72: Which “Hat” Do You Wear in Your Business – Technician, Manager, or Entrepreneur?

Hosts John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) adapt Michael Gerber’s E-Myth to music schools, breaking down the three essential roles—technician, manager, and entrepreneur—and how each impacts running your studio.

They discuss how to identify which role fits you, practical ways to delegate or hire, using systems and tech to streamline work, and why shifting from “how” to “who” can prevent burnout and enable growth.

In this episode:

  • There are three primary roles in every business: technician, manager, entrepreneur.
  • How to identify your role, or the role you’re best suited for in your lesson business.
  • The technician is often the doer, focused on the technical aspects.
  • The manager oversees operations and ensures efficiency.
  • The entrepreneur drives vision and innovation.
  • Self-awareness helps in identifying which role you play, and which you want to play.
  • Each role has its own set of characteristics and challenges, and how balancing these roles can lead to better business outcomes and greater personal fulfillment.
  • Recognizing your strengths can enhance your effectiveness in your role and how collaboration among roles is key to a successful business.

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John Kozicki (00:01.614)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. My name is Jon Kozicki.

Mandy York (00:05.793)
and I’m Mandi York.

John Kozicki (00:07.506)
How you doing today, Mandy?

Mandy York (00:09.132)
I’m doing great. How about you, Jen? Yeah?

John Kozicki (00:11.602)
doing good. What we’re going to talk about today was actually inspired by an earlier conversation we had not too long ago. And you had said something in the episode about the tech platforms that we use to run our studios. That was episode 68. I remember it was late in the conversation, but we were talking about

You specifically were talking about how you have all your systems integrated with your website and your payment processing and your emailing. And I can’t remember exactly what you said, but it was something to the effect of you want to be in the classroom teaching. You don’t want to have to deal with that stuff. You don’t want to spend your time with that stuff. Yeah.

Mandy York (01:01.165)
Yes.

Mandy York (01:05.154)
Yes. I want to be as hands-off as possible. And like my registration process is very kind of self-serve for my clients. Yes.

John Kozicki (01:12.974)
Yeah. And I want to focus in on the the other part of what you said, you want to be in the classroom, you want to be teaching. I mean, I know you well, I know that that is what you’re really excited about. That’s what you love about running your studio. Is that fair to say?

Mandy York (01:22.304)
Exactly. Yes.

Mandy York (01:35.274)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I love teaching. I teach as much as I can.

John Kozicki (01:39.834)
You teach a lot. Well, from my perspective, you teach a lot more, a lot more than I do. And what that got me thinking about is how, especially in the early stages of our businesses, we wear a lot of hats. We wear all the hats because we have to. So because of that, as we get busier, it just, it starts to weigh on us, I think.

Mandy York (01:41.142)
I do, yes.

John Kozicki (02:09.733)
Did you like, do you remember feeling that way or do you still feel that way sometimes?

Mandy York (02:13.805)
Oh, I mean, I mean, you still feel that way sometimes, right? But yeah, I remember as things grow, um, that it weighing heavily and be feeling like you’re being pulled in so many directions and like, am I doing any of these things like, well, when I have to do like 10 things, am I doing all 10, like mediocre? Like I need, you know what I mean? Yeah.

John Kozicki (02:30.969)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (02:37.177)
Right. Yeah, yeah. And I definitely see at times, especially in those early days, we feel like we have to, we have to do whatever it is, because we’re the only ones there or the buck stops with us. It’s we are the ones who have to take care of it. We are the ones who have to solve the problems we have to one we are the ones who have to figure it out.

Mandy York (02:53.119)
We’re the only ones there.

Mandy York (03:00.543)
And we’re the ones that are so passionate about building the school, right?

John Kozicki (03:03.641)
Yeah. And we get into that mindset.

that I mean I can speak for myself that I have to remind myself at times like wait maybe I don’t have to always do everything maybe I do have the ability now to hire someone to do this or have a gig worker do it or whatever or contract it out

Mandy York (03:23.607)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (03:40.242)
So I know I fall into that trap. And but the the potential downside to that, I think is that’s where all that stuff weighs on us. It starts to feel like, oh, I don’t like doing all this stuff. How did I get myself into this? It’s kind of a recipe for burnout potentially if we don’t if we don’t figure it out. Yeah.

Mandy York (04:04.269)
Totally. Yep. Yeah. And I think like that is when you’re feeling overwhelmed like that, like that was a symptom of, of your success and growth, right? Like, I mean, it’s not a bad thing, but when you get to that point, you, you have so much to do. You’re pulled in so many directions. The workload is so big because you’re successful.

John Kozicki (04:19.006)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes.

Mandy York (04:33.131)
And it means it’s time to bring on some help and figure out what’s most important to you, what you can delegate and have those kind of conversations with yourself. know like that’s what I had to do because, you know, we all have different personalities. I would love to do it all myself. Like I’m just kind you know, like I would love to because there, I am good at a lot of these different things, but realizing that that’s not the recipe for success is if I’m the only one doing.

John Kozicki (04:51.355)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (05:02.359)
these things. What is most important to me and what can I handle?

John Kozicki (05:03.653)
Yeah.

I can relate to that so much because I’m the same. I would love to do all this stuff myself. But then I realized that I’m the bottleneck. I am the one that’s slowing the process down. I am the one that’s preventing growth if I do decide. I do want to take on all this stuff myself. And so we kind of have to get out of our own way. I wrote down a few questions that I think are

Mandy York (05:23.361)
Yes.

John Kozicki (05:35.125)
relevant and important to ask ourselves. So number one, what is the best use of my time?

Again, if we’re doing everything ourselves and we know we maybe shouldn’t, well, we gotta figure out, what is the best use of our time? What parts of running my business do I feel I’m good at or even not good at? Because those could be some signs. And what parts of my business do I get the most satisfaction from?

Mandy York (05:59.906)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (06:09.707)
Yeah, those are great questions. When you get to this point.

John Kozicki (06:11.875)
Is it fair to say, yeah, I don’t know, maybe any point, even I think even early, because I think the earlier if if I had thought about this stuff earlier, you know, hindsight 2020, if I thought about this stuff earlier, rather than later, would I have done anything differently? Would I have? What I have documented in my processes way early so that I could give them to someone else to do.

Mandy York (06:18.221)
Well, yeah.

Mandy York (06:41.665)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (06:41.763)
rather than realize, I really should hire someone to do this. I gotta train them. I’ve gotta document my processes. I gotta get that, you So I wonder if I had thought about some of this stuff earlier, if I would have done it differently.

Mandy York (06:51.519)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy York (06:58.773)
Yeah, that is good advice. Keep this in mind early on. I may have hired sooner if I had been thinking about this, but definitely if like we were just talking about, if you’re getting to that point where you’re pulled into many directions and you’re in overload, this is where you start. Think about these questions.

John Kozicki (07:14.553)
I still feel like I have to ask myself these questions on a regular basis though, because everything’s always evolving and I have to re-examine, like, what should I be doing? What do I want to be doing?

Mandy York (07:18.6)
yeah, yeah.

Mandy York (07:29.173)
Or I’m doing something out of habit and then I catch myself and I’m like, I don’t need to be doing this. Give, you know, pass this on. Yep.

John Kozicki (07:31.45)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (07:35.001)
Right? Yeah, yeah. So the what this all made me think of is, because I think the the we want to avoid that burnout, we want to avoid the unhappiness and we are able to kind of set our businesses up. So in any way we want, you know, we’re making it up as we go along, so we can do whatever. So why

Why aren’t we asking those questions and figuring out, what is it about my business that I love? And how do I do more of that? As opposed to just kind of going with the flow and doing whatever, and then sort of getting like, like you said, kind of on autopilot, you just do this out of habit, making that conscious choice. It all makes me think of the E-Myth, the book by Michael Gerber.

Mandy York (08:13.654)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (08:32.526)
Now I know we’ve mentioned this before and I think I asked you if you’ve ever read it and I think you haven’t, right? Okay, so I’m going to kind of present the this is the CliffsNotes version, the basic concepts of the book to you. Definitely worth a read. I’ve read it a couple times and maybe more than a couple because I know each time I read it, I start to take different things from it. But

Mandy York (08:38.335)
I haven’t read this one. No.

John Kozicki (09:02.66)
Definitely recommend it. The concept of the E-Myth is that there’s basically three roles in every business. So you’ve got the technician, you’ve got the manager, and you’ve got the entrepreneur. Gut reactions, what do you think you are? Before I even tell you what the characteristics of those are.

Mandy York (09:23.053)
Yeah. Technician, manager, entrepreneur. Technician. Totally. I am. am. Yes. Yep.

John Kozicki (09:29.2)
Mm-hmm.

Totally. You’re totally the technician. Yeah. Yeah. That’s not to say you’re not great at other things, but you even said it. You like to be teaching as much as possible.

Mandy York (09:44.845)
For sure, yeah.

John Kozicki (09:46.481)
And what I did was I put down, I kind of created some bullet points for what each of those roles are, I think, or might look like in our businesses, in music lesson businesses. So the technician definitely is the instructor or the teacher.

Technician in a music school likes to teach. That’s what they love to do. They like to focus on the students and their progress. They like to maybe work in groups, create lesson plans, get really deep into the curriculum. Let’s see, they love to solve in the moment.

problems like hey how do for me it would be like if it were guitar let’s try this let’s try this strumming technique or why don’t you put your fingers like this or let’s look at this this technique to address this problem i just love the craft of teaching

Mandy York (10:56.525)
Yes. Yeah, that’s me. This is me. Yeah. I love teaching as much as I can. I would also add like, I like the, I like like the continuing ed piece too. I like learning myself, you know, to become a better teacher. You know, I like that piece of it. And, this is also, also for me as working with parents, I guess it’s maybe unique to me.

John Kozicki (10:58.596)
That’s you, right?

John Kozicki (11:11.702)
Mm-hmm. yeah. Yeah.

John Kozicki (11:23.044)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (11:25.387)
to my situation, I have parents in the room in nearly all of my classes. you know, not only teaching the kids, but that parent education piece, teaching the parents, you know, why we do what we do and how they can support their kids’ Yeah. And then I might add, maybe I would add like teacher support too. I like working with my teachers to help train them and, you know, better their skill set too.

John Kozicki (11:34.362)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (11:37.989)
Right.

John Kozicki (11:48.331)
Mm, yeah. Training.

John Kozicki (11:54.702)
Okay. All right. So I 100 % agree. I also really like to teach. But I’ve found over the years that and and I’ll kind of get to this when we get to it. There’s some other things that I like just as much maybe a little bit more. So it’s like I found

Mandy York (11:55.595)
Yeah, that’s how I’m a technician.

John Kozicki (12:21.327)
When I read the emith and even when I thought about myself, I sort of straddle a couple of these different Categories like I do love to teach. I Love to get in there, especially with the bands I love getting in with the bands and and working with them to see improvement and fine-tune their processes and get them sounding really great So, yeah, I I feel like I’ve got strong

connection to that teacher role or the technician role also. Okay, the manager. The manager in a lesson studio. This is your office staff or your administrator or if you have a manager, that’s literally the manager, right? So the manager likes to create order, keep things together, streamline things, make processes smooth.

Let’s see, get into spreadsheets. Although you love spreadsheets, I know you love a good spreadsheet.

Mandy York (13:20.299)
Yeah. I do. I know I would, I would like, I have a little bit of manager in me too. Like I most strongly identify with technician, but yeah, the manager and organization side of it. like. Yeah.

John Kozicki (13:35.76)
Okay. Documentation, so writing procedures and policies, maybe planning out schedules for whatever, for classes, for email marketing, email sequences, how this whole conversation started was you talking about your integration of all your systems, right? That’s more that manager side.

Mandy York (14:01.697)
Yes. Yeah.

John Kozicki (14:05.363)
So that’s I think what it looks like in the music school. Asking questions like how can I make this smoother? Where do we have a repeatable process? How do I prevent this issue from happening again and being proactive? Those are all the manager side of being in a music school. How much do you relate to that?

Mandy York (14:25.591)
Yes.

Mandy York (14:31.757)
I relate to this. I mean, well, like you said, we did all of it in the beginning. And so I really did enjoy setting up these processes and yeah, and making things as efficient and as good as they could. As a technician, I mentioned that I really liked the parent communication part. I like communicating with my parents about

John Kozicki (14:37.987)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (14:58.773)
what’s happening in the classroom and how they can support their kids and again, you know, why we do what we do, teaching philosophy. There’s a community, but there’s also a communication piece that I don’t enjoy. And it’s just like, it’s just the quest, you know, it’s the kind of, the frequently asked questions about the studio in general, right? Or,

John Kozicki (15:18.711)
Yeah, right, yeah.

Mandy York (15:23.789)
Do you have any openings on this day? What happens if this, you know, all of the kind of policy questions and maybe, maybe consider that part of your onboarding process too. That’s not my favorite. That’s a different, that’s a different thing. And so it’s really great to have an admin that can do those kinds of things for sure.

John Kozicki (15:30.095)
You

John Kozicki (15:34.595)
Right. Yeah.

John Kozicki (15:42.224)
Good. Okay, the third role is the entrepreneur that was mentioned in the E-Myth. This is the visionary, the big picture person, the big thinker, what it would look like, I think, in a music school or a lesson studio. The person who thinks about future and sees possibility everywhere, sees potential for expansion, like maybe

multiple locations or launching online curriculum, envisioning new brand positions. Actually, that one I’m going to scratch that one off. That’s that’s I didn’t think that one through. I was just kind of writing quick bullet points. Identifying revenue streams like diversification like what else could we what else could we offer in our studio aside from like

Mandy York (16:29.535)
Hmm.

John Kozicki (16:41.451)
for you aside from group classes. For me, it’s private lessons in groups. What new programs can we do? How can we reach new age groups with our programs? So all of those kind of experimental brainstormy things, asking questions like, what would our programs look like if we rebuilt everything from scratch, right? Just these wild.

Mandy York (17:08.397)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

John Kozicki (17:09.805)
wild thoughts. What experience do we want students to have? What could this, our schools be in three years, in five years, in 10 years? So all the imaginative things to think about.

All right, can you relate?

Mandy York (17:33.236)
Yes, this is really interesting for me to think about. mean, 10 years ago, it was like almost all this, the entrepreneur, right? It was all like, you know, pie in the sky, what can we do and all these ideas, right? And like, you know, throwing pasta at the wall to see if it would stick. There was a lot of that in the beginning. You bringing it up now.

John Kozicki (17:34.531)
Okay.

John Kozicki (17:41.579)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah

John Kozicki (17:58.041)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (18:02.687)
It’s not, I don’t identify with it very much right now, but it’s, it’s something that I do. Like it creeps in the back of my mind sometimes. we, I’ll speak for you too, because you’ve built something super successful in the last, you know, 10 to 12 years. things are going well, classes are filling. We’ve got those fun community activities out there and

John Kozicki (18:06.989)
Okay.

Mandy York (18:32.685)
community, know, studio community building activities, like things are going really well. My entrepreneur side has like settled a little bit. Does that make sense to you? Does that make sense? I’ve yes. But like I said, like it’s in the back of my brain sometimes I’m like, you can’t let it go though, because nothing, things are always changing and it’s going to change soon.

John Kozicki (18:44.366)
Okay, yeah, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Mandy York (19:02.273)
Like you know what I mean? So I think it’s always good to be thinking about this entrepreneur side of the business so that you don’t become stagnant. Yes. Sorry. Just thinking that through in my mind because I’m a technician. I’m doing it. I’m loving it. We’re filling our classes, but

John Kozicki (19:02.496)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Kozicki (19:15.15)
in

Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (19:30.433)
Yeah, this is an important piece of it that you don’t want to forget about or let go. Do you agree?

John Kozicki (19:37.871)
Yeah, I do, I do. And it’s interesting that you’ve self-identified as a technician. definitely, like if I were to kind of assess Mandy, I would say totally technician. But I definitely also see where you have that strong management side, that strong manager side that comes in. So maybe, you know, tipping those scales.

But if your passion is in the teaching, well then that’s your clear path, right? Okay, now I want, what’s your assessment of me? Which one do you think I am? I do, I do, yeah. Yeah, but I struggle with balancing the entrepreneur with the teacher. Because again, do, like, when I am having a rough day,

Mandy York (20:17.057)
The entrepreneur. Yes. Is that what you identify as? Yes, of course. Yeah.

Mandy York (20:30.637)
Mm-hmm.

John Kozicki (20:36.438)
When I am just like out of brain power, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve like jumped into a band rehearsal or just even just kind of peeked in and gotten fired up about just being in there and working with the students. So I really love that aspect of it. But yes, I feel like my true passion is in

the entrepreneurial role. So now with all that said, then the hard question is once we identify what we feel like we are most in those roles, you know, like what do do to embrace that persona? And then what do we do? Because it’s not like those other roles just go away.

Mandy York (21:08.353)
Yes. I see that.

John Kozicki (21:35.223)
You know, they all exist and they all have to, they all have to exist together to make the business run properly. So yeah, there’s the question. What do we do? We can’t just ignore, like for me, I can’t just ignore the teacher. I can’t just ignore the manager. And I guess this is where the discussion turns to what questions can we ask ourselves?

Mandy York (21:35.394)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (21:50.273)
Yeah.

Mandy York (21:56.013)
Mm-hmm.

John Kozicki (22:04.514)
to give our listeners a little bit of like guidance when it comes to once they’ve identified who they are in that role, how do they fill the others? I think for you, and this goes back to that discussion with you identifying as the teacher, well, you said, I don’t want to deal with this admin stuff. You hired an admin. You also automated a bunch of your systems and integrated everything so that you don’t have to do it.

Mandy York (22:16.193)
Right.

John Kozicki (22:35.116)
Other thoughts?

Mandy York (22:36.405)
Yeah, I mean, that’s what happened. You come to a point where you need the help. And so it was like, add more teachers or add an admin. And that was my first stop was adding that admin. It goes back to the questions you posed in the beginning. What am I best at? What is the best use of my time? What am I good at? And I was good at the manager side of things.

John Kozicki (22:48.558)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (23:03.935)
you get your systems in place and you train somebody to take over. and I think, especially for like a small business, it was great hiring someone, not just because they take the, these, these tasks off of your plate, but it’s what I most was kind of surprised by. I just, hadn’t thought of it previously was like the, the collaboration that you get.

by having someone on your team, right? They see things that I didn’t see, you know, we have ideas, ideas to bounce off of each other. That was, that was really great. So figure out what you’re best at. if that means you’re sticking to the, the manager side, then you go out and find those teachers, those really great teachers that can work for you in my case. And I do have a teacher, but as far as teachers go, I, I teach the most.

John Kozicki (23:32.935)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John Kozicki (23:38.413)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (23:54.796)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mandy York (24:02.997)
In my case, I wanted a really strong admin that I trust, that is easy to work with, and brings fresh ideas to the table,

John Kozicki (24:14.36)
Do you think, I think I know the answer to this, but, so you’ve addressed the how to approach the manager. You’ve hired an admin and you teach most of it, but you’ve also hired teachers.

Do you think when you address that entrepreneur role, is that something like, okay, I gotta put on my entrepreneur hat? Or is that more organic in conversations with your admin? Or do you brainstorm maybe with other people outside of the studio? Because I see that you do that, but I’m just curious because again, that role still exists.

Mandy York (24:57.793)
Yes. Yeah. And that’s why I really like this conversation. This is really great for me. I think in my case, it’s just more organic. You know, I don’t, I have addressed the technician and the manager. I haven’t specifically addressed the entrepreneur. Like I said, it, was everything in the beginning. Now, you know, the ball is just rolling.

John Kozicki (25:06.574)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (25:23.885)
you know, we call it a family business. Like my husband’s a musician too. So there’s ideas that bounce there.

John Kozicki (25:26.434)
Ooh, I thought of something.

John Kozicki (25:31.277)
I thought of something that relates to your situation because you, everything you offer is licensed curriculum. I think that, and you just added a new program, still in the Music Together family, but you added, you had a new program to your studio. There is that entrepreneurial element, right? So you’re sourcing that, you’re sourcing that from, from Music Together corporate and you’re licensing that, that new class.

Mandy York (25:38.957)
Yeah.

Mandy York (25:53.218)
Yes.

John Kozicki (26:00.884)
So that’s filling that role. And you’ve done this in the past too, whereas I know when you started, you were just doing the, yeah, the early childhood and then you added the rhythm kids and yeah, yeah. So you kind of outsource it in a way. Yeah, awesome.

Mandy York (26:09.837)
The early, the early childhood.

Mandy York (26:15.743)
elementary. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you’re right. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yep. But we see the need and then yeah, and then license the material. Yeah, you’re right.

John Kozicki (26:29.998)
Any thoughts on I know we did a whole episode on hiring. But I don’t know any this is I know this is always a hard one. It’s a hard one. For me, I know it’s a hard one for most studio owners. I can say in my situation. When I began again, because I’ve already identified myself as the entrepreneurial, so I know when I’m hiring.

I’m usually hiring for teachers. I am usually, well, I don’t, I’ve had the same admin who is awesome for years and years, so I’m not hiring for admins, but hired for that role, for the manager role.

I can say when I look to hire instructors.

I think this is because I have more of that entrepreneurial side and less of that technician side. And I’ve always sort of done this. go for, I really look at personality first and I almost consider their technical skills like way down the line. But it does make me wonder if

Mandy York (27:38.669)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (27:46.029)
Mm-hmm.

John Kozicki (27:51.264)
If a studio owner who really identifies as a technician goes to hire other instructors for their studio, do they maybe get hyperfixated on the technical aspects because they’re technicians? Which could be fine. That could be in line with their studio, right? I don’t know. What are your thoughts? Any?

Mandy York (28:08.907)
Yeah, that’s…

Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (28:17.463)
That’s a good question. That’s a good question. And I have thought about this. I’ve taken both approaches before. Because I can think of a specific example. Early on, there was a young instructor that I thought was really, really talented and technically great for the role. But she was quite young.

John Kozicki (28:46.839)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (28:46.931)
And it didn’t fit with the culture. It was harder. There was, think because I have caregivers in my studio too. You know, I have adults in the studio.

John Kozicki (28:51.553)
Mm-hmm.

John Kozicki (28:59.585)
Yes, often times parents, sometimes grandparents.

Mandy York (29:04.243)
Sometimes, grandparents, nannies, moms, dads, everybody comes to class. It was harder for her to connect with the adults in the room. mm-hmm. And yeah, yes. So that was, that was a… They don’t even, yes, you know? Yes. And here’s the thing, like, you know, when Miss Mandy, me, when I…

John Kozicki (29:08.781)
Mm-hmm.

John Kozicki (29:15.241)
Yeah, which is half the class. huh. And the other half of the class, some of them might not even care because they’re babies. Yeah.

Mandy York (29:32.96)
My schedule shifts and someone else takes over a day. You know, say I move, you know, from Mondays to Wednesdays and Miss Casey takes over Mondays. Some of the parents have a hard time with that, you know, and it’s not because Miss Casey isn’t great and it’s not, their kids will adore Miss Casey. But, but I, but it’s something I think kind of unique to what I deal with is that the grownups in the room.

John Kozicki (29:55.02)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (30:02.433)
want to also relate and enjoy their experience with the teacher. Right? So no, I do think about that. And now it is on the forefront is like, how is this person, how is their personality going to fit in our studio culture and with a group of young parents? Not so much, know, how much do they really understand the early childhood?

John Kozicki (30:10.071)
Yeah.

John Kozicki (30:26.231)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy York (30:32.333)
you know, music philosophy that we embody, but that can come, that can come, you know, but are they going to fit into the culture?

John Kozicki (30:36.13)
Right.

Yeah.

I often, when I’m interviewing to hire instructors, I often will ask myself, would I want to be in a band with this person?

Mandy York (30:53.847)
Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.

John Kozicki (30:55.337)
That’s the question that I always ask myself. And again, I look for personality, the technical skills.

Mandy York (31:07.447)
Mm-hmm.

John Kozicki (31:09.665)
I don’t want to downplay it. They can play.

Mandy York (31:12.393)
Yeah, it’s important, right? But and like I said earlier, like as the technician, I do enjoy like supporting and teaching my teachers also. So

John Kozicki (31:22.571)
Yeah. So what now we’ve, we’ve talked about like you and kind of finding a solution to that entrepreneur role and you finding the solution to hiring an admin. I’ve talked about, and we both talked about hiring instructors. I identify more as that entrepreneur. We’ve just kind of been dancing around the management role, right? but I think it’s pretty clear things that we’ve done.

A lot of this stuff is we’re using technology to organize and even like do the work. I have a lot of automated email sequences and automated processes for admin. So I think we can lean into technology for a lot of that. And I’m kind of focusing on this manager role because

My gut is saying, and I could be wrong, but my gut is saying most of our listeners are probably going to identify more with those other two roles, the technician and the entrepreneur, and less about the manager, right? That’s a it’s a very specific personality, I think. I don’t know if I have any advice.

Mandy York (32:34.679)
Yeah.

Yep, I think so.

Mandy York (32:45.997)
I know.

John Kozicki (32:46.477)
Other than like make sure they’re organized, like look for those qualities in them. See if you can identify that.

Mandy York (32:54.751)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. All right.

John Kozicki (32:58.933)
Okay, so all of this again is inspired by the book, The Emyth by Michael Gerber. honorable mention, a book that I read called Who Not How by Dan Sullivan. That’s another really good one because the premise of that book is it’s not about figuring out how to do something, which I think is our gut instinct, right?

In trying to solve these problems, we go to like, okay, how am I going to do this? Again, because back when we wore all the hats, it was on us to figure out how are we going to do this? As we progress, maybe the question isn’t how am I going to get this done? It’s like, who can I get to do this? Who can I hire? Who can I outsource? Who’s on my team that maybe already has these skills?

Mandy York (33:39.265)
Yeah.

Mandy York (33:58.355)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Cool.

John Kozicki (33:59.147)
Yeah, who not how, Dan Sullivan. So yeah, honorable mention, Reed.

All right, let’s wrap this one up then.

Mandy York (34:10.025)
Yeah, thank you. Like I think this was really great. This is these three pieces are really gave me a lot to think about. I love it. Cool.

John Kozicki (34:12.106)
thank you.

John Kozicki (34:18.669)
Cool. All right, well, we’ll see you next time. Bye.

Mandy York (34:21.752)
Awesome, thanks John. Bye.

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