hours into growing. Link's in the description. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback

  7. Aug 18

    Ep132: You're Not Bad at Delegating. You Never Actually Did It.

    Most owners think they're delegating. They're not. They're dumping a task on someone with no training and hoping it gets done. In this episode I go through the five or six reasons your delegation keeps failing, and the exact process to hand something off so it never lands back on your plate. Here's the thing. If your mindset is "I'll just keep doing it myself," that's the exact thing keeping you stuck. You've got the right intention, you know you need to delegate, you're just not doing it properly. So it becomes a never ending cycle where you hand something over, it comes back, and you take it back. Here's what I cover: -You didn't delegate, you dumped. No training, no SOP, no process, and then you crack the s***s when it's not done the way you pictured. Most of your team are donkeys, and donkeys do great work when you train them. They can't read your mind. -You expect them to do it exactly like you. They won't, ever, because they're not you. Ask instead what 90% as good as me looks like. That standard is still a great outcome, and it frees your energy for the work only you can do. -Nothing's written down, so it all comes back to you. If every little question routes through you, you're never actually off the tools. What happens when you're sick or want a holiday? I share how we turned one client's manual into a chatbot trained on their SOPs so the team stopped asking the owner the same boring questions. -You yanked it back the second it wasn't perfect. The first version is never as good as yours. That's the cost of buying back your time, not a reason to quit. Give feedback and let them run it again instead of taking over. -You handed an outcome to a donkey. "Post seven times a week and get 100k views" is a stallion job. Sending an invoice is a donkey job. Match the task to the person, give donkeys step by step processes, and save the open-ended outcomes for your A players. -The actual process to hand it off. Film yourself doing the task a few times, drop the transcript into AI and get it to bulletproof the SOP so a fifth grader could follow it. Send it over, do the task together once while they drive, let them do it solo with the SOP in front of them, then hand it over as their responsibility and their KPI. Now even if they leave, you give the SOP to the next person and you never touch it again. Timestamps:00:00 Intro: why "I'll just do it myself" is killing your business00:38 Reason 1: you dumped it, you didn't delegate00:53 Donkeys, horses and stallions recap02:04 Reason 2: you expect them to do it exactly like you02:37 Reason 3: nothing's written down, so it comes back to you02:54 The SOP chatbot that saved a client hours04:12 How to document a task the easy way04:46 Reason 4: you yanked it back too soon05:08 Reason 5: you handed an outcome to a donkey05:57 The full delegation process, step by step08:08 Handing it over for good (making it their KPI) If delegation and your team is exactly where you're stuck right now, send me a message on Instagram or Facebook and I'll send you the training that walks through this properly, so you can document a task once, hand it off, and stop being the person everyone comes to for answers. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback

  8. Aug 11

    Ep131: The Leverage Audit: How I Find 20 Hours a Week in Any Business

    Everyone tells you to work on the business, not in it. Nobody actually shows you how. In this episode I walk through the Leverage Audit, the exact first thing I do with every client who wants their time back, and the same process I used to pull myself out of my last two businesses. Here's why most people get this wrong. They're reactive. They go "what could I automate?" before they've got any idea where their time is actually going. You can't make good decisions without the data. The audit gets everything out of your head and onto paper first, and then the answers are obvious. Here's what I cover: -What the Leverage Audit actually is. An honest inventory of what you do with every 15 minutes of your day. Not a productivity hack, the groundwork that shows you exactly where your hours are leaking before you automate or hire a single thing. -Step one, log everything for one to two weeks. Set a recurring alarm every 15 minutes and write down what you're doing, personal or work, no matter how small. Tag each block with a category (sales, marketing, delivery, finance, ops, team) and an energy rating: energising, neutral, or draining. -Work out your buyback rate. Take your annual income, salary plus profit, and divide by the hours you work a year (most people about 2,000). That's your effective hourly rate. If you can outsource a task for under 25% of that rate, you should, so you can spend more time on the $100+ an hour work like sales and marketing. Shout out to Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time for the principle. -Run every recurring task through four actions. Systemise it, keep it, hand it off, or stop doing it completely. Keep the stuff you love or that gives a great return, like sales calls. Hand off the draining low-value stuff. Systemise it first if there's no process, then hand it off. -The payoff. The last tab tells you exactly how many hours a week you can get back, split into what to stop, hand off, systemise first, and keep. That's your roadmap. For most clients this is a 2 to 3 month process to get their time back, and then we move on to revenue and margins. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: what the Leverage Audit is 00:54 Quick life update (I bought a Tesla) 01:47 What the audit actually is 02:23 Step 1: log everything every 15 minutes 02:53 Step 2: the task analysis tab 03:01 How to work out your buyback rate 04:30 Reading your time log (category and energy) 05:03 Systemise, keep, hand off, or stop 06:51 The payoff: how many hours you get back 08:54 Why most people try to automate the wrong way Want to run this on your own business? Send me the word "audit" on Instagram or Facebook and I'll send you the full training and the exact template I use with clients, so you can log your week, work out your buyback rate, and see how many hours you could get back. This is genuinely the first thing we'd do together if you worked with me. Find out how to get 20 hours/week back -https://leveragedceo.com.au/getyourtimeback

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About

For business owners who want to stop being the bottleneck. Matt Dart breaks down the systems, automations, and mindset shifts to build a business that runs without you.

Information

  • Creator
    mattdart21
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    139
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © mattdart21
  • Show Website
    The Leveraged CEO