399.Does Running a Business Ever Get Easy?

Every business owner believes there's a stage where it finally gets easier. Build the systems, hire the right people, and one day the thing runs without you. Erik Huberman has spent twelve years building a company that has scaled more than 5,000 brands, and he says that stage does not exist. **Erik Huberman** is the founder and CEO of Hawke Media, which he started with no outside money in 2014 and still owns 100 percent of today. Before Hawke, he founded and sold two e-commerce companies by the age of 26. He's the author of *The Hawke Method*. Erik traces the lie back to what he calls the internet charlatans, the ones posting from a beach about the team running everything back home. Nobody is going to run your company the way you run it, because nobody else has what you have on the line. If your COO blows up the business, he gets another job. If you lose it, you lose everything. Erik brought in a full executive team years ago and believed the day-to-day was finally handled. They were telling him what he wanted to hear while the company went into a downward spiral. It cost millions, six months of bracing for the next thing to fall, and a year and a half to feel like himself again. It landed the same week he lost his dad, with his first child two months away. Jason doesn't let all of it stand. He tells Erik that passive is a fantasy, but twenty hours a week isn't, and that his clients get there without losing revenue or profit. Erik takes the point and draws his own line. There's no version of this where you still care how the business grows and somebody else runs it. If you want out, build something a buyer wants, sell it, and be done. What changed for Erik wasn't finding the exit. He spent two years rebuilding the CEO job into one he no longer wants out of. Also in this one: the only two reasons businesses fail, the 8 p.m. phone call that shows the gap between an owner and an employee, what 25 acquired agencies and 250 employees did to his week, and the Greek restaurant line his head of sales uses on him. Erik closes by telling you to go in with your eyes open about what happens when you hand your company to someone else. **Connect with Erik Huberman:** Website: erikhuberman.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/erikhuberman Instagram: instagram.com/erikhuberman X: x.com/ErikHuberman Email: [e@hawkemedia.com](mailto:e@hawkemedia.com) Subscribe to What's Real?: therealjasonduncan.com/articles Book Jason to speak: therealjasonduncan.com/speaking Get the book: therealjasonduncan.com/book The podcast: therealjasonduncanpodcast.com This episode is sponsored by **Bank On Yourself**. Book a confidential session at therealjasonduncan.com/bankonyourself Full episode page: therealjasonduncan.com/podcast/399 New episodes every Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices