Scaling Smarter, AI Workforces, and Breaking the Hustle Trap | Erik Sorenson

Well, you've built businesses inside the hearing healthcare space and outside, and you're continuing to do so before you even founded Platinum Partners.

What first led you to focus specifically on business owners rather than like corporate or something else? And what made you want to get out of marketing altogether? Well, it really just

came from how painful it is to run a business.

If anybody has ever started a business or bought a business, they know how painful business can be.

I mean, I once heard it said that the best personal and professional development system in the world is being a business owner.

because it constantly forces you all of the time to get out of your shell, to get uncomfortable and every day is different.

And so it really was me doing business the wrong way that just caused so much pain.

And I didn't realize there was another way out.

I only knew two major skill sets and that was, I was a hustler and I was hungry.

I think hunger is a great driver.

I think it's a great skill to have, but, hustle is great in the beginning but can curse you down the road because you end up taking on everything yourself and you end up basically being the bottleneck where you're doing everything and you're just going non-stop and you get to the end of the day thinking you did things all day long only to find out that you didn't get anything done and it is painful slow growth but versus what I didn't know then, what I know now, which is there is a path where you can 5X, 10X your business by doing less, not more.

I mean, it's one of those things that sounds like it's too good to be true.

And if it sounds like it's too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true until you realize the psychology behind that strategy.

And we've proven it in Platinum Partners over and over and over that you can actually grow more by doing less.

Well, that's funny because you must be a mind reader.

That was my next question.

A platinum partner's tagline is grow by doing less, not more.

Why do you think so many owners get stuck growing a business that actually demands more of them and not less as it scales?

I think they get stuck because they don't know any other way.

I mean, there isn't really a playbook for business.

It's almost like having a child.

All of a sudden, one day you're a parent and it's like, how do I handle this? It introduces an entirely new world that no one's really used to unless they've done it before.

And business is similar where, you know, it's like we always think that I got into business to have more time, more freedom and more money.

And I always ask people, well, how's that working out? Because it is kind of like saying, hey, honey, let's have another child so we can have more time, more money and more freedom.

But there is a difference.