Have you ever faced a major setback in your business? 

A moment that forces you to reevaluate how you’re spending your time and resources?

 [QUĀY.jo]  recently found himself in precisely that situation after a serious bike accident and subsequent major surgery. 

However, rather than letting this setback hinder his business,  [QUĀY.jo]  took it as an opportunity to reevaluate his priorities and achieve remarkable success. 

He’s not one to back down from a challenge, even when dealing with a major setback. During his recovery period, he embarked on the “$100k Months in 100 Days Challenge.” This challenge compelled him to streamline his daily work routine and focus solely on the highest revenue generating tasks.

Subscribe to Kwadwo’s YouTube channel to follow along as he does the 100 days to $100k months challenge!

In addition to the challenge, we also explore how he built a team that stepped up in his absence, highlighting the importance of delegation and trust in the success of his business.
 

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Kwadwo’s approach to managing his limited 3-hour workday
• Strategies for building and managing a resilient team
• Tips for navigating challenges and setbacks in business

Rick Mulready’s Links:

• Rick’s website
• DM me on Instagram
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube

Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:

• Have your funnel reviewed by Kwadwo! (best viewed on laptop)
• Grab one of the 50 Facebook Ads Lead Gen Cheat Code presale discount spots!
• Visit Kwadwo’s website for Facebook Ads help
• Visit Kwadwo’s website to learn how he can hire a VA for you:
  https://quayjo.com/hireyourva
• Say hi to Kwadwo on Instagram

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction
02:12 – Quayjo’s bike accident
06:24 – Team’s response to Quayjo’s accident
11:46 – Effective hiring and team bonding strategies.
13:45 – Quayjo’s service for assisting with hiring
16:11 –  Quayjo’s $100k Months in 100 Days challenge
21:01 – Lessons Learned from the Experience
23:47 – Track your energy and time spent wisely

Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!

Rick Mulready [00:00:00]:

You’ve got 3 hours a day and your team is thriving. So how are you spending those 3 hours a day?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:00:06]:

You asked me this morning why I was so excited. It’s because with 3 hours, it becomes crystal clear what I need to actually be doing in the business in order for the business to grow. I started a little challenge called the 100 Day to 100K Month Challenge. And for me, what that means is let’s see if I can get to 100K months in 100 days. But what am I doing? The first hundred minutes of all five days a week are spent only on revenue generating activities.

Rick Mulready [00:00:38]:

All right, what’s up, you all? Rick Mulready here. Welcome to today’s podcast. Joined, as I almost said, as always, but as always, as recent past Quayjo.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:00:51]:

Hey, everyone. Quayjo here. And I’m doing good, Rick. I’m doing really good.

Rick Mulready [00:00:55]:

Good. Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about that today, because if you’ve been listening for any period of time in the past several episodes, you’ve heard us talk about Quayjo’s terrible bike accident and you’re looking I mean, I’m selling you on video right now. For those of you just who don’t know, there is a YouTube channel for the podcast here. Just search on the art of online business and YouTube channel. So you can see us talking here and you can see how the progression of Quayjo’s face. How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:01:29]:

Yes and no. Yes, my face looks better and the swelling has gone down and the stitches are out. But no, quite frankly, last week was difficult because it was the first week that I was, quote unquote, allowed to work, even though I may have been sneaking in a couple of hours before then. And I just realized at the ripe young age of 42, there’s a big difference between my expectations and how quickly my body should heal and how quickly it actually is healing. And last week was not so fun. Worked a few hours and all of a sudden my face is just lit up and I can’t control the pain with the pain meds I have. And it’s like, now I have to go back to the room and lay down and do nothing.

Rick Mulready [00:02:12]:

Well, we’re going to be talking about that here today and how you’ve created the team that you have. And we’ve talked off microphone several times about how your team has really stepped up. So I want to talk to you about that a little bit, but for people who are like, what are you guys talking about? What happened? Just real quick recap of what happened on your bike, okay?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:02:39]:

And the full context is my bike riding home and on the same road that I ride home all the time, like two times a week, maybe three times a week. And that’s the last thing I remember. I woke up, the paramedics were around me and yeah, I had like flesh hanging down in my eye. Turns out I hit the curb and flew over my front handlebars, my only handlebars, the handlebars in front of my bike and smashed my face into the curb and also really scratched up my arm pretty bad on a bugambilia bush, which are these lovely kind of thorny, pink flowering bushes. And so I had to get surgery. Turns out that I fractured my nose. I got a huge gash above my eye. I fractured the I still don’t know the scientific name for it.

Rick Mulready [00:03:26]:

The orbital bone.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:03:27]:

The orbital eye socket, floor bone. The bone that keeps your eye from falling back into your face somewhere where your brain is. I fractured that. True story. Didn’t even know how bad it was until the follow up a week after the surgery. But I thought they put like if you’re watching the YouTube channel right now, you can see visually I’m holding up a little business card to my cheek. I thought they put like a titanium mesh on my cheek like where this business card is. But no, they actually lifted my eyeball up and the muscle up and had to put titanium mesh inside of my eye socket so that my eye wouldn’t fall down into the recesses of my face.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:04:07]:

It’s a pretty bright fracture. But the doctor said for those of.

Rick Mulready [00:04:10]:

You eating breakfast right now while you’re listening, we apologize.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:04:14]:

We do. But thank God the surgery went fine. It was a major surgery, but it went very smoothly. But the result of that was that my eye, since it was manipulated so much as they said in Spanish, I could not tolerate screen light and looking around at different things because actually your eyes move a lot when you’re looking at a computer screen or your cell phone screen. They’re just like twitching all over the place and that’s like super bad. So fast forward to last week. Yeah, it was really frustrating that I still couldn’t it’s been two weeks in bed and then last week was the third week and I still couldn’t work maybe 3 hours without my face hurting. And I just tried to push through and my face was like, absolutely not.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:04:59]:

You will go lay down.

Rick Mulready [00:05:01]:

And just to clarify, when Quayjo said, they said in Spanish you live in Mexico?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:05:06]:

Yes, I live in Mexico.

Rick Mulready [00:05:08]:

That’s why the doctors and nurses and such are speaking Spanish.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:05:11]:

Speaking Spanish. Good, good. Clarification.

Rick Mulready [00:05:14]:

So that’s what we really wanted to not cover today is Quayjo’s injury but what sort of has happened as a result of the injury because I think so many people can relate to just a variety of life happens sort of things where they’re limited in the amount of time that they’re able to spend in their business for one reason or another. And as you just mentioned, 3 hours is kind of your cap, if you will, and your body tells you so it screams at you. And so after 3 hours, you have to go rest. And it’s kind of like correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s like, all right, 3 hours max ish in front of the computer each day.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:06:01]:

Yeah.

Rick Mulready [00:06:03]:

And you’re running a very successful ads management business, ads coaching. You now have an Ads course. You do funnel fixing, this podcast. You have a lot going on, but yet your business has continued to thrive and in fact grown during this time.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:06:24]:

That’s the amazing part. My team has really stepped up.

Rick Mulready [00:06:27]:

So talk about that. Number one, what got them to the point how did you get them to the point where they were able to step up and sort of what has kind of surprised you with the team during this process?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:06:40]:

Where do I start?

Rick Mulready [00:06:41]:

Let’s tell everybody what your team is primarily made up of like roles and where they’re located.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:06:48]:

Cool. So then running like this Facebook boutique ad management studio and doing the funnel fixing, right? I have a full time EA, so most of my team is located in the Philippines. I have a full time know. She handles the inbox. She’s more kind of like a project manager handling the onboarding of the clients, analytics setup, all this. I have a full time VA. Let’s call him his name’s Ken. He’s pretty cool.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:07:14]:

My EA’s name is Giselle. Ken the VA. He does all the ad data compiling. Anyone that’s listened to this podcast for a while knows that all the data in Facebook Ad Manager is not super accurate. So we kind of have to ping pong between Google Analytics and Facebook Ad Manager compiling data to get the true lead cost. And that can get very time consuming when you have a lot of clients you’re managing ads for. So I have a VA who does that and he also is the one responsible for the short form videos that you’re seeing on Instagram and YouTube, which are not bad. And I have another.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:07:52]:

We’ll call her a Junior Ad Manager. So many times I’ll be responsible for the strategy, but she will be setting up the actual ad campaign and scheduling it to go live. And so that is a team of three. And then we contract out to a copywriter who has been copywriting with me for me since the beginning of the business last year. She’s in Canada. She’s a Canadian. And we have a data specialist who is another Canadian.

Rick Mulready [00:08:21]:

So was that five people?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:08:23]:

Yeah, three full time and two part time. And we brought out another person full time today.

Rick Mulready [00:08:29]:

Yeah, and again today. And as you just mentioned, this is like two weeks you were in bed, essentially, and then last week you were quote unquote, officially back into it, more or less. So the accident happens. And so what’s sort of the communication with the team, because this is something that I have coached people on, is like what if, God forbid, there’s an injury or an event? This is a perfect example. What is the protocol, if you will, with the team to move forward or do things just stop?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:09:10]:

Well, I would like to say that I sent a text message and then my executive assistant opened up the bike crash SOP and went into action. But it caught me completely off guard. And honestly, what happened was I was very impressed with how my team responded. I sent a message while I was in shock, on Saturday, probably, and it was just a voice message, and she responded on the weekend, and the first responses from her and then the rest of the team were, you know, you rest, we’ll keep the business. I’m like, OK, you know, because I’m in the hospital. At that point. They handled it very well. My team picked up they picked up everything, Rick.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:09:57]:

They sent the messages to all of the clients asking for Grace because my face was kind of low key, smashed in. I was really surprised at how well they kept the accounts going. And actually, we did a team review yesterday and they actually lowered cost per lead in a couple of accounts, plus did some really crazy analytic setups in three accounts. That was actually pretty difficult. But what happened, Rick, was I was removed as the bottleneck. And I just have to admit that, and I coach people on that when we do funnel fixing calls. But they were prepared. They were prepared with the training that we had done.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:10:37]:

They were know, we do lots of training with Loom videos, where it’s what you taught, it’s what you taught. What I learned from you, Rick, in the accelerator. After coaching for So, you know, I do a task once and then hand it off to somebody on the team who watches it, does it, and after they do it a couple of times, they create an SOP. And because we’ve been doing that since January, the SOPs are probably, I don’t know what’s a number 90% in place.

Rick Mulready [00:11:07]:

Yeah, most people can follow an SOP, right? But there’s also some intangibles there for a team to say, you rest, you get better. We got this, and I want to talk to you about this, and you’ll do a whole episode about this, I think would be really helpful. But what goes into hiring people like that again? Because let’s face it, anybody can follow an SOP. True, right? But not everybody can be like, hey Quayjo, don’t worry, or hey, Halle, don’t worry. We got this.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:11:46]:

I think two things then. It’s not just the hiring. I have a really good hiring process that I guess weeding out the wrong people, let’s say bringing the right people to me to choose from. But then also, I think that the human side of it is that we have weekly team meetings. And sure, everybody has weekly team meetings, but I tell my team over and over again. The first part of our team meeting, I want to get to know them. And so we usually spend ten to 15 minutes, and at the beginning of every team meeting, I set the tone and I share something that’s non business related that I’m excited about during my week, and each of the team members does the same, and I take notes. So I actually have a running file of what’s going on in my team members life.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:12:36]:

If it’s the fact that my EA is about to take a trip that she’s been planning for a year because she likes to couch surf to a place called Makati. No, she’s from Makati, but another place in the Philippines, or that my VA, who’s a great video editor, also has a younger brother who has a lot of the same speech struggles that my daughter has. I care about them, and I always make sure to ask them, and so I guess they care about me, too. But the hiring process, too.

Rick Mulready [00:13:06]:

So we’ll go into the hiring process. We’ll spend just an episode on that because you do a very good job. And I say that from firsthand experience because, if I’m not mistaken, you hired Joelne Jolene yeah, on my team, who’s been with me for a few years now, at least, and she’s amazing. So what are the highlights of the hiring process that makes it so effective? In that you’re bringing people on that are not just box checkers or can follow an SOP that actually care about the business and about the CEO.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:13:45]:

So I don’t know how the people that really care get through. And to be fully transparent, it’s not like every time I hire, it’s great. There have been people who haven’t worked. I can say the highlights, though, are in the beginning of the hiring process, I have, like, a double secret deal. There’s the standard, or pretty standard, if you’ve read this far down the job description, you need to include a secret word in the subject line. But I super low key as one of the things that they need to do to apply the job, say, to go to my website and learn about the business. But if they actually go to the website, which it’s not a complicated website, but if they go there and read any little bit, there’s a hidden Easter egg, if you will, on the website that says, hey, if you’re applying for the EA job, you need to put the secret word. I think mine is a certain number of places actually, I don’t think I know, but I won’t say just in case somebody who potentially will apply later is listening.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:14:43]:

But it says you need to put this specific word, a certain number of words, into the headline. And so then I can see all the applicants, and I can almost see like, two tiers right away. The people who pay attention to detail but then the people who super pay attention to detail because their subject line doesn’t make sense because they have that secret word like whatever. I’ll just say it the third or fourth place, the third or fourth word in the subject line. I’m like, AHA, this person actually went and read my website. The rest of the process is pretty standard. It’s like you’re looking for diamonds, but usually when you discover a diamond you have to sift, right? But most diamonds are inside of rocks and they don’t look super pretty. And so I just make sure that I’m finding the diamonds and then I ask follow up questions and things to see which ones are the real diamonds, I guess.

Rick Mulready [00:15:36]:

So when people are talking to me about and we’re finding that they need to bring people onto their team and maybe they’re looking for an overseas, I always send them to you go to Quayjo because he finds great people. Are you doing that right now for people?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:15:52]:

I am actually, I’m piloting a service. It’s just one to one right now. It’s not one to many. It literally is me taking another online course creator or coach through the same process. Well, doing the same process that I do to find my people, I just do it on their behalf. And that link is in the show notes.

Rick Mulready [00:16:11]:

And like I said, we’ll dive more deeply into the actual hiring process in a different episode.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:16:16]:

Sure.

Rick Mulready [00:16:17]:

You’ve got 3 hours a day. How are you spending those hours to maximize the hours and the business continues to grow. You just mentioned that you just brought on a content person today or yesterday or something and your team is thriving. So how are you spending those 3 hours a day?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:16:38]:

So I have already on the calendar like client funnel fixing calls. The people that decide to do ads management with me, some of them also have another tier of a service where I consult them on how to fix their funnel. Right. So I have the calls that I need to fulfill. But other than that, and this is the hard thing, but you asked me this morning why I was so excited. It’s because with 3 hours it becomes crystal clear what I need to actually be doing in the business in order for the business to grow. And so this is the perfect time to say that I started a little challenge called the 100 Day to 100K Month Challenge. And for me, what that means is let’s see if I can get to 100K months in 100 days.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:17:26]:

But what am I doing? The first 100 minutes of all five days a week are spent only on revenue generating activities as in sales pages for the course or outlining, and then using chat GBT to make the presale page for the next course. Because there’s already two next courses.

Rick Mulready [00:17:47]:

Or this podcast.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:17:48]:

Yeah, this podcast planning podcast episodes. Contacting people who would be good guests on a podcast episode. OOH, somebody responded. Who’s a pretty big name, too. That’s pretty exciting. These sort of things, the conversation with my team, and again, they’ve been super understanding and they’ve stepped up is what would change in the business if I’m only spending time on the things that I said I would spend time on? Yeah, full transparency. You know, you’re supposed to spend the time on the CEO activities. You know, you shouldn’t be doing all the other things that aren’t as valuable and yet we do as business owners.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:18:24]:

And for the past week, I’ve been forced, because of the accident, to actually get everything together and do the right things.

Rick Mulready [00:18:33]:

Yeah, it’s the whole what is it? Parkinson’s law? Like, the time expands or a task expands to the time that you give it.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:18:40]:

Right.

Rick Mulready [00:18:41]:

This is a perfect example of, like, all right, I quote, unquote, only have 3 hours. I say quote unquote because some people listening right now would be like, oh my gosh, I would love to have 3 hours to work on my business. But it’s like whatever time that you have available to you, it’s maximizing that time for growth and just shutting everything else out during that time. And then also what Quayjo just mentioned. And just to clarify, did you get this from Alex Hormosi? The or. 100 days.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:19:12]:

100 days to 100K month. I got it from another lady who got it from Alex Hormosi.

Rick Mulready [00:19:16]:

Okay, so 100 days to 100K months. So just to kind of reiterate what Quayjo was doing, there is the first hundred minutes of each day spending on revenue generating activities. Things are going to move the needle in some way for revenue for the business going towards that goal. And so it’s how do you look at your business and how can you be ensuring that the time that you give it each day, whether that’s 30 minutes, whether that’s 8 hours or whatever it is, it shouldn’t be 8 hours. Are you maximizing that time to its fullest doing hopefully what only you should be doing as the CEO and ensuring that your team is picking up the other things that they need to be doing to get things off your plate. And Kuja, this is exactly what’s going on in your business. So I want to sort of wrap this up with a question here. Will you continue this schedule once your health is back to a place where you can do longer than 3 hours in front of the computer and you’re not in any kind of pain? Will you continue the 3 hours or trick? No, there’s not a trick or trick question.

Rick Mulready [00:20:42]:

So what do you think?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:20:44]:

I will work more than 3 hours. I will not go back to working. I hereby solemnly swear I’m raising my right hand. My right hand. There you go. My right hand. I will not go back to working, like 8 hours a day. After my health comes back fully.

Rick Mulready [00:21:01]:

I think it’s a great lesson. I mean, it’s a terrible way to learn a lesson, but you’ve learned that. You know what? This business can grow and thrive, and my team steps up. And even when either I’m out completely or I have a limited time, if you will, to be working in the business.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:21:20]:

It’s a super sucky context, but at the same time, it’s as if I’ve been given a gift and I choose to make the most of it. And if you, the listener, want to follow along on this crazy challenge, then anywhere on social media quayjo. And the link is in the description below. I’m actually posting daily updates on how that’s going and daily revenue updates, and I’m only counting new revenue.

Rick Mulready [00:21:49]:

New revenue. Cool.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:21:50]:

Let’s go. What was that quote? I told you, let yourself on fire, and the world will come to watch you burn.

Rick Mulready [00:21:56]:

Have you all heard this quote? Because Quayjo is like, I don’t know who said it, but it’s a really well known quote, and please repeat it, because I was like, what? I’ve never heard this, and this is terrible. What is it again?

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:22:07]:

Light yourself on fire, and the world will come to watch you burn. I don’t know who said that quote. Maybe I made it up when I was on meds.

Rick Mulready [00:22:16]:

Yeah, if anybody’s heard of that before, please DM one of us on Instagram and let us know, because I’ve never heard it. I think it’s terrible. Please do not light yourself on fire.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:22:28]:

No.

Rick Mulready [00:22:28]:

We do not condone to get people there are other ways to do to get people to come watch.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:22:34]:

We do not condone what’s that called? Self immolation. We do not condone that. Do not do that.

Rick Mulready [00:22:38]:

Yes. Well, thank you, Quayjo, for sharing in this. I think that just to leave everybody with one exercise, I would do a time audit. Do a time audit where you are tracking. So let’s take five to seven days. Five to seven business days, but five to seven, quote, unquote, normal business days. Not if you’re in a launch, not if you’re traveling, whatever. Like five to seven normal business days, and you’re tracking everything that you’re doing from the time you start to the time you finish, what you do, how long you’re doing it for.

Rick Mulready [00:23:13]:

So just for example, so for us right now, it’s Pacific Time. For me personally. You’re in Central time.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:23:19]:

I’m mountain time.

Rick Mulready [00:23:21]:

Mountain time.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:23:21]:

Daylight.

Rick Mulready [00:23:22]:

So from nine to 948, we did a podcast episode. Podcast recording. Cool. I would literally put it down, round up 50 minutes. That’s what you put down. And then if you take a ten minute break, put it down. And if you want to go a little above and beyond, put down what your energy level was. Give yourself a score of one to five.

Rick Mulready [00:23:47]:

But you can’t give yourself a three, because that’s a cop out. One to five how energized did you feel from this activity? Track yourself for five to seven days doing all this? It’s a pain in the butt, I’ll tell you, but it is gold what you can glean from this information once you’re done. Because not only will you see how much time you’re wasting, and I’m not saying you personally, we all waste time, but it will tell you what you’re spending your time on and the types of things that you really shouldn’t be spending your time on after doing this type of exercise. Because then we won’t go into it fully here, but then you can start to put values next to activity, things that you’re doing, like whatever. I uploaded an email into my email CRM. Well, that is a quote, $10 an hour task, something that you should not be doing. And then it’s just a matter of what we’re trying to do here is figure out how you’re spending your time so that you can then create the type of schedule where you’re doing the types of things that we’re talking about here today, like Quayjo is doing within these 3 hours that only you, as the CEO, should be doing. So we’ll go into another episode where you break down your hiring process.

Rick Mulready [00:25:00]:

If anybody wants to reach out to Quayjo to get his help on hiring an overseas assistant, where was the link? Is it in the it’s in the show notes.

Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie [00:25:10]:

It’s Quayjo.com. That’s quayjo.com slash hireyourva. All one word. Hireyourva. Quayjo.com/hireyourva. Rick, thanks for asking me all of these questions. Yeah, and the encouragement.

Rick Mulready [00:25:25]:

Awesome. Thanks, y’all.