How Do You Turn 70 Problems Into 5 Priorities?

Inside this conversation

Greg Cleary is a business guide and sales leadership veteran, and we spoke about why entrepreneurs need experienced guidance, how to build scalable businesses, and how to make better decisions under pressure. His perspective began with his family's struggle after his father's unemployment left Greg and his brother in an orphanage. In 1985, he began working with sales trainer Brian Tracy, learning through disciplined practice before building a four-decade career in sales training and business leadership. His philosophy is simple: "the guide is on the trail with you."

Greg explains his five-part framework for business growth: people, purpose, playbooks, performance, and profit. He describes how leadership teams can organize 70 business problems into five manageable categories, create repeatable processes using simple checklists, and identify gaps in their teams. For Greg, "profit is feedback from the marketplace on how valuable you are." He also shares how a fitness business generated $500,000 in virtual training revenue during its first month of COVID shutdowns by asking, "what are all the things you can control?" His practical tools include a seven-to-eight-minute team assessment that produces a ten-page report and helps leaders track improvement over three months.

For entrepreneurs struggling to scale, Greg offers a practical way to identify what is holding their business back, strengthen their leadership team, and focus on the few actions that can produce meaningful progress.

Key takeaways

• List your leadership team's biggest problems and organize them into five categories.
• Build short, repeatable playbooks that help employees deliver consistent results.
• Assess whether your leadership team has the skills required for growth.
• During crises, separate controllable actions from circumstances you cannot change.
• Seek experienced guides who can challenge assumptions and offer outside perspectives.
• Complete the team assessment and review your scores after three months.

Episode description from the official 21CE podcast feed. This text is the show notes, not a full transcript.