Episode 4 The goal is to be as lazy as you can - Lior Izik MD of Amazing Business Results

Lior Izik is the owner of Canadian based Amazing Business Results and the author of Entrepreneurial Evolution, Bottom Line Lessons To Bring Your Business to the New Age.
Lior has a unique way of looking at not just systemisation but also on life.
You'll hear how he started off as a young entrepreneur and took those early successes and failures to build not just a business but more importantly a lifestyle for himself.

Lior believes that Business Owners should be lazy. Not in the "I'm not doing anything" sense, but the "I'm not doing anything that I'm not a genius at doing".

It sounds counter-intuitive but when you hear Lior's story and the work he has done and continues to do with automating business you can see why he has the successes he has.

You can find out more on Lior and the Amazing Business Results by going to his website

Subscribe to Lior's valuable You Tube videos 

Stephen Sandor CEO Inspiring Business
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Transcript

Unknown: 0:05

much before it's the bread crumbs theory, so, you know, when you're that big meal, you have leftovers and those bread crumbs if you collect them, you have a full meal. And you can see lots of businesses that are coming to me with the task is to get more marketing done more customers, they're off track, because when we going over the report, we start to see the leads are not being converted properly, leads not being answered on time. deals are not being followed your the different deal cycles, and we start to identify those problems. And after you know few months, you have 50% growth, and you brought zero new business. Now sit back and relax while we take a deep dive and be inspired to take action on improving your business. here's your host, Stephen Sandor.

Stephen Sandor: 1:02

Welcome to the inspiring business podcast where we inspire business owners to focus on their genius and create a businesses scalable, and ultimately, is not dependent upon them. My guest today is Leo is He who is the head of the Canadian based amazing business results and the author of entrepreneurial evolution, bottom line lessons to bring your business to the new age. He is one of the top YouTube followings on for Zoho CRM and their applications. And he holds a webinar on every Wednesday helping Zoho users with questions without notice. And provides them with practical solutions and answers. And he has a fantastic Zoho training program that I personally subscribe to. And the only thing that I regret is that I didn't find it soon enough. Lior, I want to thank you for being my guest today and welcoming you to inspiring business.

Lior Izik: 1:57

Hey, thank you, Stephen. Thank you very much.

Stephen Sandor: 1:59

You're welcome. Welcome. I'm curious whether you've always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and then how did you start?

Lior Izik: 2:08

It was a rough start, I was a very bad student, lots of every learning disability that got created, I got one of them. And then back then we didn't know what our learning disabilities. So basically, I failed. Everything I did in school. So I tried to find some significance. So at the age of 10, I started to say, bagels, so I sold some I bought some bagels at one bakery, I went to the other side of the street to a bank, with some bagels, and people bought it. So that was the beginning of my journey. In one hour, I doubled my money. So it was a pretty good feeling. And what was the said that was you realize that trading was, was a possibility. So you didn't necessarily go to school. And then I upgraded my my empire to sell balloons. That was the next stage.

Stephen Sandor: 3:07

So fast forward to now, how did you you know, what was the progression between that early entrepreneurial mindset. And now,

Lior Izik: 3:17

I had until my army time, I had lots of small adventures, and all of them were very successful, but very small, like not a business, it was small things. And I made lots of money. And then I asked her my service, I opened the pet shop, and I lost all my money in six months. And then I know bunch of failures, one after the other, which led me to stop and start realize what the hell is going on. You know, I was pretty good before and now I suck What's going on? And I started to just just learn more and more, and just being better at what I do. So it took me a decade to be better.

Stephen Sandor: 4:06

So what were the what were the what were the mistakes that you made that you'd learnt from?

Lior Izik: 4:11

Well, many? First of all, not that one of the biggest lessons is that the money that's coming into the business is worth mine. And it took me some time with the pet shop. It was a very successful picture. Tons of business came in. But as a poor boy, when I got lots of money, I'm starting to use it. So I heard that there is a small camcorder in in Spain took can fly it you know, that was like almost 30 years ago, right? So I took a flight to Spain, I bought this special camcorder came back. I just burned all my money which was not my money. Lesson number one.

Stephen Sandor: 4:50

So cash flow management that that's really what you're talking about. There is

Lior Izik: 4:54

Yeah, I guess from management, not know not listening, so much to professionals, lawyers and accountants and bankers and insurance agents, each one of them has its own agenda. And they are giving you the advice based on their understanding of business and life. And most of them never, never managed anything. You just people went out to school, right? And they don't know much. So just take their, their expertise, and process it based on your understanding of business and not letting them guide your God forbid before marketers or advertisers just take it in in proportions.

Stephen Sandor: 5:39

Cuz you're a real advocates that when, you know, with people who have got the and we'll get to the topic of Zoho, but as the CRM, but I think it's a principle, if you say that people understand what's there for you, you don't have to know everything about it. But you do need to know how it works. And so the intricacies of the of the business rather than delegation isn't the advocate isn't abdicating your responsibilities. It's understanding what's going on. So right was that, you know, so how do you? What was the lessons that you learned from the advice that you got now?

Lior Izik: 6:21

So one of the biggest problems that I had in my professional career was a voice, Voice over IP systems, basically, phone phone systems? Yeah. And I had about seven companies that did for me new voice systems that cost we 10s of 1000s of dollars, and it was a failure. And the main reason is that I did not understand how voice works, I did not understand what it means for the voice system, if you have one, what it means to maintain it. So for seven times, I was the hostage of different companies. And they took advantage of me all the way. And with ZOHO for example, some of the people that are listening to my Youtube or webinars or courses, they will come as clients, but they are educated clients, When I'm working with developers that I'm assigning to them, the developer cannot say, you know, the blueprint will take three hours, or five hours or 25,000, or whatever, you know, they know exactly that. It takes about one hour to produce a good blueprint. So they have some kind of a framework to know what they need to be charged or how it works. So they are more educated. And that's very important.

Stephen Sandor: 7:49

And was that the inspiration for you writing your book,

Lior Izik: 7:52

The book was, it was something else, I just, I just felt that I need to share with my journey with people. And it was practiced five years ago. And the journey of writing the book started seven years ago. So it was relatively long time ago. I just had the feeling that I need to share. But but that's it.

Stephen Sandor: 8:14

Right? Okay. And obviously sharing with the some of the wealth of your client bases that's small to medium to midsize organizations. What do you see in those when you're when you're talking to those organizations? What are the things that you see maybe the you know, the things that they could apply from your book into the business? Or what are you seeing that's missing from from their business?

Lior Izik: 8:41

It all depends where the businesses in the life cycle, you know, if it's an infant, teenager, adult senior, so that the first stages of the business, I think, for adult business that is already making some money and have repeated business, some of them are missing some creativity, because now everything works. And if you need to make money, you're supposed to be boring, right? Boring, makes money, exciting, loses business. So they're really at the boring part. And the creativity can can bring lots of energy into the business and grow more. So I think some of them are missing the creativity with the infants, children and teenagers side side of the business. Usually it's about the automation part. A the planning understanding that every action in the business supposed to be planned, and they're supposed to be a target. And business is not an emotional relationship. Businesses is very logical, with some kind notes like going to the car and just driving. You're not working like that you go to the car to drive to the pharmacy. There's the destination on the way, you can have some shortcuts, whatever it is, but it was grow businesses exactly the same. But the teenagers and children, infants that are missing this picture, they're just trying to get things done. But not in a planned manner.

Stephen Sandor: 10:18

Yeah, we talk about this, like, emotionally in a business, there's three phases. So you talked about the, you know, the children, that infants, and the emotions, when, when people are in that early stages, it's very exciting. It's also scary. And, and there's a lot of, you know, sometimes it's panic, because Have I made the right decision. And, and, you know, the investment of time and energy. And to get that, right, you know, as you say, is that planning that planning phase, as a bit like, you know, getting in having an airplane, at the start of the runway, you've got, all the engines are going there, things shaking, you're not going anywhere, you know, alright, and you just got to keep going like that. And then you get to 5000 feet, you know, and then you get to 30,000 feet, and the engines are running at 50%. And you're going faster than you've ever been. Yeah. But if you stop halfway down the runway, then you got to turn around and start all over again. And then the it's really interesting that you mentioned that that creativity, because the second part, so once you've got through that good times, and there's the the emotions that we find with the owners is that frustration is that they're not they're not finding that the businesses progressing that, you know, that they'd like it to be so that so, you know, we talked about the reenergize, you know, re energizing, reorganizing putting a little bit of creativity, you know, creating space for people to to be able to bust through that, through that wall. Is that what you're sort of implying there?

Lior Izik: 11:55

Yeah, so So is that and also, one, one theory that I created the also it's, it's from the book, but much before, it's the bread crumbs theory. So you know, when you have a big meal, you have leftovers, and those bread crumbs, if you collect them, you have a full meal. And you can see lots of businesses that are coming to me with the task is to get more marketing done more customers, they're off track, because when we going over the reports, we start to see the leads are not being converted properly, leads not being answered on time, deals are not being followed, you're the different deal cycle, and we start to identify those problems. And after free, in a few months, you have 50% growth, and you brought zero new business. So this is the part that you know the same way that you will come to my business, and you will pinpoint things that are broken, that I will not be able to see because I'm in the details and also a bird's eye view, but this game doesn't work well. Right. But if you will come to my business, you will be able to see all the issues and pinpoint them. And this is exactly why people hire you, right? Because you have this understanding of business and the view which you can pinpoint those problems.

Stephen Sandor: 13:19

Sometimes the the theory is that the business owner has all the answers. They just haven't had the opportunity. And so when you're in that situations, you know, who do you go to? Do you have a series of mentors or people to you, you know, that you rely on for for advice,

Lior Izik: 13:39

I have a few good friends that they they are helping me I used to have a mentor that was helping me for some time. But at that point, I think that whatever year to give, I already took you know and it's any This is like relationship it's like bus right the buses going to different stations and people go in and off some of them for two stations for five, but I'm blessed with a very good friends in high level that they they able to, to have short conversations with me that you know, it's like, Oh, I get it. Oh, it's amazing,

Stephen Sandor: 14:18

Right That's wonderful. And are they long term relationships? Are they people that you've that you've built relationships with over a relatively short period of time?

Lior Izik: 14:28

No, it's it's people that I'm working with for a long time. You know, when when you starting your journey, and not everyone are on track like you like me, for example, I'm all about growth. I don't if I see TV is just about something specific that they want to see. I would never just watch TV or open Facebook or anything like that my time is being spent or contributing to others or growing. I don't care about really anything else, right. It's rare to find people That are also with the same mindset, especially in 2021 when people just want to be overwhelmed with whatever not to think about the problems that we currently have. So I have few people around me and this is one thing I'm blessed to have those people with the same mindset and and understanding of life not going jumping to ice water with me or learning crazy things.

Unknown: 15:23

So

Stephen Sandor: 15:24

I saw that I saw that YouTube video of you jumping in the ice and you are crazy. You know, that's fantastic. We don't have ice here in Australia. So my the coldest I can get is the beach On a winter's On a winter's morning. So I'll try that when we when we get to winter. I'll try that one. I'm talking about the mentors, obviously, they there's a lot of values, similar values and beliefs to you otherwise you don't hang out with those people. Same with business. I mean, we were talking earlier offline that you know, the type of businesses that you work with. So what's your philosophy around what you know, when a client comes to you? How do you work out whether you can add value to that particular client and what you're gonna do with them

Lior Izik: 16:13

very fast. Usually, most of my engagements will be few meetings, I don't have people that can wait for years. And very fast. In minutes, I will understand if I can add value or not. I like to see you know, business and people, as as buckets. So one person will be let's say, metal, metal will be those people that are like accountants, numbers, it's black and white. They have their own character. And you know, you have wood you have different types of philosophies that develop over time. And I just put people into buckets, because we are the same even though you want to say I am unique, you are not unique, you're really like a different version of yourself. But hundreds of 1000s of them out there, that there are too many people that they will not work with. But usually people that are full cup, that they already understand that everything and they know everything, and they just come to you that you will verify what they already want you to say. Those kinds of people they have difficult working with, like people that are like me, I'm an empty cup. Just fill me you know, I have no ego. I don't know much. And just give me as much as you can. And let's let's talk about it.

Stephen Sandor: 17:34

Yeah, I was talking with my son last night. And and when you know, I'm coming up to a birthday. I won't tell you how, how old that birthday is. But I'm guessing that the older I get, the more I realized how little I know. Yeah, so as a as a young turks, you know, I knew everything. And as an old buck, I just know that I don't know anything. And I'm like, you know, like you and just just teach me just learned

Lior Izik: 18:03

how I feel the same 100%. Yeah.

Stephen Sandor: 18:06

You mentioned earlier that we've gone through a crazy year. Yeah. 2020 was a was this was one of the most serious world events that we've had in nearly 70 years. How has that impacted you? And where do you see 2021 going.

Lior Izik: 18:25

So I don't think that 21 will be any different with 20. And, and also part of 22 will not be any different. It takes time to roll out all the you know, medications and so on and your new variants. And you have countries like Israel that the more than half of the population is already vaccinated and nothing much changed. So I'm not sure really, if there will be the 21 will be much different than 20. And I'm sorry to share my my my holistic view. But for me 2020 was very good year in terms of business very sad in terms of like clients and to see what's going on. And I have a lens for almost everything. Of course, I did not expect Corona to eat and pandemic, right. But I do have plans for a shitty day. And I had a plan for what's going on when everything goes down. And in December when I saw the virus in Wuhan in China. I did plus one plus one and I understood it's coming here like you know, because because when you say that you're going to close a Wuhan in a week. Guess what others will do? Yeah, that will give them a flying to other countries. So it made sense. And I also shared it on my on my YouTube and also in March. I also told people to they need to consider to cash out from the stock market and I was lucky To do it in the following day market crashed. So I was very lucky to catch it on time. And I just executed my my plan. And the plan that I executed, gave me 2020 was one of the best years in any business that they had. And it just because I had a plan for a rainy day.

Stephen Sandor: 20:19

So what does 2021 look like for you?

Lior Izik: 20:25

Basically, I don't want to work too much.

Stephen Sandor: 20:28

I love your your favorite saying is that I'm lazy. And I reckon that's the I reckon the most successful entrepreneurs are the lazy entrepreneurs and not in a not in a derogatory way not in a lazy sit around doing nothing all day. Yeah, my lazy in really happy to have other people do what is not their genius. And find really quick and easy ways to do what could take forever, right? If just by taking a little edgy, say take a little bit time to play as tight as when you say that, you know, I'm lazy, I just did. Lazy,

Lior Izik: 21:08

I lazy and I'm very happy to share my money with others. So when no money coming in, I'm very happy to keep even 10% of the money and distributed to very good developers and very good project managers or whatever it is, right and keep little bait and lots of people making money. And it's great. So I'm perfectly okay with it.

Stephen Sandor: 21:31

Right. And so 2021 for you is

Lior Izik: 21:35

I'm trying to work less for sure I'm working. Now I wake up at five I go to sleep around midnight. This is not the type of life I planned for myself at 46. So I need I need to slow down for sure. I also get a I'm right now my new office is on the lake. I have lots of toys that I bought for for the summer, lots of boats and kayaking, whatever it is, so I'm planning to be much more on the on the seat and then in the office.

Stephen Sandor: 22:05

Very, very nice. And well. Good luck with that. Because, you know, hard work always deserves a reward. Finally, what's the one thing that you're curious about now and why?

Lior Izik: 22:21

So I'm right now about about elf. So I'm doing my ice ice dips. So I'm now able to do 10 minutes in in freezing water, which in three minutes, you should die because you get in a pyramid and you start to decline. So I'm doing 10 minutes into intermediate fasting. So why eat only few hours a day, rest of the day, just water in non sugary drinks, just not to spike the insulin levels. I mean to sports, all my life martial arts and different types of sports. So that's ongoing. And it's It's lots of fun. But that's more interest to me right now to be able to change the things that medical doctors will say if you do that you will die. Right. Let's check it out. That's interesting.

Unknown: 23:16

Well, I look forward to to hearing more about that. And I'm imagining that that also gives you energy to continue to do what you're trying to do.

Stephen Sandor: 23:28

Yeah, yeah, you know, our drain it is to go to a session or those high level sessions that your CPU is drained. So when you finish in, you know, two or three of them. Before I used to finish my day, I just need like three meetings a day, and I finish. And now I'm doing two three, about 12pm 12am 12pm. I'm going to do ice diving. And then I'm coming back. Right I'm all new system is getting to survival mode. And now you're new. So you've recharged and rebooted. It's absolutely a report. Yeah. Leo's thanks so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. And you know, you've got a very successful business and I do really appreciate you taking the time here.

Lior Izik: 24:20

Of course,

Stephen Sandor: 24:21

If you've enjoyed listening to Lior, and his inspiring story and would like to hear more of the same, all you need to do is subscribe, and you'll never miss out. You'll find all the links to Lior's website, his YouTube videos on the Zoho CRM, and the services of amazing business results in the show notes below. Lior has created a successful business by being very focused on his genius, providing quality solutions with a real go giver attitude, as well as surrounding himself with quality people. It's a true win win win formula. If you'd like help developing a strategy and plan to also focus on your genius and you're ready to go from the Do It Yourself model to a being intentionally lazy by becoming a better delegator, then connect with me for a complimentary call. My deep dive analysis and intentional roadmap strategy is a tried and proven program ready for you to implement. My name is Stephen Sandor from inspiring business and there are plenty of additional resources on our website at www.inspiring business.net. And we are across all the socials. Thank you for listening to the inspiring business podcast and my wish is to inspire and energize you to take action. So you can make a difference in your and other lives.