Shownotes
I used to be an idea gangster with my team—I'd do drive-bys every single week. I'd read a book, get super excited about the takeaways, and come in firing: "All right team, let's execute!" They were genuinely good ideas. But we never got enough traction with any of them before I'd pop in with the next one. My COO finally leveled with me: "Dude, we gotta stop. People are exhausted. We're not doing great work. That great idea eight ideas ago? We still never saw it produce fruit, and we're on to seven more since then." Here's what I learned: every new idea has an exponential curve—it's really hard on the front end, but weeks or months later is when the curve bends and the really good shit happens. We never gave anything time to get there. Then I came across this clip of Jeff Bezos explaining it perfectly: his VP of operations told him "You have enough ideas per minute to destroy Amazon. You have to release work at the rate the organization can accept it. Every idea you release creates a backlog that adds no value—it creates distraction." This episode breaks down why good ideas can fuel your company or kill it, how I created systems (an idea bank, a dedicated filter person) to stop injecting my ADHD into the business, and why I fired a fractional client this year because we couldn't execute through their constant idea churn. Your ideas are either an asset or a liability—which one are they?
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Welcome to Repeatable Revenue, hosted by strategic growth advisor , Ray J. Green.
About Ray:
→ Former Managing Director of National Small & Midsize Business at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he doubled revenue per sale in fundraising, led the first increase in SMB membership, co-built a national Mid-Market sales channel, and more.
→ Former CEO operator for several investor groups where he led turnarounds of recently acquired small businesses.
→ Current founder of MSP Sales Partners, where we currently help IT companies scale sales: www.MSPSalesPartners.com
→ Current Sales & Sales Management Expert in Residence at the world’s largest IT business mastermind.
→ Current Managing Partner of Repeatable Revenue Ventures, where we scale B2B companies we have equity in: www.RayJGreen.com
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Transcripts
I used to be like an idea gangster with my team and I would I would just do drive-bys every single week. And I would come in after reading a book, you know, like I'd you know I read was reading like a book a week at one point. And I'd read a book and I'd get some really good takeaways and they were they were good like they were they were good ideas, they were good, you know, things to to implement in the business. So I'd get super excited, right? And as as you know CEO before and as the as the owner of the business now, I would you know go put those ideas to work. I'd be like, "All right team, let's get together. Boom. Let's start executing. I'm you know and and (1) I'm really good at selling things. (2) I you know I'm I I would be really passionate. (3) They're really good ideas, right? Like I mean conceptually you go, 'Fuck, like that's Ray, you're right. Like that's that is a great idea. Let's go implement it.'"
But we never got enough traction with the ideas to do the ideas properly. By the time we got moving, then I would pop in with another idea that wasn't necessarily in conflict with that idea, but there's only so many resources to go around. So we would, you know, be putting in place one idea on one thing, I'd come in with a new idea on the next thing, and then you're diluting your resources and it was just non-stop. The team was like never safe, right?
And what happened was, over time, the team gets exhausted. They start to... they're not sold as easily or nearly as excited about the ideas that you come in. Like no matter how good they are. They're like, "All right, like we've we've done this before, you know." And they get confused, they get frustrated because, you know, people want to do good work, right? So I would come up with an idea, they'd want to put it in place, they'd say "Yeah, like let's I I want to deliver that thing. I'm excited about it. You've got me pumped up." And here I am like a week later changing that. So they never really get to see their product or the the the outcome of their work fully implemented because of my own ADHD, right? And my own kind of like idea factory that I have cooking.
And you know, I had a COO that that told me years ago, like they, you know, we sat down like he was very candid like we're we're still good friends. And he said, "Dude, like I'm gonna level with you. Like we we gotta stop. Like you gotta you gotta filter shit through me or something. Like can you can I just be the the the idea dump? Like can I be the place that you come to and let's filter it? Cause I've you know I've gotta help allocate these resources. People are are exhausted. We're not doing great work. We're not actually seeing any of these ideas through. Like that was a great idea eight ideas ago that we still never really got to see the fruit... like that that idea never beared... bore... something... never produced any fruit. And we're on to like seven more since then." And he's like, "I I need your help." And I said, "Okay. Like I got you." And I agreed with you.
Like I because I know this: If you want to see any good idea become like fully implemented and reach its potential and that vision that you have of that beautiful thing fully executed... if you want to see the endgame of that, then you have to give it time. Like every single new idea, new plan, new strategy has this curve and it's an exponential curve. And it's really hard on the front end, you don't know a lot, you gotta figure things out. As you start figuring some things out, the flywheel starts to turn faster. And it's not until weeks, months, sometimes even years later that you really see the the curve bend. But when you do, like that's where all of the really good shit happens.
And that's where we usually see people at when we go "Ah, they did X. I think that's a phenomenal idea. I want to do X." And we don't we don't fully appreciate all the work that went into to that to get them to that point. And so we start the idea, we get excited and the dopamine hit from initiating the idea, but then we never see it through, right? And so our vision never like gets turned into practicality and people get frustrated.
So I basically had somebody in my business that I trusted that knew how to push back, knew how to filter, knew how to challenge my thinking, knew how to say no, knew how to say not yet. And that's that has served me really well. The other the other thing that I've done—and this is actually something I've heard that Alex Hormozi does as well—is I've got like an idea... I've got a bank of ideas. I've got an Apple note that I just I go to with with all of my ideas. And I hit that first. Then, like anything that if it's still like percolating, you know, like days later, weeks later, I'll go to my my dedicated idea filter person and say, "Alright listen, like this one's not... it's not going away." And that has that has helped me tremendously in making sure that I don't inject my ADHD into the business and create habits that keep us from executing properly, right?
Now I say all this because, one, I I have seen this same thing very frequently in the businesses that I work with. And it's a lot easier objectively outside looking in to to see that pattern and go "Hey, I see what you're doing right there and here's why it's not gonna work," right? Like I'm not... 'cause probably cause I'm not as excited about their idea or I'm not sold on their idea, there's not the emotional attachment to that thing. And it's easier just like... it's always easier to like read the label from outside the jar than it is inside the jar, right?
So I see it with a lot of people that I work with. And they'll come in and be like, "Hey Ray, like we're doing this thing on sales, it's not quite working, can you help us?" Cool. We'll get s... we'll start working on it. And then like once we get rolling, it's like, "Hey, I want to hire a second sales rep." "Oh... Okay. Well we're okay we're still working on this piece over here. Okay let's like maybe we can tackle two things." You start doing that. And then it's like, "Hey, let's change the playbooks."
And I actually earlier this year... I had a I had a a fractional client in in our MSP Sales Partners business that I I fired, that I that I let go because we were unable as a business to execute because of his own... same thing I have. Ton of great ideas. All of them probably would have worked. All of them probably would have produced revenue. But there was no ability to prioritize it. The the his company didn't have the ability to execute it. And I read this years ago... uh there's there's always more id... more good ideas than there is capability to execute, right? And so it's a it's a matter of filtering those things.
Now I share this because having like the the note has been a a huge help from a tactical standpoint. And having somebody that I trust to be the dedicated filter for me has been a huge help. But I I came across this video from from Jeff Bezos um just the other week. And he described this this whole concept so eloquently that I want to share it with you. It's just a it's a it's a short clip here that that he shares. And let me let me plug that in here real quick.
[Clip of Jeff Bezos] "Early in Amazon's history, Jeff Wilke came to me one day... And he said, 'Jeff. You have enough ideas per minute, per day, per week to destroy Amazon.' I was like, 'What do you what do you mean?' He's like, 'You have to release the work at the right rate that the organization can accept it.' And he was a manufacturing uh expert. And so, you know, his view of the world was: every time I released an idea, I was creating a backlog, a queue, work in process. And because it was just stacking up, it was adding no value and in fact it was creating distraction. And so he said, 'Look, you have to figure out when to release these new ideas at a rate that the organization can accept them.' And this was... I mean this sounds so obvious, but it was not obvious at the time to me. And so I started prioritizing the ideas better, keeping lists of them, keeping them to myself until the organization was ready for the ideas."
That clip so powerfully captures this whole thing, right? Like you have enough good ideas to kill a company. And we're we're proud of the ideas. We're excited about the ideas. But when you're leading the company, when you're leading a team, you have a responsibility—I have a responsibility—to release the work at the rate that the the the company, that the team, can actually implement it, right? Like if you push too much volume into it, you are by definition creating bottlenecks. And you're ensuring that none of those really good ideas see the light of day, right? Like never fully executed. And the the impact that that does to the team, or has on the team, uh is just like is is profound. Like and I've seen it. You know, the the morale, the the frustration, the exhaustion, the the the credibility of your ideas goes down because they know like, "All right, let's see the the next one." And you destroy the company.
So like the the takeaway here for me is: The ideas that you have can be the fuel for for your company or they can be the thing that kills it. And we as as founders, as CEOs, as any any leader with a team, have a responsibility of ensuring that we take those ideas and release them at the rate that the company can actually implement them. Otherwise they're wasted. And that requires creating the right systems and prioritization in order to do that.
Right? So like in in Bezos' case like he was a you know Jeff Wilke was a was a manufacturing expert. Like he thought in terms of capacity and throughput. And so he said "that's not going to work." Like because we're already doing X Y Z. So he saw the world from a manufacturing standpoint and I think that's a really good way to to approach this whole thing.
So I say this... like as somebody who has personal experience with it in my own business... as somebody who sees it all the time in businesses that we work with... and know that that is one of the core constraints and core reasons that you're not getting the results that you want. And hearing it from somebody that I respect immensely—I mean obviously built a insanely successful company—and how he phrased that and where it came from. So I hope this is like a just a check. Like a a mental check. And and gives you like the opportunity to kind of like step back, pause, think about: What are you doing with the ideas? And are you using them as an asset in the business or are you us... or are they a liability in your business? And are they helping you execute on the right things and fuel the creativity and energy of the organization? Or are they killing it?
And if you're not getting the results that you want despite having a ton of good ideas in the business, chances are this is your bottleneck. So, I share it with you. Hopefully it helps. Adios.
