Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alexander Johnson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alexander, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

I think unless you are able to take on money somehow, everyone just starts with the founders. That’s what we did, so we were doing a bit of everything ourselves. That persisted for quite a while, even once we were able to hire employee #1, we still all did everything.

We hired a family member as our first hire almost 10 years ago, and I am pleased to say he is still here and is on our Executive team, but I also understand that doesn’t always work out like that. It has been rocky at certain times, but it has worked for us.

We’ve hired a good amount of friends and family, which has it’s own unique set of pros and cons. I’d say when we started to branch our hiring out, we got better results overall.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started Mixt Solutions back in 2014 immediately after graduating from college. Of course at age 21 you think you know it all and it’ll be so easy.

But we have stayed to the course and been able to build a pretty cool 40 person company with over 150 million in lifetime revenue on Amazon.

We have found our niche helping brands on the Amazon platform as a full service logistics, marketing, and consulting agency.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

This is something I just covered in my lessons for 2024. 3 books that really made a huge impact on me recently:

Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell – One of the best business books I’ve ever read. A must read for entreprenuers at all levels.

$100 Million Dollar Offers and $100 Million Dollar Leads by Alex Hormozi – Hormozi may be the best business author of all time, and I don’t say that lightly. His content is a must read for business owners and people at all levels. He has a unique ability to break things down to the action steps that lead to real success.

This is an old one but a good one, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. Must read for any new business owner, and I almost forget it sometimes because it has become so natural to me.

Any advice for managing a team?

Management is probably the most misunderstood topic in all of business.

There is a difference between management and leadership, but they can both be broken down into a few core components. I tell a lot of managers, “You don’t have to actually believe in these things or internally agree with them. Just have to present them.”

Consistency – You have to hold people to the same standard. And you are the easiest person to allow the standard to slip for. If you say everyone needs to be there at 9am, you had better be there by 9am. Lack of consistency leads to grumbling.

Transparency – You need to make clear your expectation, standards, and boundaries. Unsaid expectations are just future resentment. Lack of transparency into the process leads to resentment.

Community – You need to show your people you care. That can be in time spend, effort, or whatever metric they value most. If the team doesn’t believe in you because they hardly see you, it will be hard to get buy in when you need it. Unfortunately, leadership isn’t a light switch that can be turned on when you need it. It’s more like a fire. It take a long time to build, but can go out quickly. You have to stoke it often. Lack of community leads to disconnection.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mixtsolutions.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandervjohnson/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-zTZqAOlQR-wdyFhozMsyg/about