Much is to be learned especially from people who has done so much growth in business. Ken Courtright goes deep into Cameron Herold’s book, Double Double. In particular, he goes into Cameron’s idea of how a negative employee could cost you fifteen times their salary. Remember that you are not a garbage can with a hairy lid. Go deep and explore the reason why in this episode.
—
Listen to the podcast here:
Hairy Lid
For some of you following me, you know that I’m doing a deep dive into Cameron Herold. Cameron Herold’s two best books, in my opinion, are Meetings Suck and Double Double. I’ve heard the audiobook of Double Double twice. I have now dog-eared one-third of the pages of the complete book. It is truly remarkable. Cameron’s concept is he can double any company in three years. I believe that he can. He took 1-800-GOT-JUNK? from $2 million to $106 million in six years. He tripled College Pro Painters and many other companies that you know of. I’m doing this incredible deep dive. In this book and in the audiobook, Cameron talks about if you have a negative employee and they’re driving you crazy and they’re bitterly negative, they’re costing you fifteen times their salary.
Whatever their salary is, if they make $50,000, they’re costing you $750,000 a year. If their payroll is $100,000, they’re costing you $1.5 million a year. Cameron cites this specific study, statistics and this and that. I’m titling this show Hairy Lid. I do this because my wife and about a dozen others partnered up with Dr. Nido Qubein on a book called Breaking Through. The concept was Dr. Qubein runs a huge private college institution on the East Coast. I believe it’s ranked the number one college in America ahead of every Ivy League school. It’s difficult to get in. It’s fairly expensive and basically everybody that graduates get a job in five seconds. It’s an amazing institution. Dr. Nido Qubein, google him. The guy is brilliant.
A negative employee could cost you fifteen times their salary. Click To TweetDr. Qubein and about a dozen other people set out to do a book on how do you break through barriers and how do you get to the next level? Somebody heard that my wife was part of Today’s Growth and Income Store. Kerri agreed to do a chapter. Her chapter is titled, “You are not a garbage can with a hairy lid.” What it basically is saying is your job is not to allow negative people to dump their garbage in your brain. That’s your hairy lid. She writes on, “It is your job to remove yourself from the negative association. It is your job to remove that negative employee, that negative friend, that negative brother and sister. They’re not going to go away.” You’re allowing them to puke on you. You’re allowing them to be negative. Cameron expressly goes out of his way to expressly write that this principle of surrounding yourself with key people that do nothing but uplift you and tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear, it’s critical.
He goes out of his way to say that your five people, they better be the right people. They cannot be negative. He’s basically speaking Kerri’s language. Here’s what I’m here to say. Annually, please have the guts to fire 2% to 3% of your existing client base. You don’t need the money, 2% to 5% not going to break you. If you have negative clients, how much better would you feel if you didn’t? How much time, how much energy are your staff and yourself taking, kissing their butt? The customer is always right. No, they’re not. Listen to David Corbin. Read the book Illuminate. The customer is not always right but they are always the customer. If you have not read Illuminate, please read that book.

Here’s the key. The customer is not always right. As a matter of fact, they’re seldom right but they are always the customer. Treat them with respect, but find a way to buy them out, remove them, fire them quick, whatever you’ve got to do. If you go to Amazon and you type in Breaking Through by Nido Qubein, I don’t even know if you have to buy the book. Kerri’s chapter is at the beginning where you can get that preview. That is a phenomenal book. I know it was a top ten Amazon book for months. It was often purchased the book. Granted anything Nido Qubein writes goes to the top so Kerri definitely drafted off of that. It’s a tremendous book. The principles are awesome. The point of this show, it’s titled Hairy Lid. You are not a garbage can with a hairy lid. I know there are people reading this right now that know I’m speaking directly to them. You know who you are. You know waking up in the morning, people are going to dump negative on you. You know you take it and you know you shouldn’t take it. You don’t know exactly how to put your foot forward and say, “Stop.”
Here’s what you’re going to do. You are going to download the book or get the book Breaking Through by Nido Qubein. You’re going to go to Kerri’s chapter, my wife. You’re going to read not a garbage can with a hairy lid for some more background to edify everything I’m talking about. Kerri lived through this for decades as you’ll find out. She is strong to not only surround herself with positive people. The minute she can tell that someone is going to be continually negative in her life, she ends the relationship right there. She doesn’t tell them. She doesn’t let the relationship nurture because she has been burnt so many times before. Here’s my final statement. Clean up your act. It is your job to sweep the negative. You are in control. I hope this helps. Take care.
Leave a Reply