Two weeks ago, I ended up in the ER with a heart incident that knocked me completely out of commission. But instead of falling apart, my business didn't skip a beat—in fact, we had our best sales month in six years. In this episode, I break down the critical decision I made last year to stack my team with "A-players" and the specific system I used to find them. I also explore the uncomfortable truth about why believing you are "necessary" is actually the biggest cap on your business's growth, and how to finally get out of your own way.

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Welcome to The Ray J. Green Show, your destination for tips on sales, strategy, and self-mastery from an operator, not a guru.

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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Two weeks ago, and then again a few days ago, I ended up in the ER with a heart incident. And I got completely knocked out of commission from from work for a few days. And you know what happened to my business? Nothing. Well nothing bad anyway. Like the team stepped up. Clients were taken care of. Everything ran perfectly fine without me. And that "saved my ass" reality actually traces back to one core decision that I made early last year. And that I'm going to share with you.

Now if you get value from the podcast, uh I actually drop an email every week with frameworks and some things that I don't say on the podcast. You can join at raysemail.com um for for free.

So the decision that this traces back to was that I was going to stack my team with absolute badasses. Like I only wanted A-players. And I know from from my corporate days of running eight-figure businesses that when you get killers, when you get badasses in the right seat, it's not 10 to 20% improvements. Like it is 10 to 20X better. Like that and that's... I'm not exaggerating here. Like that is the actual multiplier effect of an A-player.

And as I made the strategic shift from solopreneur with, you know, some contractors helping with things like content and some execution and some tech stuff, into building like an actual business, that was like... that was the core of this. Um like the the main decision was: All right, as I make this transition, I'm going to hire phenomenal people. I'm going to create a culture of ownership. I'm going to delegate. And I'm going to get the fuck out of the way and let them work.

So as I as I moved in that direction, like the first thing I did was I sat down and built out what I what I call now our our 3D framework. It's our our Direction, DNA, Drumbeat. Right? So it's it's the strategy, it's the culture and the core values, it's kind of like the operating system. I built that out as the foundation. And it's, you know, it it shows: What is the vision? How are we going to work together? What are the... like I said what what are the core values? And I got really clear on all of that. Documented it.

And then I built a recruiting system to start sourcing people globally. Right? Like I I live in Cabo and you know I've I've worked with people globally. I know that like I want the actual best in the world for the seats that I'm hiring. And and so that's the the system that we built. And you know for any one of the roles that we hired, we had hundreds and hundreds of applicants from from all over the world. If you're going to do that, you've got to create like some really aggressive screening mechanisms so that you can you can handle the volume and then get really selective with with the interview process.

And like for all intents and purposes, it worked. Like right now we're we're operating with with killers. And I've got two fractional sales managers for our our SDR program where we do fractional SDR um sales management for for MSPs. And these are people that I would hire to run my own sales team. Right? Like that is the bar that we have in place. And I've I've got a customer success leader who's not just doing great work with with our clients today, but he has deep experience in building out the teams and the systems and everything that's that's necessary to build out a a legit CS function with within a business.

I've got a a genius ops guy um you know running our our tech, our automation. He's now you know helping me build out some some AI stuff. And for all intents and purposes, like the system that we built to hire our own team has worked so well that we've kind of fallen into the recruiting business. Right? Using using that exact same system to help MSPs and help IT businesses find their own A-players, especially like in the in the sales functions.

That was the decision last year. Like for, you know, so I make that decision, I start implementing it. Fast forward to two weeks ago. First heart incident. Go to the ER. Out of commission. Again a few days ago. Similar situation. And I'm I'm doing fine now. Like a lot of monitoring, testing, easing back into things. But here's the real point. I was completely knocked out of commission and unable to do anything for days at a time. And the business didn't skip a beat. Pun intended. But the business kept going. The business did not skip a beat because the culture and the team that we designed is working the exact way that we designed it. Right? Because we we have badasses that are in the right seat, with the right culture, with the right systems, empowered to do their thing. And that means when I get knocked out, the business runs perfectly fine with me... without me.

It's actually... because I've had some time to to reflect on this, um you know being being knocked out of commission and and staring at a wall for for a minute... I've started thinking like reconsidering where I actually add the most value. Right? Like where is the highest leverage work for me as a CEO? And honestly, like it's it's got me thinking about pulling myself further out of the of the day-to-day. Right? And and like instead of being involved in in the operations, you know... I could be scaling up our marketing. Right? Like which we've done next to none of. Um like all of our sales in the past, you know, 14 months or so are word of mouth. Um you know so scaling up marketing. That'd be one thing I could do.

Or I could take the the Fractional SDR sales management program that we have and and that's crushing it really well, and build out the the same or similar program for the Outside Sales uh function and and do fractional sales management there and scale up that program. Or, you know, I could scale up the recruiting side of this as as basically its own business. And all of those things would have way more impact than me being in the weeds.

And as I as I zoom out on this whole experience and I think about the decisions that I made and the impact that they had, it kind of begs the question: Why don't we do more of this as as business owners? As as founders? Why do we get stuck at at certain plateaus and certain caps and and meanwhile other people like scale way beyond themselves? And oftentimes like in the same business model. Like what leads us to get stuck and watch other people scale well beyond themselves?

And you know I think it comes down to one core thing: We believe we are necessary for more than we really are. And there's a direct relationship between how much you believe you're necessary in the business and how big your business can actually grow. And that belief system creates the cap on your business. And for some people that cap's going to like happen at 100k a year. Some people it's going to happen at a million. Some people at 10 million. Some at 100 million. But it comes down to that core belief: How much does this business truly require me? And the more that you believe you are necessary, the lower your cap is going to be.

Like I can only speak for myself. And I I think that that belief that we have kind of stems from two things. One is ignorance. Right? Like sometimes we just we just genuinely don't know what's possible without us. Like we believe that we have to write that copy. We've got to approve that that picture or that that project. We've got to push that button. We we have to be the ones to do that. And if that's you, like the best thing that you can do is get around entrepreneurs who have scaled well beyond themselves. Like listen to how they think. And you're gonna... you'll hear a very different paradigm about their belief system and what they believe they are necessary for in the business. And it'll reframe the the whole thing for you.

I've I've spent a lot of time over the past year or two with people who have built 50, 100, 200 million dollar businesses. And I tell you what, like when they talk about what they are necessary to do in their business, it is fundamentally different than what other people—including myself—have have thought. Right? And it's not one lead... like we think that they they believe that way because they're in a 200 million dollar business. And it's wrong. Like they have a 200 million dollar business because that's what they think. So that's one thing. It's just like ignorance leads to that belief system.

The second one is ego. And like I'm not saying that negatively. You know like it's just it's just us like not wanting the truth to be real. You know like deep down we have this desire to for the business to rely on us. Like there's some some self-importance involved in that. And if that's the source of your limiting belief, then like you just gotta ask yourself: What would you rather have? A bigger business and more money or feeling more important? Right? And have more demands on you. And for me, I would say between ignorance and ego it was... you know, candidly, it was some... a little combo of both. Like I've built bigger businesses in the corporate world, you know, eight eight-figure businesses. But I haven't from zero. Right? Like not that I owned outright. And so there was some ignorance there. And there was there was definitely some ego. I'm not afraid to admit that.

But when I recognized that and I addressed it head on, it's opened up opportunities for me and I can see it happening again because like I decided I wanted... and needed... a business that didn't depend on me. And I made that decision last year. I started building it. And I'm I'm fucking glad that I did. Like not just because of the results. Um you know we had our our best month in sales in the six years that I've been on my own happened this past December. Right? So the results have been great. But also because when the unexpected happened and it knocked me out of commission, the business could keep going when I temporarily couldn't. And that's been a huge lesson. Like a huge validation.

And as I've I've had time to reflect on this, I've thought, you know, this this is worth sharing for for anybody else that's in a a similar position. So I hope my learning, my experience is helpful for you. Adios.