Rocket IT Podcast

In this special episode of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, we have the pleasure of speaking with a Wall Street Journal bestselling author and Co-Founder of GiANT, Jeremie Kubicek. Through his passion for entrepreneurship, Jeremie has coached businesses, like Google, Microsoft, and Chick-fil-A, helping leaders truly unlock their potential for success. Now, we’re excited to have him on the show to discuss his newest written work, The Peace Index: A Five-Part Framework to Conquer Chaos and Find Fulfillment.

jeremiekubicek.com | giantspeakers.com

The Peace Index: A Five-Part Framework to Conquer Chaos and Find Fulfillment

[email protected]

In episode 27 of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, we have the pleasure of speaking with Marlon Allen, founding partner of Ramp Marketing. While, on the surface, Marlon and his team are giving student athletes the tools to pursue their dreams, the organization’s underlying mission has proved to be so much more. In this segment, we learn how Marlon is working to help people see their tremendous potential to win in every aspect of their lives.

Marlon Allen | [email protected]

RAMP Marketing

Rotary Club of Gwinnett County

Leadership Gwinnett

Gwinnett County School Board Foundation

Rowen Task Force

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Nike TRAINED Podcast

Matt Hyatt (00:00:00):

Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 27 of the Rocket IT business podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt. And today we’re talking with Marlon Allen, founding partner of Ramp Marketing. Ramp provides apparel to youth athletic teams, and they do a great job. But what I really love about Marlon is the way he approaches business and life. His purpose driven approach and servant heart are an inspiration to me and many others. So let’s get started Marlon, welcome to the show.

Matt Hyatt (00:00:32):

Well, Marlon, welcome to the show. We’re glad to have

Marlon Allen (00:00:34):

Glad to be here, Matt.

Matt Hyatt (00:00:36):

So I want to, we’re going to dive in a little bit about how we got to know one another, but before I get started, I want to hear a little bit about your marketing company. Ramp Marketing, which most people, when we hear a little bit about what you actually do, probably wouldn’t think marketing, but there’s absolutely a marketing element to it. So let’s dive right in and tell us about Ramp Marketing. How’d you get started? What do you do?

Marlon Allen (00:00:59):

Well, the core business model or, or what we do most is, is produced youth sports uniforms. And so that that’s really, and the marketing side of it came about because we, we really wanted, or, or felt that if we took the, the Nike model, which they have created and I’ll probably refer to it pretty well, they’ve done decent, you know, they were right on the heels. But, but when you take their model, you look at a phenomenal business and what they’ve done in the world of sports. They, they took a team, they took Oregon university and say, you know what, we’re gonna, we’re gonna create a brand that’s robust, that’s dynamic. That’s very different from whatever what else was done. And so the marketing side of our business came because when we met with a customer or really a sports team, a youth sports team, you know, the name Ramp, we said, we want to Ramp up your marketing efforts or your branding efforts or who you are as an organization.

Marlon Allen (00:02:08):

And, and we’ll do it through, you know, custom apparel, whether was uniforms, t-shirts, you know, yoga pants, hoodies, whatever it is we want to, we want to Ramp up the organization. And so when you, when you hear the term marketing, it’s not your traditional marketing company, but it’s that it’s really more about how can we take a youth organization because there most people don’t understand the ins and outs of, of youth sports to the point of Eric, tons of folks working behind the scenes, sure. That are working to really create a credible organization and respectable organization. One that is organized. And so a part of what we do outside of even producing uniforms is really if I, if I want to use the word consult, but really, really just advise companies on best practices and ways that they can even, you know, organize their sports, you know, from registrations to, you know, whether it’s online registrations and making sure that, that seamless for the parent or even, you know, trying on uniforms when that, when that kid gets to a uniform fitting to make sure that when the product comes back, that it fits properly. So sure. Quite a bit that goes involved in it, right? Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:03:29):

You know my, my kids are grown now, but they played some sports growing up and we would take them to the ball field and they’d try all kinds of different things. I think soccer and basketball, probably the ones that they spent the most time on, but it’s a production, you know, it’s absolutely production. It’s those kids running around, especially when they’re small, right. The front around, all over the place, the parents trying to figure out, alright, how do you know, how did I get signed up? Where do I need to be?. And then you get into it. We’re actually playing. And you know, we’re bringing pretty much everything we own to the ball field.

Marlon Allen (00:04:05):

Which is a whole nother business. Think about the times before. I wonder, what do we do before there were the carts that we will around now, the wagons. I mean, whoever created that they’re, they’re making a killer. I missed out on that opportunity, but you can’t go to a sports field without seeing all the wagons. I wonder what did my parents do?

Matt Hyatt (00:04:29):

Well, they probably weren’t bringing nearly as much stuff. That’s for sure. Now that we’ve, now we’ve got our carts and stuff, we can bring a lot. So tell me, how’d you get started in that business? What was the attraction there?

Marlon Allen (00:04:40):

It was really more out of some people call it frustration that you’re frustrated with something that happened. So in 2015, my nephew was essentially frustrated because he was getting charged $80 a wap for a t-shirt design. Now graphic design is a huge business and it’s, it can be costly. He calls me up. Oh, Hey man, do you think you can do some t-shirt designs? And my degree in computer information management has, has kind of led me to be self taught in different areas, hence the Adobe creative suite. And so I get around and mess around and that

Matt Hyatt (00:05:21):

I’m making a note. If that doesn’t work out for you. Let me know

Marlon Allen (00:05:24):

There you go, right. So yeah. Hey, I’m keeping my options open, but he calls me up and I say, yeah, I can help you out. So started doing some t-shirt designs for them. Wasn’t even thinking about it as a business. But then the beginning of 2016, about January of 2016, 1 of his, his t-shirt customers, which he’s out in Fort Worth, Texas and his son was playing youth sports. So football at the time. So one of the coaches or someone called him up. Hey man, can you do basketball uniforms? He picks up the phone. Hey Unc, can we do basketball uniforms? I said, well, there’s a lot of online resources. I’m sure we can get some blank uniforms and find a screen printer and, and, you know, and make a couple of hundred dollars. So, still wasn’t even really thinking about a business at the time. So we turn around that order, fulfill that order.

Marlon Allen (00:06:18):

And, and while from November of 2015, up until about February of 2016, my nephew was doing some research and I didn’t even know about it for international apparel suppliers. Oh wow. So he was doing all the research on that. He tried to figure out before, before we even discussed starting a business. Well, about November, about the time he calls me, I was starting my son’s travel baseball team. Reached out to a past college teammate who was a rep for a big baseball company. I man, I need some uniforms. So he said, I, I can outfit you. So we ordered the uniforms in November, Matt of 2015. I get a call from him in February of 2016 saying, Hey man, these uniforms won’t be until the end of March. So now I got, you know, 12, 12 parents that are looking at me like where, you know, where, where, where our uniforms?

Marlon Allen (00:07:24):

Right? So I call up my nephew and says, Hey man, do you think, you know, you, you got contacts with anybody that can do these. He says, yeah, I think so. So that was the first time that, that, that I used a, an overseas supplier to do uniforms, custom uniforms for us. And the frustration that I had with my roommate, college teammate, who didn’t, it wasn’t his fault, the company just, and this was, think about it is COVID was nowhere around, right? You didn’t have COVID excuses. It was just the fact that custom uniforms just took quite awhile to get, for that company to fulfill. Right. So we got those done and then May, so that happened March of 2016. So now we started, we started these discussions about really starting the business and may of 2016 is when we started it.

Matt Hyatt (00:08:21):

Wow. Happy five-year anniversary.

Marlon Allen (00:08:25):

Yeah. It’s big for us. We’re five years old. We are, we’re now eating whole foods, you know, solid foods right now we’re off the Similac, you know, walking around.

Matt Hyatt (00:08:39):

I think we’ve talked about that. Raising up a businesses is somewhat like raising up a kid.

Marlon Allen (00:08:43):

Absolutely. We’re still, still got a rocket to sleep at night, take a bath and five. They probably still need a lot of help. We’re still cooking for him, you know. So that’s where it came about. And so the name Ramp, which is folks say, you know, where does that name come from? Well, it’s actually my initials and my, well, first of all, my wife came up with the name. She was sitting there. We were just throwing out all kinds of stuff. And she says, what about Ramp? He says, why Ramp? She says, well, that’s your initial, Marlon Allen and Ronnie Pollard’s initial. So she fixed it up in her mind to come up with Ramp. And then we’re me and my kids were in, in our great room sitting down talking, and we just started creating a little jingle, wrap it up, Ramping up and whatever else. Ramping up.

Matt Hyatt (00:09:39):

Are you prepared to sing

Marlon Allen (00:09:40):

That really they still in the book, the next episode, that’s right. That’s right. We were still in the studio trying to perfect it, but Ramp it up really became our tag line and model. So to say, because that’s what we really wanted for our customers to believe that we were really going to take your ideas, Ramp up those ideas, you know, in a, in a, in a way that only we could do that. That wasn’t at the time really done in sports, especially for the youth for youth teams, so.

Matt Hyatt (00:10:20):

So tell me there’s so there’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s let’s let’s start. So you mentioned college roommate teammate. So, so you have a background in sports. Can you tell us about that?

Marlon Allen (00:10:33):

Oh, absolutely man. It, it started at the age of eight years of age, my first time playing for the parents in Columbus, Georgia Eastern little league. And that was my first year of baseball and, and I fell in love with it at first sight. Really started playing baseball at eight years of age and around 11, I can vividly remember that year one of the best baseball teams out ever played on, we actually won the city championship that year. I had one of my, I even remember having one of my best years in baseball and was second in the league in home runs and all of that stuff. And, and, and that was a year where I said, you know what, I, I, you know, I want to play baseball. And at the time, I don’t know if you, you remember the, the follow every, even if you follow the Braves, if you don’t.

Marlon Allen (00:11:34):

But at the time when I was that age, they used to say, all these baby blue jerseys at the Gulf, I’ll call it the filling station, which is we call it the gas station. I went back there, we called the filling station, but the Gulf Gulf gas stations used to sell Dale Murphy, baby blue, vintage jerseys. And I used to always want, I couldn’t afford it, but that was my dream to have, you know, one of those jerseys because I love the Braves. Love Dale Murphy was one of my idols growing up. And so continue to play in high school and then received a scholarship to Columbus State University, which is in my hometown, Columbus, Georgia. And it’s funny. Yeah. Well actually. Well, it wasn’t an academic now I’ll tell you this. I wasn’t wasn’t smarts off the chart, but you know, parents had some high expectations.

Marlon Allen (00:12:36):

A B student all the way through school. And, but it was a dual scholarship for basketball and baseball. So that actually was a baseball, a basketball scholarship because at the time the basketball program at Columbus State, which was Columbus College in 1991 was a little bigger at the time or no more than baseball. And so anyway, basketball scholarship. So they paid for my way through school and then baseball allowed me to play. And the backstory behind that, it’s funny because I have two older brothers that played division one football, one played at Georgia Tech. One play quarterback at Georgia tech. Yeah. And the other plate, quarterback at Austin PeaySstate University. Those two are division one colleges, which is the highest level of college sport sports Columbus College was division two. And, and I remember the report is asking, well, how do you feel, you know, going to a division two school and your brothers went to the division one school.

Marlon Allen (00:13:44):

I said, my brothers only played one sport. I’m a two sport athletes. So there you go. Some fun competition with them. And so played three years in college, played two years of basketball. My junior season, I decided that it was time to concentrate on baseball and still was chasing the dream of playing professional baseball. And that year was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds to play professional baseball and spent five years in their organization, made it up to AAA, finished in AA, one step below the majors finished in AA and coach one year for the A team as a hidden instructor. So a lot of sports. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:14:31):

How did you feel getting drafted? I mean, was it like, yeah, finally. Or was it a big surprise.

Marlon Allen (00:14:37):

It was, I mean, it was a big deal because now tell you this, I, and I have to, this is just for the record.

Marlon Allen (00:14:49):

It wasn’t this huge signing bonus. I was drafted in the 40th round. So if you ever follow sports, you know, you know, football, I think has, you know, maybe six rounds at the most, maybe even five basketball doesn’t have as many. So you talking about well and baseball, this is a different model because of the minor league teams that they had at the time. So they drafted, it was close to 50 rounds of players that they drafted at the time. And so, but for me, it was more about the opportunity to, to chase the dream and pursue the dream. The dream had become a reality at the time because my scout sat down at my table at home and, and we went through the whole shebang of signing a professional contract. And he congratulate me on now being a professional baseball player. And so that meant I got paid, Matt.

Marlon Allen (00:15:50):

Fantastic. Now let me tell you about the pay cause it’s very interesting. Yeah. So at the time I was making $840 a month as a professional baseball player. A lot of folks don’t even know about that. That was a minor league. That was a minor league. Wouldn’t even necessarily call it a contract, but that was a minor league pay at the time. And it was funny because my first assignment was, it was Billings, Montana, which I was excited about because I’d never been on the west coast. Oh wow. And beautiful country out there. I mean, actually, yeah. Three days later they shipped me to, I hope no one is listening from Princeton, West Virginia, but Princeton, West Virginia is where they shipped me. I’ll just keep my comments because this is a special place as well, because.

Matt Hyatt (00:16:38):

That’s where Chris and Jessica are from.

Marlon Allen (00:16:43):

But Princeton, West Virginia, very, totally different from billings. But we get there and they show us a boarded up dorm college dorm. It was boarded up that we would be staying at for the summer.. So, and then they were taken out about $200 a check for, or about $150 a month or something for, for rental of this boarded up, closed up college dorm room. So that’s the life of a professional baseball player.

Matt Hyatt (00:17:18):

It’s not as glamorous as I thought,

Marlon Allen (00:17:20):

No, it’s not, I’m telling you.

Matt Hyatt (00:17:26):

Well you’ve got to, you must really love the craft to go through that. So how, how so? How long was the career?

Marlon Allen (00:17:33):

About five. It was five years. Coach one year after that year, I was 26 years old and I got a call saying that I was too old. Yeah, seriously. Oh my gosh. And they say they were going in a more youthful direction, which really means that they have some younger prospects that at the time seem more promising than what I was.

Matt Hyatt (00:17:56):

That sounds pretty cutthroat.

Marlon Allen (00:17:58):

Oh it is. Yes. You best believe it is a, it’s a cutthroat business because at the time you’re not, you know, it’s not a soccer parent or a soccer family going to sign up. Right. I mean, it’s a business and you’re in it to win.

Matt Hyatt (00:18:12):

Well, I’ll tell you what though think about that. You know, how many kids at 11 years old have any idea what they want to do as an adult. And then that, that’s a very small number, right? It’s gotta be a very small number. I, you know, I remember thinking about what I wanted to do in my late teens. Most people would consider that very early. Right. You know, 11 years old, that’s pretty darn early. And then how many, 11 year old kids dream of playing professional baseball that actually get to do it. Right. You’re one in million probably.

Marlon Allen (00:18:48):

I’m blessed. And I really realized that and, and realize that the opportunities that, that life and, you know, and God has afforded me is, is all the more reason for me to give back the way that, you know, the way that I do and, and keeps this goal. And so, yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:19:07):

Yeah. So I think that it’s probably helps a lot, especially in your line of work, working with youths as you say, and provided the uniforms and you’re directly involved in the sports field. And that’s kind of a funny word to say, but yeah, that’s pretty awesome that you’re really good to carry on and still be around all of that. Now, have you done any coaching, as your kids are growing up or is that that’s a thing for you?

Marlon Allen (00:19:36):

Absolutely. It’s, it’s a part of who I am.

Matt Hyatt (00:19:38):

I thought you’d mentioned that. Tell me, tell me about how much time you spend doing that stuff.

Marlon Allen (00:19:41):

As a matter of fact, I’m probably sure that, that one of my kids, when they are unfortunately, well, I’ll just say, fortunately, they’re standing up, you know, talking about me when I’m long and gone. They’ll probably call me coach before they call me Daddy

Matt Hyatt (00:19:58):

Always been coaching.

Marlon Allen (00:20:00):

Oh, funny story. My daughter is in the chorus and she comes home and she’s singing a song and I said, all right, baby, let me just talk to you about that. She said, daddy, does it really have to be a lesson or a coaching session Every time we do something? I say, yes, because that’s just who I am. So you’re stuck with me. Right. But yeah, coaching is a big part of, of, of our life and what we do.

Matt Hyatt (00:20:23):

So you touched on something earlier and it reminded me, I think, and forgive me if I’m wrong, we’ll cut this out if I’m wrong. But I, I think I remember that there was a story about your brother when he was quarterbacking, sort of a touch of fame there somewhere,

Marlon Allen (00:20:41):

A little touch of fighting for all of you, Rudy fans out there and you know, yeah. You know, the name fans, you, you know, Rudy, Ruetigger’s name.

Matt Hyatt (00:20:52):

I met him once and he came to some conference.

Marlon Allen (00:20:56):

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I got a chance to meet him as well in my hometown. And that was a part of the story. Well, anyway, always big sports trivia. I ask people, do you know who Rudy Ruetigger sacked in real life? And they’re thinking about the movie. And, and I said, no, go and pull up the YouTube video, the Rudy play. And it’s an actual play. And at the time my brother was playing quarterback at Georgia Tech and Notre Dame was playing Georgia ech when Rudy Ruetigger, you know, got into that game. And, and at the end of the game, he, he actually sacks my brother. So Rudy, Rudy, Ruetigger sacs, Rudy Allen. So I tell my brother all the time, you have really missed out on millions because you could have gone on a speaking tour as the other Rudy.

Marlon Allen (00:21:52):

And he actually has a pretty powerful story. My brother is, he is, I mean, if you want to talk about an idol outside of my dad and just the things that he accomplished. Second African-American quarterback at Tech. So a lot, I mean, I could have I could talk we can have a whole nother podcast just about that story. That’s pretty. And for him, it’s pretty inspirational to see what he went through and for people really to know Rudy Ruetigger story, more so than his story, which at the time was, was pretty phenomenal to be able to go to a college in the seventies as a, as a black quarterback and, and, and, and for a college to accept you in that position. Back then it just one done. So, so that’s a part of all of our family’s, just story, and even some inspiration that we all use to drive us.

Matt Hyatt (00:22:51):

That’s so awesome. So speaking of family, you know, you and I have known each other for a couple of years now, maybe we’ve known each other longer, but we kind of the friends the last couple of years, right. Something you’ve mentioned several times in our conversations and meetings we’ve been in together is the impact that your parents and specifically your mom, like you mentioned your dad, but I remember a lot of stories about your mom. Can you tell us a little bit about how her leadership and how growing up with, with your mom and dad, how that affects your day-to-day decision making? I have a feeling that, you know, what’s, what’s the good word I’m looking for here that she reigned control. It’s what it seems like like when I’ve heard these stories. So how, how does, how does her legacy live out in your life?

Marlon Allen (00:23:41):

Absolutely, Matt. It’s and really for both of my parents, as a matter of fact, shout out to them, we are in two weeks celebrating my dad’s 85th birthday and my mom’s 84th birthday. So we’re having a big gathering in Columbus, Georgia. So I’m organizing that. So big deal and mom was, was, was very influential because of really her servant, servant heart. So we’re growing up. Matter of fact, they still live in the same home today, which my dad actually built in the sixties. Because he was a, he was a Bible vocational pastor. And so part of his, his other work when he wasn’t in the pulpit was a brick brick, masonry. And, and so one of the jobs at the time that he had was built in the neighborhood that they lived in, or that they eventually moved into think it was a 1964 right around when my.

Matt Hyatt (00:24:41):

Please tell me he lives in a brick house.

Marlon Allen (00:24:42):

Yeah, it is. Yeah. Now that’s all he believes. It’s brick. Yeah. We didn’t have any stucco back then. Not a whole lot of that stuff, but so anyway, mom, stay at home mom, domestic engineer, as you call it and very influential seven, seven kids. I’m number six out of the seven and the family’s kind of two stages. So my top three siblings, my brother and two sisters, are all three years apart. Then I think there was about a six year gap with my middle brother, which he says, he claims he’s the miracle child, Vince Allen. And then as another six year gap between Vince and Tanya or the bottom three kids, which is Tanya, my older sister, three years apart from her, then me, then Dimitra, three years apart. Nice. So it’s a 19 year span between the youngest and the oldest.

Matt Hyatt (00:25:44):

Once the youngest come along, the oldest is off to college.

Marlon Allen (00:25:45):

Yeah, he was gone. He was gone. And, and so my mom was raising essentially two different families in a sense.

Matt Hyatt (00:25:55):

Is it better or worse to be the second half? Like, you know, make all the mistakes on the first half. Right? You take a breather and say, okay, let’s try this again. We’ll take everything we learn and we’re going to make sure that Allen and brother and sister.

Marlon Allen (00:26:09):

That’s right. So, two sisters on either side. One older and one younger.

Marlon Allen (00:26:15):

Yep. That’s right. Yep. And four total sisters. four total sisters and the two brothers. So I’ve heard that the younger siblings had it easy compared to the older ones. And I can imagine that I can see that. My son now thinks that my daughter has a much easier than him. So, but

Matt Hyatt (00:26:33):

He had to do all that training with you.

Marlon Allen (00:26:36):

That’s right. We had to figure it out. By the time Sarah come along, we knew it. At least thought we did. But yeah, my brother used to say that my dad did a lot of coaching when, when they were coming up more so than what they did from when I was coming up. Right. And I just tell him, I was just a better athlete. He didn’t even have to coach him this hard. But to go back to your original question about mom, very influential, servant’s heart, three bedroom home that we lived in. And she was always, she would always bring kids in who, for whatever reason needed a place to stay for extended period of time, whatever their home life or their,

Matt Hyatt (00:27:18):

All of you and other things.

Marlon Allen (00:27:20):

Yeah. Wow. So it was, it was, it was, and, and, you know, and I never grew up feeling like, you know, I didn’t have my mom or my mom was giving attention to someone else. And she always every Saturday or during a week, baby, have you read your Sunday school lesson? You know, for Sunday school. She was the one, the stickler for that. And, and you know, my dad came in in terms of discipline, whenever mom just got to the point where she said, you know what I’m telling your dad, you know? And then he would come in and we never really wanted that to happen because when that discipline some, one of us, everybody was crying. Everybody crying. If he got on to me, then my other sisters were crying, because it was. It was pretty tough, but that my parents were very, I mean, just, just their life of, of service. And that’s what I look at. And, and that’s the legacy. They always, I’m in Rotary Club of Gwinnett County right now, our motto is service above self. And I didn’t have to join rotary to learn that because that’s what our family was about. And that’s what we’re about today. And my oldest brother always says, if you see a need then meet it, so meet the need, you see a need, meet the need. I love it. And then that’s how we, that’s how we live. So,

Matt Hyatt (00:28:52):

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let’s dive in a little bit. I want to talk more about the business. It sounds like, you know, you told us a little bit about how you got started. So I think there are several things that are interesting about that story. Number one is, you’re, you know, you’re working with a partner, that’s also a family member. That’s not always the easiest. And so like to kind of jump into that a little bit, and then also you’re separated by, you know, geographically you’re separated by states. And so you were doing the work from home before it was cool. Right?

Marlon Allen (00:29:24):

Absolutely. You know, a lot of us have to transition.

Matt Hyatt (00:29:26):

Right. So any special challenges or any unique way, you have to do things when you’re working with your family member, who who’s also a coworker. I can’t imagine if you’re falling down on the job and he’s got to call you out how that goes,

Marlon Allen (00:29:41):

Uncle Marlon. Yeah. Vice versa. Right. How do you handle those kinds of discussions or is it super easy? It’s at times is easy. You know, I will say in five years we, we just had our, probably our biggest disagreement in five years and I’ll take that. Right. So if it’s not until another five years, I’ll take that on the podcast. So we’re only going to hear your side of the story. Well, you’re only going to get what I just told you. So, but my nephew and I leave at, at, at one point, yeah, I’m his sister and his mom, older sister were, were living with us. So that was one of those stories where they were in the household with us. So we grew up pretty tight. You were very good friends. We were very close growing up. Matter of fact, he, I tell him even that day he was a much better baseball player than I was.

Marlon Allen (00:30:40):

Oh yeah. But he just chose a different route. And so, but anyway, Ronnie and I have a, have a very kindred spirit, entrepreneurial spirit at the core of who we are. And so our vision for the company, it aligns and that’s important. It really is. And so he handles the Fort Worth. He’s in Fort worth, Texas. So really Texas is big enough for him to, to do without anything else. And so a big part of our business originated for, with, with some of the teams out in Texas. And so he’s, he’s probably one year ahead of me introducing certain products to Georgia. So interesting. So for instance, in 2016, when we started the business, he was the first to really, I did baseball jerseys that year, which is pretty simple, but he did football, which is a more complicated product in terms of the way that it’s built and constructed.

Marlon Allen (00:31:48):

And so in 2017, I came about and started introducing football to the, to some of the youth leagues here in Georgia. And so that’s kind of how we have, how the business has just kind of naturally it’s organically been built that way. And it has worked. It certainly has worked for us. So what I didn’t say about the start of the business is that you, you mentioned 11th grade, which was about the time while also said I wanted to own a sports company. So I was pretty intrigued and I’m trying to think of the sports company back then because it wasn’t many that I could, I went into and it, it may even have been Kmart back in the day, long before Walmart. Right. But you will go on the sport session section and say, Hey, man, I want to own a sports store sports equipment store one day. And so that was about fifth grade. About the same time I was all wrapped up in baseball as well. And, and then for us to be able to do it and see that dream as well. It’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty cool. And, and so for us, it works, it works hand in hand.

Matt Hyatt (00:33:04):

I do have a question though, about how you divide up the workload. Because that’s always a question of how, you know, especially if you’ve got multiple partners, okay. This partner is going to conquer a particular role. Like we met, we had a podcast recently with Level Seven Facility Services, and we were talking about how, you know, one, one partner is sorely focused on business development. The other ones were beyond operations. It sounds like you guys are almost running two different businesses, you know, related, but you’re running your thing. So is it okay, I’m wearing the sales and operation and purchasing here. And so is my partner back in Dallas or how does that work?

Marlon Allen (00:33:45):

So, so I mean, because of the way that the model is, obviously we’re selling we, and you have the ability to sale nationwide or even worldwide. So with that, our influence in our own communities is very different. And to have him to call on a potential customer in Georgia just doesn’t make sense for our business model. And so because of that, we have there are some roles in, in, in the company that overlap such as sales, where we’re both sales driven and that’s the core of our business is selling the product. And we both know the product. We know the uniform, we know how it’s supposed to fit, and we can pretty much convince, you know, a whale in the sea to, to wear Ramp uniform if he needs it, you know? And so, and so that aspect of, of the company at this even from the beginning, we always felt needed to happen that way. the way that the roles pretty much are, are segmented, he still takes on the huge responsibility of, of supplier or factory research.

Marlon Allen (00:35:05):

So as our business continues to grow, we’re always making sure that we’re contracting with the best factories to produce what we’re doing. And so along with that research in terms of those factories also comes along product development and research, which that’s his lane, for instance, right now, he’s really in his first year of offering cheer uniforms and apparel. I don’t touch it here. You know, cheer, cheer uniforms, and my mind is pretty high maintenance when you’re dealing with some cheered cheerleaders, but he’s working through.

Matt Hyatt (00:35:49):

You know what’s coming though. If you’re a year behind, get your mind right.

Marlon Allen (00:35:52):

We’re already, we have some organizations that already always already asking me, you know, do y’all offer cheer. So he’s perfecting it. And, and, and that, that research takes a lot of his time. So I’ve taken, this is just kind of naturally happened. I’ve taken more of the operational role of it overseeing the HR aspects, the, the accounting aspects of it,

Matt Hyatt (00:36:24):

Graphic design?

Marlon Allen (00:36:24):

You know, we, we do a little bit of that.

Marlon Allen (00:36:27):

It’s a hybrid model because we do have,

Matt Hyatt (00:36:31):

I didn’t know if you were still having to do that or not.

Marlon Allen (00:36:33):

Not as much. Early on, I was because of the type of, we call them mock-ups. So uniform mock-ups that our customer that we filled our customers needed to see. So we produce 3D Photoshop. Mock-Ups for our customers.

Matt Hyatt (00:36:53):

It’s not like when we were growing up is, you know, you’re lucky to get a little, you know, hatch or something on the corner. Now you see uniforms and like it’s 360 all the way around, right?

Marlon Allen (00:37:03):

It’s a, I mean, there, there are details to the uniform. I mean, you look, you can do a 360 turn of a uniform and there are some aspects of it that we are, that we’re adding or elements to the uniform that we add that differentiates one team from another. And these teams go back to marketing these teams.

Marlon Allen (00:37:25):

They love their teams. They love their brand. They love their mascot. So every detail that we can incorporate in the uniform, you know, is important. So yes, I still, if it’s some details that our suppliers or our factories can’t do, then I’ll come in and, and, and make sure that that is taken to the next level.

Matt Hyatt (00:37:51):

So you’re keeping the saw sharp, is what you’re telling me.

Marlon Allen (00:37:54):

Then you go, oh yeah, yeah, we still, we, we are still, you know, have our our pens to the paper, so to say, when it comes to graphic design. Plus you know, for me, I’m a, I’m a creative mind and, you know, I do a little videographer videography here and there and messing around with that. And that’s just a, it’s a hobby of mine that I’ve always been attracted to. So back in the day, I remember when it was funny, Adobe Premiere came out and I was an avid fan of Adobe Premiere. And then Final Cut Pro came out when I shifted gears to Mac. And I was going to ask said, yeah, I’m all Mac. And, and so, so anyway, I kind of transitioned from there. So the whole Adobe Suite is, is a perfect model because those tools are things that we always use, you know, to, to carry out.

Matt Hyatt (00:39:03):

Well, I’ll tell you why they’ve got a good business model, if you need any one of their products you end up basically buying all of all. Yeah.

Marlon Allen (00:39:11):

Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:39:13):

So we need to figure out how to do that with our, with our services and our products, when you’ve got to figure it out. You know, Sally needs a uniform, well so do, all 26.

Marlon Allen (00:39:23):

That’s right. You know, you’re not only need a uniform, but you need socks to match. You need a compression shirt or you need shorts as a practice uniform, and t-shirt. So we add value outside of the uniform and it’s important.

Matt Hyatt (00:39:41):

So now, if we go to your website and remind me, is it Ramp Marketing?

Marlon Allen (00:39:49):

Rampmarketingco.com.

Matt Hyatt (00:39:51):

You got a pretty meaty mission on there. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, it’s not just, you know, to provide the best uniforms and sports teams and Georgia and Fort Worth. It’s bigger than that. Can you tell, where did that come from? What’s what’s, what’s the idea there?

Marlon Allen (00:40:07):

Our mission of, in a really infusing in, in our customers or just people that we meet when a person is introduced to Ramp, we become very inspired to, to infuse that person with, with what we believe drives us as a customer, as a company. Creativity, partnerships, innovation. So the, those, those key words are very important to us because when I sit down with a customer, I don’t want it to be a very one dimensional transaction.

Matt Hyatt (00:40:50):

Transactions a good word. You don’t want it to be just transaction.

Marlon Allen (00:40:54):

Yeah. No, let’s talk about the partnership and let’s talk about, you know, I understand that we, that you want uniforms and yes, we can handle that. But talk to me about your organization and, and, and let’s see what we can really do to, to infuse your organization with the creativity, the inspiration, the innovation, the partnership, the, the, the influence that we have that we believe drives our company, that we also believe can drive your, your organization. And at the end of it, it means that, that the future leaders, the world really have a, a very unique experience in that sport, whether it’s baseball, football, basketball. As sports has done so much for me, Matt. And I know you, you know, that you probably can, don’t even have to guess. You just know it, it has, it’s a huge part of my life, right? And there’s a, there is a power within sports that we truly believe changes the lives of kids that participate in it.

Marlon Allen (00:42:03):

And so it’s not just playing a game on a Saturday or Friday. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s life changing. And me and my wife was talking the other day and we were, we were saying, football is the one sport that you hear athletes say changed their life. Yeah. You can hear stories from, from NFL athletes. And they’ll say, because of football, if it wasn’t for football, you know, my life wouldn’t be derailed or, or I’d be on a detour. I don’t hear that too often in baseball, the makeup of baseball, the demographic of baseball is pretty different. But, but for football, we hear it a lot and to see kids’ lives changed, you know, because of that. And in this community Gwinnett county, one of the largest school systems in the state of well, really in the nation, it is, is, is it’s a pretty big deal for us.

Marlon Allen (00:43:04):

And even out in Texas for us to be able to provide a uniform for a kid, and to know that when he wakes up in the morning and he puts on a uniform, he’s going to be jacked up about how he looks. Right. And you think about the, the, you know, kids today, we often have conversations about how they look, you know, the way they dress. And, and I don’t know, I would imagine you, your parents taught you this, but first impression is your last impression. So for us, when they put that uniform on, we, we want them to, to really feel good and know that, man, not only can you look good, but, but this will inspire you to play your best. Yeah. So it was pretty big deal.

Matt Hyatt (00:43:51):

Yeah. I love it. So you mentioned community. Yeah. That’s how, that’s how we got to know each other a little bit on board for a local bank. But tell us a little bit about that. Cause it seems like, it seems like you’ve really embraced your community. You’re involved in a lot of different ways. You mentioned rotary. Yeah. Tell me about that. Is that part of the marketing plan of Ramp or is there something different at work there? What draws you to that?

Marlon Allen (00:44:20):

Well, the community I’ve always been drawn to the community and it’s, it stems from the example that my parents said. And my dad actually was going to seminary school in Tennessee when he left seminary school to come home to Columbus, Georgia to organize the civil rights movement. So that was back in the sixties. So, so in Columbus he was one of the organizers of the movement back then. And so, and so me learning that because I wasn’t even born at the time, but me learning that, hearing about it, growing up in a city where people really respected my dad for his sacrifice and go back to mom and for her waking up in the morning, fearing the life of our kids because of the mission of her husband, it was pretty, it was pretty serious deal. And so for me, I’ve, I learned that from my parents and the influence that they had in the community, and that’s just our DNA, that’s who we are.

Marlon Allen (00:45:35):

And so yes, it can, we can look at it and create, you know, some, some story that it’s a part of, of, of the company. But no, it’s a part of who we are, whether it’s working for Ramp or any other company we’re, we’re going to be involved in the community and people always ask me, how do you have to have the time to do what you do? And my life mission is simply to die, to die on E. I’m going to be on E when I die, it will be empty. So now, if Tasha was here, my wife, she probably, you know, roll eyes at me because like, yeah, you need the unique, you need to pull it back a little bit, but just, just for instance. So in rotary, so the things that I’ve been involved in here in Gwinnett county, which I think is huge, this community is very special, very similar in ways to, to what I grew up with in Columbus. But really started out in the rotary club of Gwinnett county, when I first got involved. Then I would say, I became president of the club, Leadership Gwinnett came about that same year, 2015, got involved in that. After that, I went through the program, started working on the committee. So, you know how it is, you become visible in the community. People begin to know you, they know what you stand for. Soon. I was later asked to be a trustee on the Gwinnett county school boards foundation. So I’m currently doing that.

Marlon Allen (00:47:16):

Let’s see what else. I may, I started a leadership program for African male African-American male, ninth grade students at Decula high school. So that was pause. That’s been on pause because of COVID, but we’re about to start that back up. So I’m doing that. I’m a chaplain that for the sports teams at Decula high school, I’m the president of the touchdown club at Deceula high school. So I don’t say all of this to say.

Matt Hyatt (00:47:46):

I’m surprised you had time to come here.

Marlon Allen (00:47:49):

It’s tight, but I don’t, I’m not bragging about any of that. You know, it’s just what I just believe that is my, my role in the community. Now, I don’t know if I have a whole lot more time to give right now, but it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s just awesome to be able to influence and impact and serve others is simply what it is. And so Occonne State Bank, I think our role there, Rowan task force and the huge project

Matt Hyatt (00:48:23):

So for our listeners, I should look up Rowan, absolutely. About this project that’s taking place in our counties is pretty amazing.

Marlon Allen (00:48:32):

Yeah. I don’t even have time to even start talking about that, but yeah, look up Rowan. And, and so those are just ways that we, that we give back is simply that, so.

Matt Hyatt (00:48:44):

I love that. I do wonder how you have time to balance the five-year-old baby business. And I’m saying that kind of half kidding a five-year-old business requires a lot of attention from its founders. And you’re very active in the community. And I think you just listed off nine different things that you’re involved in, but you also have kids at home. How old are your kids?

Marlon Allen (00:49:09):

My kids are 14. My son is 14 and my daughter is 11.

Matt Hyatt (00:49:14):

So yeah, they’re there at a tender age. Yes. Through middle school, early high school, probably somewhere around there. That’s a lot going on. It’s a lot. How do you make time for all that?

Marlon Allen (00:49:26):

And my marriage. You know, I couldn’t do it without her, but

Matt Hyatt (00:49:32):

So you sleep three hours a night. Well, how you get the more time or.

Marlon Allen (00:49:36):

No, it is interesting as I’ve the older I become, the, the more important sleep is to me and it’s in his interest. And I think we can all say that because in our younger days, you know, we didn’t get, we could, we could really go an entire day off a couple of hours of sleep. So very intentional. And I’m thankful for, for apple that has the features on my phone that I can put on the do not disturb. Oh, nice. Sometimes I don’t abide by the notification, but it has helped develop some sense of discipline for the rest that I know I need in the day. So my day usually starts at about 4:00 AM. Partly is because our company or we’re using international suppliers, which is about anywhere from seven to nine hours, time difference. So me interacting with them in the morning or in their afternoon or whatever it is, is very important.

Marlon Allen (00:50:45):

So that’s how I, I get a lot of done, a lot done for my, for my work. So by the time my kids wake up, I’ve had four hours of work, pretty much done. And so it allows me to be a little bit more flexible during the day. Whether it’s to pick my kids up from school or to take them to practice or to take them to sports, you know, events or, you know, whatever the case may be. So we are very fortunate that our schedule allows us to, to get everything done. And

Matt Hyatt (00:51:23):

So I got to know, what time did you go to bed last night?

Marlon Allen (00:51:27):

I was in the bed at 10.

Matt Hyatt (00:51:29):

That’s pretty long day of 4:00 AM to 10:00 PM.

Marlon Allen (00:51:34):

Yeah. It’s long. And I start and I start winding down at you know, about seven o’clock or so, and it just kind of depends on the day. But my mental, and that’s the thing turning, turning the business off mentally over time that has improved. And, and that’s because I realize as I think we both said that yeah, whatever that issue is, most of the time is not life-threatening and, and you realize that, okay, you don’t, you, you don’t have to like do everything right now.

Matt Hyatt (00:52:18):

It’ll be there for you in the morning.

Marlon Allen (00:52:19):

Yeah. I mean, it really will. And, and so, and so that’s, that’s just kinda what I’ve learned over the years and certainly don’t stress as much as I used to live in a more healthier life.

Matt Hyatt (00:52:34):

No, that’s good. That’s good. Yeah. So, but if I brought your wife in here and asked her how you deal with that. She would agree with you. I won’t bring my wife in and I’ll bring your wife.

Marlon Allen (00:52:47):

I think she’ll say I’m improving, but I have a long ways to go still.

Matt Hyatt (00:52:51):

There’s still time for you.

Marlon Allen (00:52:52):

There’s still, there’s still some days when I don’t turn it off

Matt Hyatt (00:52:56):

This has been a great conversation, we’re going to move on real quick to our lightning round. These are questions we ask every one of our guests. And the first one is, tell us about somebody who’s had a profound impact on your life. Who’s, who’s stepped into your life and really changed things for the better.

Marlon Allen (00:53:12):

It’s hard for me not to say my dad. I really tried to think of somebody else. I know I’ve talked a little bit about my dad, but it’s my dad. And, and part of me observing his life came in 1980, he started the church that we grew up in. And as a result of him being a Bible, vocational pastor learning the trade of construction, he was able to build our churches. He built it, which was my summer job. Yeah. So that was a couple of summers where I worked for my dad. Yeah, no, well, no, no. I didn’t even learn because I was a laborer. I was working. The hardest thing I was, I was bringing bricks to the layers, the hardest work ever you weren’t talking about, why do I go, why did I go to college and finish?

Marlon Allen (00:54:08):

It was because of those summer jobs with my dad. And he, I remember one day he, he says real quickly, he says, I was carrying some bricks in one hand. He say, son, he said, yes, daddy. I knew it was going to be something. He says, what’s wrong with your left hand? I said, nothing wrong with my left hand. He said, well, I need to see some bricks and those hands too. So, so he was, he was pretty tough. If I wanted the day off, I didn’t ask my dad, I asked my mom, but, but his faith is the influence of my dad and his faith. I remember someone in the city walking by the church saying, man, what do you need with all of this church? You don’t even, you don’t have enough members. How are you going to pay for it? And when I heard that it was because I knew then that my dad had a different type of faith to, to, to really build a building as big as it was at the time.

Marlon Allen (00:55:04):

And to do what he did in ministry. It was, is pretty phenomenal.

Matt Hyatt (00:55:07):

That is amazing. He sounds like a terrific guy. And I hope we get to meet him someday. All right. So next one. Are you a, are you a reader? Are you a podcast guy?

Marlon Allen (00:55:20):

A little bit, little bit of both. Little bit of both. And these days it’s, it’s transitioned to, to the audio books. And for me this is funny. I’ve always been a Nike fan. Growing up. Most athletes are just fascinated by the company. So my favorite book is Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight. And for me it’s is not so much about the brand, but I’m just intrigued that everything that they went through in, in the seventies to, to get the company where it is today and for many of us, we just see the company as it is, whether it’s the endorsments that the, the athletes that endorse that are endorsers, or, you know, the different brands or the different types of shoes. But, but to hear his story where he even went overseas to negotiate, you know, product development and to learn that, man, it was, it, it quickly became a yeah, very inspirational. One of my favorite. And then

Matt Hyatt (00:56:27):

By the way, I know a lot of folks through here. I don’t think anyone’s mentioned that book, but it is a terrific book with a great reputation.

Marlon Allen (00:56:34):

People love it, but yeah, it is so, so many different, different stories in there. And then folks, probably a man sound like you need to go work with Nike, but they have a trained, trained, Trained podcast that they do. It’s called, Trained. And it’s, it’s really more about his training in so many different ways. And, and, and that’s where I learned. Lebron was on one time talking about the importance of sleep and how that’s probably one of the things that has the most impact on your performance is the amount of rest that you get. And I think most of us naturally know that, but to hear him talk about it, how important it is for him, you know, in my mind, I’m thinking, man, you’re out in LA, you in a big city. And I mean, this huge celebrity and he gets on and he’s talking about sleeping. Yeah. So that’s, that’s one that

Matt Hyatt (00:57:38):

Nike’s Trained podcast. Check that out. So tell us, you’ve been in business for a while now, also had this baseball career and I know you’re involved a lot of different non-profits and so forth. What’s, what’s an important lesson you can share with the listeners that has been really key to your success. It’s

Marlon Allen (00:58:01):

I want to say John Maxwell said it, it says every everything rises and falls on leadership. And I think when I look at, at every turn of my life, every stage of my life, everything that I’m involved in, one of the natural attractions I have is just to look around, to see who’s, who’s leading it. You know, who’s, you know, you can, I can tell a lot about who you are as a person when I walk into this, in, into this building. And, and I think that is so important. And it is, it is lessons that I hopefully am doing, I’m doing the best I can to transfer it to my kids. Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:58:47):

It sounds like you’re doing a great job.

Marlon Allen (00:58:49):

I hope so. I mean, you want to talk about feeling inadequate. Parenting parenting on many days. It makes me feel inadequate.

Matt Hyatt (00:58:59):

It is kind of funny how that works on things. Figure it out and then God throws a kid at you. Oh Lord. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And then we learn everything.

Marlon Allen (00:59:09):

Yeah. Well, but have a great partner in, in that as well. Right.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:15):

Well then you get the second one and that one’s completely different than the first

Marlon Allen (00:59:22):

It is. Oh boy. So many stories on that, but yeah, it is.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:27):

Well, Marlon has been a real pleasure to have you on our show. Thank you for making time to spend with us. Marlon Allen with Ramp Marketing and great job, sir.

Marlon Allen (00:59:37):

Thank you so much for having us, Matt.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:38):

Thank you. On that note, it’s time to wrap things up. Marlon, from myself and our audience, thank you for joining me today. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Before we go a quick plug for Rocket IT. Did you know that organizations with mentors retain 94% of employees for a longer period of time? To learn how Rocket IT’s virtual Chief Information Officer can reduce burnout and your technical staff and transform your it managers into strategic leaders. Visit rocketit.com/vcio.

As organizations have scrambled to adapt to health guidelines for commercial workspaces, Steven Tomlinson and Dave Hollister of Level Seven Facilities Services have served on the front lines of the pandemic. In episode 26 of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, audiences hear how Dave and Steven have built their business to embrace challenges and opportunities as they appear.

Level Seven Facilities Services | www.l7fs.com

Level Seven Facilities Services

Philosophize This! podcast

IFMA (International Facility Management Association)

BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association)

Vistage

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

Tim Ferriss Podcast

Matt Hyatt: (00:00)
Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 26 of the Rocket IT Business Podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with Steven Tomlinson and Dave Hollister, co-owners of Level Seven Facility Services. These guys have been on the front lines of the pandemic as organizations everywhere have scrambled to adapt to rapidly changing guidelines and safety measures for commercial and industrial workspaces. Today, we’ll learn how Dave and Steven have built their business to embrace challenges and opportunities as they appear. So let’s get started.

Music: (00:37)
[inaudible]

Matt Hyatt: (00:38)
All right, guys. Well, let’s just get started. So tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get started? How did you meet? Steven, why don’t you start us off?

Steven Tomlinson: (00:45)
Okay. Well, we met originally in a fantasy football league. Yeah, probably I don’t know, 15 years ago.

Dave Hollister: (00:54)
At least yeah.

(00:54)
And then we were just kind of friends from a distance. We didn’t see each other that often for a long time. And I guess we’d see each other at the fantasy football league draft every year and I’d be like, Hey Dave, how’s it going? And that would be about it. We just really didn’t know each other that well. Dave was in the landscaping industry for a number of years and I can let him dive into that.

Matt Hyatt: (01:19)
Wow. Dave likes hard work. I can already tell

Dave Hollister: (01:23)
I do. I don’t know why I like it honestly. I like relying on labor.

Matt Hyatt: (01:27)
Okay we’re going to get into that.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:29)
And so I’d gotten into the cleaning business, gosh, probably 12, 13 years ago in Savannah. I had a business down there and moved up here to get married in 2012 and sold the Savannah operation and started over with the same business model from scratch. That was when Level Seven was started. Dave reached out to me in 2015, 16, early 2016 and he was at a career crossroads and was interested in looking around and I would probably let him tell it from his side of the story, but I’d always been impressed with him and was anxious to sit down.

Matt Hyatt: (02:17)
He was really good at fantasy football?

Steven Tomlinson: (02:19)
He is really good at fantasy football. That’s a whole different story, but yeah, no, he’s embarrassingly good. He’s actually been recently kicked out of my league because he’s too good. There’s a great story there, but yeah, it’s a mob rule. They’re like this guy can’t play. So when he expressed interest in talking to us about finding a role with us, I was like, yeah, no, Dave’s a great guy. Let’s sit down and hear what he’s got to say. So we met for lunch at Baldino’s on Buford Highway, and then by the end of that conversation, I was like, this guy gets it. He totally sees the same sort of business philosophy that we have, and we need to find a role for him somehow.

Matt Hyatt: (03:01)
Okay. All right. Well, was that role clear from the outset? Okay, Dave, you’re in a groove. This is what hat you’re gonna wear, and this is what I’m going to do, or was it less clear than that?

Dave Hollister: (03:14)
Well, so, when I was looking, I was in the landscape industry for about 25 years. And I mean, that goes back to me being 16 years old, pushing a lawnmower. I was working with my buddy from high school and when I was looking at opportunities, I was looking at for whatever reason, wanting to get into sales, which I now realize is a big mistake. I’m not a sales guy, but, I went with the company. We bought a very small company and were able to build it up to about $2 million. So at the time where I was meeting with Steven, Level Seven was a small company. And I was like, you know what, I’ve already been through it. I’ve been through a lot of, even though I wasn’t an owner of the company, my friend/boss treated me like I was. I was involved in all of the P and L’s, all the consultants, and I really, really learned a lot. I felt like I had a lot to offer, and just sitting down with Steven. I had some opportunities to try some sales jobs and thankfully I didn’t take them. Steven’s like, let’s get you in here. Let’s give it a shot. You know? And one of the things that was a requirement from my side is I wanna at some point be able to buy into the business. So he’s like, well, let’s give it a trial period. Let’s see how it works. And within three months we were working out a deal for me to buy into the company.

Matt Hyatt: (04:51)
Really. Wow. I mean, that’s pretty darn short amount of time.

Dave Hollister: (04:57)
So we clicked. Steven and I saw eye to eye. I mean, he’s the yin to my yang for real. You know, I’m always very conservative about jumping in and Steven’s like, just jump in, we’ll figure it out. And we worked very well together in that matter.

Matt Hyatt: (05:17)
Well, it’s good both ways, right? I think you often hear opposites attract and all kinds of relationships and marriage and business and all kinds of stuff, but to have somebody that’s kind of that visionary forward thinker, go for it, conquer the mountain kind of person with the person that says, well, why don’t we bring some safety equipment, let’s have a plan. Let’s just make sure we can get back down. That’s a great, great pair. So, wow. That’s pretty awesome. Man it takes some guts. I know, you know, it takes some guts if you’ve spent some time building a business to bring someone else in. I guess that helped a lot that you guys had a friendship that was existing. You knew each other, but to bring somebody in after three short months and say, okay, come on into the fold, we’re going to be co-owners.

Steven Tomlinson: (06:04)
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, I think that I needed somebody like Dave onboard and I think, we had some pieces that were well-placed and we had something to build on. We had built a good foundation, but I think I was looking for somebody with the same kind of business mindset and systems mentality. Let’s build something scalable that really works and with all the right values. I think that that’s what it boils down to for us is our culture and our values. We try to build everything that we do around those two things.

Matt Hyatt: (06:43)
That’s awesome.

Steven Tomlinson: (06:44)
And so it was, as soon as Dave came on board, certainly we complimented each other well, and I realized this guy’s got strengths where I’ve got weaknesses and he would say vice versa. But more importantly, it was like, we both kind of saw the grand vision. So yeah, it didn’t feel like a leap of faith to me. I was like, this is the guy. And it’s been a terrific partnership.

Matt Hyatt: (07:11)
So I think I can kind of guess just based on what you said, Dave, about how one falls into the landscaping business and the outdoor services kind of business. You start at 16 years old and that’s where you are and somebody sees something in you and they move up through the ranks. I get that. Less clear to me how, well I understand you’ve got an English degree. How do you land in the cleaning business? What was the draw and the attraction for you guys to get into that specific business?

Steven Tomlinson: (07:45)
Well, the first thing you do is you get an English degree.

Matt Hyatt: (07:48)
Super important. I know that’s one-oh-one right there. You’ve got to get that done.

Steven Tomlinson: (07:53)
Well, I always thought that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I knew that. And so I think I’ve always kind of kept in the back of my mind what are business models that are healthy and, well, let me back up a little bit. I came from home building like flipping houses and doing some remodeling work, and so the recession hit me pretty hard. And I had a one-year-old at the time, and luckily I was able to kind of keep my head above water, but I didn’t see a stable future there. So I was kind of looking around for something else. And I had a friend who was in this line of work and did contract commercial cleaning services and it looked like a really good business model, and it looked like a recession proof business model.

Matt Hyatt: (08:47)
Right.

Steven Tomlinson: (08:48)
Because even in the worst of times, you still have to have somebody do a minimum amount of maintenance. Trash has to be taken out one way or the other. So that was probably the biggest attraction and that it is a scalable business if you do it right. I started talking to my friend who was in the business and we kicked around some possibilities of going into business together. We never did put that together, but we’re still friends. We’re friendly competition here. He’s based in Atlanta too. And at the time I was in Savannah, but he’s been a big help to me back in the day.

Matt Hyatt: (09:34)
It’s always great to have mentors. Right?

Steven Tomlinson: (09:37)
Yeah that’s right.

Matt Hyatt: (09:39)
So do you find, Dave, that there are similarities between the two different industries?

Dave Hollister: (09:44)
Oh, absolutely. I mean, for me it was an easy transition. I have an operational mind, I think in terms of man hours, and whether that’s man hours pushing a lawn mower or it’s man hours pushing a vacuum

Matt Hyatt: (09:57)
It’s your inventory really.

Dave Hollister: (09:58)
Yeah and in fact, it’s a lot cheaper. I was like, I can’t believe our cleaners are allowed to charge us this much. He’s in my house for five hours and is charging me 200 bucks. Goodness gracious and landscaping, I’m getting a hundred bucks for that. I can get 50, but in general it’s really a service. We’re providing a service and how do you best provide that the most efficient way? And I knew that inside and out in the landscaping, and I knew that it would transition pretty easily in the cleaning industry. So it was an easy, nice transition. I had to learn about stain extraction out of carpets but you learn that quickly.

Matt Hyatt: (10:45)
You had to learn the technical parts of the roles. You know, well, you’re right. I think once you develop a skillset for leading people and provide it, you understand the mindset of providing a service, that is translatable. Heck you guys could run an IT company. That’s pretty awesome. Good. Well, you know, that’s really cool. I love your story and kind of how you got started. It sounds like 2016, we’re in 2021. So it’s been about five years. What is your shared vision for the company? Where are you going?

Steven Tomlinson: (11:16)
Well,

Matt Hyatt: (11:17)
Dave looks over at Steven.

Steven Tomlinson: (11:22)
Well, we want to keep growing for sure. And we are putting the pieces in place to keep growing and it comes in spurts, of course. And sometimes it comes with a great deal of pain.

Matt Hyatt: (11:37)
Sure, sure.

Steven Tomlinson: (11:39)
Feels like we’re going through some serious growing pains right now. You know, we’re trying to put together and tighten up all of our SOPs, and sort of keeping the culture of what we do at the center of everything and our values. And we meet regularly, the senior management, and we talk about our vision and the direction that we’re headed. We always try to make sure that what we’re doing, aligns with our core values. But in answer to your question there is a great need for what we do and if you can show up and do it really well and be consistent, then there’s a lot of market share to be gained. So ideally I think what we’d like to do is get our systems down to the point where things are such a science that you can take what we do and put it in another city, and it works well there too. We’re not quite there, but we do work on those SOPs all the time.

Matt Hyatt: (12:49)
Nice. Well, there’s a lot to unpack there. So just out of curiosity, SOP Standard Operating Procedures, how do you guys do that? Is it literally like, you know, I worked in retail way back when, and we literally had an SOP book and there was a manual and you pull it out and if you need to know how to open the store, close the store, close out the cash register, there’s a written document there. Is it like that? Or is it…

Steven Tomlinson: (13:15)
It is.

Dave Hollister: (13:16)
A lot of times it’s a whiteboard. You stand up, you have two or three people in here to actually do the process and say, okay, this is the first thing we do. The second thing we do. And then somebody else says, whoa, “Hey, don’t be forgetting that.” And then we’ll go ahead and we’ll revise them because they’ll change because we’re evolving as we get bigger. The way we start up an account now, versus the way we did it five years ago, it’s completely changed. And so it’s a matter of keeping that updated and repeatable. I mean, obviously that’s the key. As long as you can get a Standard Operating Procedure that I can hand to somebody in Charleston, South Carolina, say, “This is how we do it. You have to look at the book of how we do everything. Here it is.” They can do it. That’s our goal.

Matt Hyatt: (14:07)
Love it. Now, Steven, you and I met because you’re out there in the community and representing your company and doing that terrifically, by the way. Dave, you said sales is not my favorite thing, so can I assume that you’re the operations sort of behind the scenes guy? Is the SOP kind of in your wheelhouse or is it shared? How do you do that?

Dave Hollister: (14:29)
So, we kind of share the SOP, but the way we break it out, as Steven said, from the get-go, I’m going to get the business and you figure out how to make it happen.

Matt Hyatt: (14:40)
Nice. So a promise maker, promise keeper. Gotcha.

Dave Hollister: (14:44)
And believe it or not, we work well. We don’t fight too much. I mean, I’ve also got Scott. He’s our Director of Operations below me and he is a former lawyer.

Matt Hyatt: (14:56)
Oh, wow.

Dave Hollister: (14:57)
So you talk about writing good SOPs. He’s a stud.

Matt Hyatt: (15:00)
I got to see your pre-requisites list. English degree, former lawyer. Okay.

Dave Hollister: (15:05)
I’m economics.

Matt Hyatt: (15:05)
That works pretty well.

Dave Hollister: (15:10)
So, we do share the SOP, but he deals much more on the sales and marketing side, and I’m more on the operational side.

Matt Hyatt: (15:24)
I see. You know, something you mentioned about setbacks. I’ve been doing what I do for a very long time. We’re in our 27th year at this point. Just this week I had a conversation with my leadership team that we’ve had before, but just have to remind them because we set our goals high. And I know from my own experience that we don’t always hit our goals, but I also know that it’s important to set those goals high because when you’re reaching for it, even if you fall a little bit short, you’re probably still doing pretty darn good. But the discussion we were having was, you know, every entrepreneur, every leader, when we’re setting those goals, ideally you start down in the bottom left and we want to go to the top. Right? And the ideal way to get there is just straight up. A straight line, the shortest distance between two points. But then when you look back and say, well, how did it go? It’s up, down, up, down, up, down. It’s one step backward, two steps forward. Sometimes it’s the reverse. Sometimes it’s two steps back and one step forward. And when you’re in that, those dips and valleys, it always feels terrible. But when we look over a long period of time and say, okay, where are we now? And where were we? Usually, it’s incredible.

Steven Tomlinson: (16:41)
Right.

Matt Hyatt: (16:41)
The progress that’s made despite those ups and downs. And you guys have had some real, I mean, we all have, but I would think particularly in your business there’s…Just so our listeners know your business is cleaning facilities, such as commercial office buildings, industrial spaces, warehouses, things like that. I have that right?

Steven Tomlinson: (17:04)
That’s correct.

Matt Hyatt: (17:04)
And so we’re in the middle. we think we’re in the middle of a pandemic. We don’t know if we’re in the beginning of a pandemic. Hopefully we’re towards the end of the pandemic, right? The things have changed a lot in the world and we’re working from home or no we’re in the office, but then you got to clean all the surfaces and then don’t worry about all that stuff. I’m sure that’s been a rough and tumble kind of ride and experience for you guys. So how do you deal with all that? How do you cope with all that craziness in the world when you’re trying to build this highly stable, highly predictable business with, underscore the Standard Operating Procedures when the world isn’t standard, how did the Standard Operating Procedures work?

Steven Tomlinson: (17:44)
That’s a great question. You know, certainly last year was a wild ride. And it wasn’t all that in the end, but it put us to the test. Like everybody, I think most businesses and, you know, we count our lucky stars because you look at restaurants and some other businesses that just couldn’t survive.

Matt Hyatt: (18:06)
Right.

Steven Tomlinson: (18:07)
And so we were lucky in that regard. I think a lot of people have asked us, “Well, you guys are in the cleaning business. You must be one of the businesses just like killing it right now.” And well, actually, when the pandemic first hit and everything shut down, we lost 75% plus of our recurring revenues like that. And so, you know, we’re sitting around like deer in headlights. What do we have to do to survive? Are we going to end up having to lay people off? How do we get through this and who knows where it goes, but I got to credit my partner, Dave. We all did come together as a team, but they really spearheaded the effort to get ahead of all the disinfectant misting and disinfecting services that we could lean into because obviously our phones were ringing for that immediately.

Matt Hyatt: (18:58)
Right.

Steven Tomlinson: (19:00)
And then we shifted our marketing perspective and said, look, people are looking for disinfecting cleaning right now. They’re not looking for recurrent janitorial. They really are not concerned about pressure washing or glass cleaning. People need to feel safe when they go to their buildings. And so, we changed our website. We changed up our marketing message. Now, granted, we know that the long-term relationship is still our bread and butter, that commercial janitorial. So we were able in just a couple of months after losing all that recurring revenue to replace it pretty quickly with disinfecting services. But it was a lot of one-offs, you know, a lot of kind of onesy twosy stuff, but we had all these new relationships that we wouldn’t have had before.

Matt Hyatt: (19:47)
Interesting.

Steven Tomlinson: (19:48)
So, our goal, at least on the sales side in particular, was let’s capitalize on this list. We don’t want to get rich off the pandemic. We want to provide a reasonably priced service and an effective service and be a resource. But, you know, we want the relationship for the long-term. And so we made sure that everybody that reached out to us knew that we’re here for you. We understand what you need right away. We would love to build this relationship and so we have. We’ve picked up a lot of recurrent business through that.

Matt Hyatt: (20:25)
That’s fantastic. Yeah.

Dave Hollister: (20:26)
Yeah, and it was crazy. Some of our competition, we would come in 75%, 80% lower than what some of our competition was charging. And if we didn’t have any sort of reputation that they didn’t know who we were, they were like, these guys don’t know what they’re doing.

Matt Hyatt: (20:44)
Like you’re almost too low.

Dave Hollister: (20:45)
How could you be that low? And you didn’t have to really know what you’re talking about and then show them actually a scientific proof and say, look, these guys, I mean, without saying it, be like these guys are ripping you off, you know, and our end goal is like Steven was saying is to be able to develop that long-term relationship, turn it into the janitorial contract or whatever it is that they’re looking for.

Matt Hyatt: (21:09)
Yeah. I think that’s great. And I think it’s super smart, your approach. So much patience is required as entrepreneurs and business leaders, right? And well, I’ll give you an experience. So I remember the Great Recession. I bet you, not everyone on your team remembers the Great Recession. Not everyone on my team remembers the Great Recession, but I do. And my recollection of that is, yeah, it was really bad in a lot of ways, right? There were a lot of our customers that were suffering. Some of them closed their doors, never to return, but kind of like what you were saying, there were opportunities to leverage up and level up and to other organizations that previously wouldn’t even take our phone call. Well, suddenly, you know what, we’ve got to figure out a way to lower IT costs. And we’ve got to figure a way to get through and survive this. And so now they’re open to outsourcing certain functions that they weren’t previously willing to do. And so overall it worked out really well. And we still have some of those clients that we built relationships with when things were tough. And they’ll remember that. So I applaud you for having the vision to do that.

Dave Hollister: (22:17)
That’s cool.

Matt Hyatt: (22:18)
You know, something you mentioned that I think is really important and we’ve talked about on this show before with some of our other guests, but I think every entrepreneur needs to know this. You mentioned staying true to your values. So tell me about that. What’s the work of understanding what your values are and do you also maintain a purpose and a mission? Is that part of the deal? Does it get talked about within your team? I’m just curious how that part of the business works. Did it exist? Did you create it and then Dave came along or did you guys do that later?

Steven Tomlinson: (22:56)
It’s a work in progress, always, but that’s one of our values actually is to remain dynamic and often striving for improvement.

Dave Hollister: (23:03)
But there were core values. We’ve worked on them continuously, but when I got there, there were, and there was a little bit of humor to it, which, you know, leads to one of our core values which is to enjoy what you do every day. And that’s really one of the most important in my eyes. We’re in the cleaning industry and, you know, it’s not a sexy job. So how do you attract new talent? How do you get people to come in? And obviously in the labor crunch now that we’re dealing with, it’s even more pronounced, and providing the culture that we take care of our people and that we really truly care about their wellbeing and we want them to enjoy what they do. It plays a big part in retention and hiring, and being successful just in general. So, I mean, that’s just one value in particular that we just really, really, really hang on to.

Matt Hyatt: (24:00)
That’s fantastic. Now, is that something that kind of stays in the C-Suite or do your team members know about your values and what they are?

Steven Tomlinson: (24:09)
They do.

Matt Hyatt: (24:09)
That’s great.

Dave Hollister: (24:10)
They do. We work on it. I think we do a better job of keeping it within our management team, but we stress it in our operational meetings. I want every single person to understand. That’s our goal. I mean, ultimately, I sit through classes and they say, “What’s your purpose? Why do you have a cleaning company?” I was like….You know, and really what it boils down to is, we want people to come in and work for Level Seven and be better for doing it. And hopefully it’s more than collecting a paycheck. Hopefully we’re giving them an opportunity to grow. But if it is just collecting a paycheck, at least we’re providing that service. But our goal is first, everybody that comes through our doors to be a better person in some way.

Matt Hyatt: (25:03)
Yeah, that’s great.

Steven Tomlinson: (25:04)
We really also encourage an ownership culture. We don’t expect for people to come in and hear us say, “This is the way it is, it’s the way it’s going to be and these are the rules you’ve got to play by period.” We expect for everybody to provide input, particularly those who are doing the work where the rubber hits the road, because that’s where you’re going to get the best ideas. So we always encourage feedback if somebody comes to us, I mean, as we’re onboarding people, we try to constantly remind them, “Look, if there’s a better way of doing this, let’s talk about.” We want to hear about it because that is one of my favorite goals is that we are constantly striving for improvement.

Matt Hyatt: (25:41)
Yeah absolutely.

Steven Tomlinson: (25:43)
Yeah. I think that remaining pliable is important.

Matt Hyatt: (25:47)
We have a lot in common. So one of our values is find a better way. Another one of our values is have a blast. You know, we like to have fun. It’s the last value, have a blast, because you have to do the other ones to have permission to have fun, but it is on there because I think that’s so important. That’s awesome. So, yeah, you mentioned that you don’t often get into an argument. I’ve been running as the sole shareholder of Rocket IT, and so that has its pluses and its minuses. You know, for a very long time, it was me doing all the work. It wasn’t another partner to help take some of the load off. Now I’ve got a great leadership team and maybe it’s not so bad anymore, but back in the day, that was a big thing. So how do you resolve disputes? What happens when you’ve got two people that might have a difference of opinion in how to get things done? Do you just arm wrestle or how does that work?

Steven Tomlinson: (26:48)
I think we do a good job checking egos at the door. I think that Dave and I both are able to listen to not only each other, but to those around us. And if we’re in a meeting and I look at it this way, and I say, “Guys, I really feel pretty strongly that this is the direction we need to go, and let’s set things up like XYZ.” And then Dave or Schalk or Margo chimes in and says, “No, you’re not thinking about this right. You’re not thinking about this clearly.” I got no problem, and then I would say that about everybody around the table, stepping back and saying, “If your idea is better than mine, I don’t need to own it.” I mean, I don’t have to be the guy that came up with the right idea. I just want the right idea.

Matt Hyatt: (27:35)
Is that right Dave?

Dave Hollister: (27:36)
Absolutely. It really is. It really is.

Matt Hyatt: (27:36)
Okay good. Alright, hey, you know, trust, but verify. I just want to make sure.

Steven Tomlinson: (27:43)
I really am speaking for everybody in our senior management on our team there, but particularly I think it starts with me and Dave.

Dave Hollister: (27:50)
Ultimately, Steven and I, we hire people that are way smarter than us, and we recognize that we’re not the smartest guys in the room. We’re humble enough to say, “You know what? Your idea might be better than mine.” And like you said, we check our egos at the door. I mean, it really hasn’t been an issue. We may have had a couple of disagreements, but nothing that we can’t just talk about and get through.

Matt Hyatt: (28:18)
Right. It sounds like you’re very, very intentional about the way that you’re building the business and the way that you’re focused on operations. Not everyone is. A lot of folks are, “Look, this is a job and I got to get in here and get it done and it’s insanity all day long, and then I’m exhausted at the end of the day,” and then repeat. Where does that come from? Is that something you’ve just sort of learned over time? Or is there maybe a process? You know, like a lot of people are doing like EOS, the Entrepreneurs Operating System, things like that. Is there something that you’re using as a structure or is this more organic and sort of figuring it out along the way?

Steven Tomlinson: (28:56)
I think it is organic. And I think it’s one of the reasons that Dave and I clicked early on is that we both believe in process and we both believe in systems and you have to. You know the old attitude, you can’t steer the ship if you’re down below bailing out water. And there are some strategies where, I mean, honestly these past few weeks feels like for me, that I just have no choice, like I’m drinking from a fire hose every day. But to your point, you’ve got these peaks and valleys and these growing pains. You got to take advantage of the times that are kind of smooth sailing and, let’s always watch what we’re doing strategically. Let’s always look at how we could be doing this better, but that’s a mindset that Dave brought in immediately too.

Matt Hyatt: (29:45)
Where does that come from Dave?

Dave Hollister: (29:46)
Well, so in the landscaping business, we got to a point where we had a great core group of guys and I had them so trained and working so efficiently that when I would try to bring somebody in from the outside, my guys would literally run. I mean, I’d have a group of four guys that would do 40 to 50 yards in a day.

Matt Hyatt: (30:10)
Oh wow. Are you serious?

Dave Hollister: (30:10)
Yeah, people would come in and they would be like, how many are we doing? And I mean, it got to the point where the first person out of the truck was the edger. Second person will start in the machine. If I saw somebody weed eating, I’m like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. So I mean, we got it down and I knew that we had to finish a yard in seven and a half minutes, and people were paying 300 bucks a month and anyways, it made it really, really, really difficult to hire people because my guys were running so much in order to get it done out of necessity and just out of loyalty to us that they didn’t want to quit, even though they were working like crazy.

Matt Hyatt: (30:53)
Wow. Interesting.

Dave Hollister: (30:53)
And so for me, it really helped me learn. I want to stay ahead of that labor curve. I mean, there’s a good balance. You don’t want to get too far ahead or you’re not making a profit, but the flip side is you don’t want to be so far behind. We couldn’t hire anybody. We couldn’t get people to come in. We couldn’t grow, you know, both my boss and I were working so many hours that, I was finally so burnt out and I realized he didn’t want to grow because we couldn’t hire people. And so I just kind of plateaued and I continued to work just ridiculous hours. And I was like, I can’t continue to do this. So I’ve really always had that mindset of “Look, we can’t be killing our guys. We’ve got to be kind of ahead of the curve, be able to plan, and yet still be able to be profitable at the same.” So it’s always been a forefront of the way I think, and it’s from being in the middle of it.

Matt Hyatt: (31:54)
Well, it sounds like that experience has served you well. I can’t remember was it, E-Myth where they were talking about working in the business versus working on the business?

Steven Tomlinson: (32:05)
That’s right.

Matt Hyatt: (32:05)
And I think that’s so important for leaders of a business to be able to step away from, okay, I’ve just got to grind. You know, there are days and weeks sometimes where we have to do that, but the mindset, if we can get to the point where we’re focusing our energy and attention on working on the business long-term, that’s going to be way better every time. It sounds like you guys have done a really great job with that.

Dave Hollister: (32:31)
Thanks.

Steven Tomlinson: (32:31)
Thank you. We try.

Matt Hyatt: (32:34)
So tell us about what’s happening right now in the field. Like I said, we’re in the throws of this pandemic. We’ve got the Delta variant threatening the possibility that we have to go back to everybody working from home and things like that. What are you seeing out there in the field with what businesses are doing to cope with these rapidly changing conditions?

Dave Hollister: (33:05)
Well,

Steven Tomlinson: (33:06)
Go ahead Dave.

Matt Hyatt: (33:08)
This is a hard one. You take it Dave.

Dave Hollister: (33:11)
Some of the businesses, they’ve kind of left it up to their employees whether they want to bring it back yet. I think moving forward, we’re always going to have some sort of hybrid working space. But you know what we found is from a cleaning perspective and contracts and getting new contracts, a lot of people are very hesitant to go ahead and bid out their janitorial because they don’t know what the future holds. They might be running at a 40% capacity where pre-pandemic they’re at a hundred percent or 90%. So they’re real hesitant to kind of change the scope of the cleaning. We’ve run into that. But you know, in terms of the Delta variant, I think people are honestly just so done with it. They’re ready to just get past it. They don’t want to believe this is happening again. I’m going to go to this 80,000 sold out event at Mercedes-Benz stadium no matter what. I’m good, I’ve been vaccinated.

Steven Tomlinson: (34:25)
Yeah, that’s right. I would say the same thing. I mean, certainly when it really hit the fan last year, everybody, I mean, you know, I for one was like, disinfecting my groceries before I brought them in. Everybody is just like, “I don’t know what to do,” and there’s not a lot of data to work with. And there’s all kinds of speculation. Now we know a little bit more, and I think that things don’t have that same sense of urgency that they did last year. Even though if you look at the numbers it’s pretty scary what’s going on right now. I do think the vaccinations definitely give people some peace of mind, but we have seen the uptick in a lot of the disinfectant services is nothing really like it was last year.

Matt Hyatt: (35:14)
Interesting. Okay. Huh. Well, I guess only time will tell, right?

Steven Tomlinson: (35:19)
That’s right.

Matt Hyatt: (35:19)
So tell us a little bit more, I want to go back to the culture thing just a little bit and your team. You’d sort of alluded to kind of high turnover. And I saw a statistic multiple places recently saying 40% turnover is what’s sort of predicted nationally, right? How do you work with bringing new team members in and getting them up to speed on what the culture is in your organization so that they understand what’s happening? What’s the process for that?

Dave Hollister: (36:05)
Part of our onboarding processes for one is going through our values.

Matt Hyatt: (36:11)
So right up front?

Dave Hollister: (36:12)
Right upfront. This is what’s important to us. This is who we are. And we work very independently. We work well together. You have to be self-motivating and we make it very clear on the front end, what we’re looking for when we’re trying to hire somebody and we’ve made plenty of mistakes. We brought people in who didn’t fit on the bus, and being able to recognize that and recognize that somebody doesn’t fit and doing something about it allows the rest of your team to say, “Okay, we’re not gonna put up with mediocrity, and we’re not going to let you try to pick up for this person because they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing.” I think just to go back to what you’re saying, just a good onboarding process and we always like to celebrate people, especially when we bring them onto our management team. We bring everybody out, we celebrate the first day that they’re there, and we’ll just go have them bring their family.

Matt Hyatt: (37:14)
Really? Wow. Great.

Dave Hollister: (37:16)
And really just try to make them feel home. I know that I heard some sort of stat saying people start the first day at work, and they get sent some papers they get sent and put in their office and then they fill out the paperwork. You know, 40% of the people I think want to quit after the first day or start looking for another job. And so we try to combat that by being the complete opposite by really trying to celebrate them, be as helpful as we can, bring them on board and try and show them what their job’s gonna look like and be very clear with what our expectations are.

Matt Hyatt: (37:57)
Yeah. I love that. You know, something we talk about here at Rocket IT every once in a while, and it sounds like you guys are focused on this also, is curating experiences for the people that we interact with. So you’ve obviously spent a lot of time on that with your customers of, “Hey, when we meet a prospect for the first time, here’s the experience that I want them to have.” The same thing with a new employee. This is the experience I want them to have so that when they walk away and you say, wow, that was pretty awesome. And the reality is it was all planned, right? You had a structure in place and a system in place for that. And it sounds like you’re doing a great job of that. That does make me think about the reason you guys got on my radar in the first place is Steven and I met at our local chamber of commerce and you’re on the board there, which is impressive because a lot of leaders really need to be in the community for a very long time before they’re invited to participate at a board level in some of their most important community organizations. And here you are 5, 6, 7 years in and on the board of our chamber of commerce. So obviously community is an important part of what you guys do. Can you tell me, is there a strategy behind that? Is it all about more business for Level Seven or…? It doesn’t seem like that. It seems like there’s more to it than that. I’d love to kind of hear about what your approach is and your thinking on this topic.

Steven Tomlinson: (39:29)
Yeah, I think Dave hit on it earlier a little. We want to make what we do meaningful, not only to us, but to everybody on our team. And it’s what we ultimately sell as a commodity. I mean, granted, we’d like to think of ourselves as the gold standard in our industry. And I think we could certainly lay a legitimate claim to that, but at least in our market, but you know, cleaning a building is, it is unsexy and it’s easy to look at it like, well, somebody wants a job and they need a paycheck. And so we’re going to give them this task to do, and then we’re going to pay them. And that’s the exchange. And when you think about, well, I’m going to look back on my career like I did something meaningful. How did we take advantage of our presence in a community to actually bring about some change in a positive way, and the communities in which we do business, and that is in our mission statement.

Matt Hyatt: (40:33)
Love it.

Steven Tomlinson: (40:35)
So, you know, immediately we’re thinking about ways to do that. We volunteer time doing things like planting trees with City of Chamblee, and we’ve organized our own civic cleanup events.

Matt Hyatt: (40:54)
Mmhmm perfect.

Steven Tomlinson: (40:56)
But the chamber is a great way to do that. Honestly, I mean, there are industry groups that help you get plugged into like IFMA and BOMA, in our world where, you know, vendors and property managers can kind of coexist, and there are a lot charity opportunities to work through those as well. But really getting involved in the Chamblee chamber early on, which is a much smaller chamber, but a terrific thing.

Matt Hyatt: (41:19)
Is that where you’re headquartered? Chamblee?

Steven Tomlinson: (41:20)
Our office is actually in Doraville right now.

Matt Hyatt: (41:21)
Okay. So you’re close. Right in that community. Those two are, for our listeners that might not be from here, right next to each other.

Steven Tomlinson: (41:26)
Yup. Yup. That’s right. And then, but we are actually, hopefully if everything goes through with our building we have under contract, we’ll be Gwinnicians here in a couple of months.

Matt Hyatt: (41:38)
Oh this is news! I knew you were looking. I don’t think I’d heard the update that you got one figured out.

Steven Tomlinson: (41:42)
We hope to be closing in maybe 30 or 40 days, if all goes well.

Matt Hyatt: (41:46)
Wow. That’s exciting.

Steven Tomlinson: (41:48)
So we’ll be on Medlock Bridge in Peachtree Corners.

Matt Hyatt: (41:52)
Great neighborhood, great place to be.

Steven Tomlinson: (41:53)
But we’d always heard great things about the Gwinnett Chamber and obviously it’s a big organization and Gwinnett is such a terrific business community. And we did a lot of business in Gwinnett. We had a lot of relationships there and of course, right on the border of Dekalb and Gwinnett anyway. We’ve been involved with the Chamblee Chamber, which we really enjoyed. And we met a ton of great people and it does. I mean, it gives you a sense of meaning in what you’re doing, to be plugged into the community. But we dragged our feet on the Gwinnett Chamber. I don’t know why. If I had to go back in time, we would have done it earlier, but it was probably what, 2017 or 18, we first sat down with Vince and but once we got plugged in there, we were blown away by what type of organization it is. We just said, look, let’s, let’s go full tilt. Let’s get in the Chairman’s Club list. Let’s really run with this because its organization is unbelievable.

Matt Hyatt: (42:55)
We do have, no kidding, we have one of the finest chambers of commerce in the country right here in our community and absolutely makes sense to belong to it and then take part. Well, like I said, I’ve admired you a lot in the way that you’ve approached the community and your involvement in the community. I think it’s just awesome. And I think, yes, it’s a great way to build our businesses. I’ve certainly built my business at our local chamber, but it’s also just a great way to build really meaningful relationships and to get back to community that’s so important to us. So, nice job.

Dave Hollister: (43:33)
We’re going to throw on there that we partner with the Rainbow Village.

Matt Hyatt: (43:37)
Hey, we love the Rainbow Village. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this building, that’s big news. Congratulations.

Dave Hollister: (43:44)
Thank you.

Steven Tomlinson: (43:44)
Thank you.

Matt Hyatt: (43:44)
So, it sounds like you’re a little over a month out from closing?

Dave Hollister: (43:49)
We hope so. October 4th.

Steven Tomlinson: (43:50)
We’ve still got some boxes to check but we’re on the right track.

Matt Hyatt: (43:54)
I would imagine. We bought our building in 2017 and there are lots of boxes of check, right? A lot of work to be done. Not only to find the building, make sure it’s the right one, but then to make sure our ducks in a row for financing and how we’re going to pay for it and all that stuff. At least you’re able to show rock style stability. So that’s good. I’m excited for you guys. I can’t wait to see that.

Steven Tomlinson: (44:23)
We’ll have to, we’ll host you there.

Matt Hyatt: (44:26)
You’ll have to have a big open house event or something like that.

Steven Tomlinson: (44:28)
That would be nice.

Matt Hyatt: (44:31)
That would be awesome. Before we wrap up, I do have a couple of questions for you. All right. So tell me what does the client look like for you? I know we touched on it earlier and honestly, I’m making some wild assumptions based on what I’ve seen on your website and our discussions in the past. And for me, I sort of understand it to be commercial office space and industrial warehouse type locations. How do you define what that perfect customer looks like? And what are sort of the parameters of what a win looks like when you meet somebody?

Steven Tomlinson: (45:04)
That’s a great question and a timely question for us. We’ve actually just been through this exercise very recently with a consultant who we think very highly of. It’s been very helpful to us. When you sit back and think, what is our core customer? Who is that person? Who is that company? Because we do serve a wide array of property verticals. And, to your point, of course, office buildings need cleaning and industrial facilities and some retail in some cases, institutional and churches. And so it’s a wide range.

Matt Hyatt: (45:42)
It is. That is a wide range.

Steven Tomlinson: (45:43)
We sort of accidentally got into sports and entertainment facilities doing work for the contractor that built out Mercedes-Benz Stadium. We came in and pressure washed the entire stadium from top to bottom.

Matt Hyatt: (45:57)
That’s a big stadium.

Steven Tomlinson: (45:59)
Yeah. It is a big one. And it was a big job, but it was a golden opportunity for us. We still work with Mercedes-Benz Stadium today. We do a lot of work with them. We do post event cleaning and a number of other services there too. And then from that, we got work at State Farm Arena, and now we have work at some of the music venues around town like Cellairis at Lakewood.

Matt Hyatt: (46:26)
Wow. You have some big name clients under your belt. It’s very recognizable.

Steven Tomlinson: (46:31)
Yeah, it looks good on a resume, but that being said, not all the biggest feathers in your cap are necessarily your ideal customer. Sometimes you may want a customer because it looks good on a resume. But when we sit down and we say, okay, who are we really after? Who are we here to serve and who we can align with best. Obviously one of the defining factors is someone that pays the bills and their checks don’t bounce. That’s a big one.

Dave Hollister: (47:03)
On time.

Steven Tomlinson: (47:04)
On time, right. But also that they have a genuine need for what we do, our core business, and they’re looking for a partner. They’re not necessarily looking for us to provide warm bodies and instruct what to do. They want us to bring our expertise and it gives us a chance to come in and write a scope of work for their needs and manage it and find efficiencies. And that’s where we shine.

Dave Hollister: (47:33)
We’re not ever going to be the cheapest outfit, so if somebody is just trying to hire somebody based on cost, we’re not going to be a good fit. When we think about an ideal client, we want somebody who is looking for good quality work. But at the same time, knowing that…I don’t know how to say this without sounding… Is willing to pay for it I guess, and realizes our value.

Matt Hyatt: (48:02)
Well, they recognize it as an investment.

Dave Hollister: (48:05)
Yes, and recognize the investment and what we’re going to bring to the table. Ultimately what we do is, we strive to take a problem of cleaning off of their plates. The way we look at it is if we’re on your radar, we’re doing something wrong. If somebody’s noticing that something wasn’t cleaned, we’re not doing this, we’re not doing our job. And our job is to keep the cleaning issue, because everybody’s got tons of issues. The last thing they want to be worried about whether or not the place is clean or not. In that regard, that plays a big part of it. Whether or not they’re big enough to where it’s scalable, whether they have more than one office building plays a part in that as well.

Matt Hyatt: (48:53)
Yeah. I love it. Well, I do you think that’s really important to find folks that look at their spend on services as an investment, a hundred percent. We want that for our IT service clients that they’re looking at as not just an expense, but an investment in their team and their growth and efficiency, and ultimately, any decent investments should have a return. Just thinking about this building, I walked up to this building today and we try to take very good care of our building, but I noticed that on the shady side of the building, there’s a little bit of spot there that probably needs to be pressure washed. My expectation is as we get that pressure washed, and it gives us a return. We’ve got space for lease in this building, so if somebody walks up to the building, we want it to shine. We’re going to expect that we’re going to command a higher lease rate than we might, if all our shadows are looking a little tired. That’s good. Well, it’ll be interesting to see where you land in terms of what your ideal client looks like. I know from experience when we’re new in a business, what we do is what people are willing to pay for. Can you take care of this? Absolutely. I can take care of that. A hundred percent I’m there. But then over time, as we begin to build our base and we’ve got some revenue going, then I think we can start to hone in on where do we really shine?

Steven Tomlinson: (50:32)
Right.

Matt Hyatt: (50:32)
And that’s not, pardon the pun for you guys, right? Where can we really make a difference? And where are we comfortable? What’s the lane where we feel like we can bring the most value to the table? I think that’s a constantly evolving thing. We do it here. We have a discussion regularly about the things that we need to trim and focus on and where are we good at things and where maybe you should we leave your expertise to someone else?

Steven Tomlinson: (50:59)
I think it’s good to learn how to say no. It’s good, you know? And we have slowly learned how to do that.

Dave Hollister: (51:07)
I use the analogy all the time. As you know, what’s better, the restaurant that has three things on their menu, or the one that has 14 pages of things? Because you can’t do everything well, you have to really hone in on what you are good at it and focus on.

Matt Hyatt: (51:24)
Right. Yeah, the restaurants that have the spaghetti and the burritos, I usually try to stay away from them. They don’t always work out too well. You mentioned something that I want to touch base on really quick. You mentioned that you’re working with a professional. I’m not sure what you said, but yeah, consultant. So I heard coach. I’m a huge believer in bringing in mentors and people that have walked the walk before. Can you just touch on that for a couple of minutes? How did you decide to do that and what’s the goal there and how’s that going?

Steven Tomlinson: (52:01)
Well, I think Dave also touched on this a little bit earlier as we know what we don’t know and we’re not afraid to speak up.

Matt Hyatt: (52:10)
I kind of took that as internal team members, but you’re bringing in experts from outside, too.

Steven Tomlinson: (52:15)
Yeah, absolutely. It started with probably somebody we met through the Chamblee Chamber. A friend of ours, who is also a working partner in some capacity. He introduced us to this guy who’s involved with Vistage. I’m not sure if you’re familiar? So Dave has been plugged in with a Vistage group for now what, two or three years?

Dave Hollister: (52:42)
I think I’m going on three.

Steven Tomlinson: (52:43)
Yeah.

Matt Hyatt: (52:43)
So you’re really doing a lot to sharpen the saw. Brining a business coach, participating in Vistage, I think most of our listeners are probably familiar, but basically a CEO, entrepreneur peer group.

Steven Tomlinson: (52:58)
And we really like the CEO of Dave’s Vistage group. I think that’s what they call them right here. But he’s the chair. Mark Borrelia is the guy’s name and he’s a whiz and he’s been super helpful to us. Then we’re kind of up to our eyeballs in consultants right now. But as we grow and I think it is part of it. I don’t have a sales background, but I oversee a sales department. I know how to do what I’ve learned, how to do by doing, but I know that there are better processes and better ways to do it, especially as we grow. As we are setting ourselves up to scale, we want to make sure we build these things right.

Matt Hyatt: (53:45)
Yeah, I love it. Well, actually, so let’s jump in on that really quick. You said setting ourselves up to scale. We talked earlier about kind of the plan from the bottom left to the top right? If you kind of look out 10 years, Steven, what is your organization look like? What’s the goal there? The vision for your company?

Steven Tomlinson: (54:06)
Well, we look ahead to technology and it become an increasing role.

Matt Hyatt: (54:12)
Oh goody.

Steven Tomlinson: (54:12)
Yeah. We’re going to be calling you, Matt.

Matt Hyatt: (54:19)
I was hoping that would lead to that.

Steven Tomlinson: (54:23)
Well, the software changes all the time and some of the hardware changes all the time. Robotics is not quite where it’s going to be, but it’ll get there soon.

Matt Hyatt: (54:34)
Very interesting.

Steven Tomlinson: (54:35)
There’s some autonomous floor scrubbers and vacuum cleaners right now that are out.

Matt Hyatt: (54:42)
Very cool.

Steven Tomlinson: (54:42)
For instance, yeah, certainly that kind of thing, which there’s geo tracking and you can kind of program robots to do the vacuuming. It’s got to be the right space. It’s going to take some time.

Matt Hyatt: (54:55)
Probably an open floor space?

Dave Hollister: (54:57)
Yeah, they’re not opening that door.

Matt Hyatt: (55:00)
Right.

Steven Tomlinson: (55:02)
But one that I thought we came across it, I thought it was very interesting. Right now we do a good bit of glass cleaning services on the exterior of buildings. Now we don’t self employ the rope crews. We sub that work out to reliable partners. But my guess is 10, maybe 15, who knows how long in some number of years from now in the near future, you won’t see too many swing stages on the side of buildings and guys hanging from ropes, they are going to be robots. There’s already some technology in the works there.

Matt Hyatt: (55:38)
Very cool.

Steven Tomlinson: (55:39)
So it’s interesting and of course we don’t want to be behind the eight ball there. We are constantly thinking of ways and most directly right now for us, that really means good operating software. We are implementing a software program right now that we’ve customized for our business model and it helps a lot.

Matt Hyatt: (56:01)
Well, who knew? I mean, honestly, to go from really what I think has arguably been a history of manual labor in this industry to now we have to be technologists and visionaries and thinking about things like software applications and robotics and drones, crazy stuff. Wow. Well tell you what. That English and economics degree that is awesome guys. Well, thanks for sharing that. So let’s do what we call our lightning round. These are the same three questions we ask all of our guests. We can jump in with each of you or just one of you. It just depends on how things go. One thing that I love to understand is usually most of us have somebody in our path that we’ve run across that really made a profound impact on our lives. Can you guys each tell us about who that was for you?

Dave Hollister: (56:55)
I can go first. I talked about them a little earlier. It was my old boss, Andy Bachelor. I learned a lot of what I should do and shouldn’t do from him, but he always treated me like I was his partner rather than his employee. And he showed me how to treat people. Like he always treated people very well, but like I was saying earlier, I learned how to hire ahead of the path because I don’t want to fall on the same rut. He really was instrumental. He didn’t have consultants. He’d always have me in the financial meetings. I always had the PNL.

Matt Hyatt: (57:37)
Really? Wow. He really put a lot of faith and confidence in you. That’s incredible.

Dave Hollister: (57:40)
Absolutely. And so I learned a lot from him. You know I don’t know that I’ve even called him to thank him at this point.

Matt Hyatt: (57:51)
Hopefully he’s listening. You might want to call him though, just to be sure.

Dave Hollister: (57:55)
He’ll be appreciative, but I’m very appreciative of the time and outside of that it was my dad.

Matt Hyatt: (58:04)
Fantastic. How about you, Steven?

Steven Tomlinson: (58:06)
That’s what I was also going to say, my dad first. Certainly, worked with and worked under and learned from a lot of different people that I’ve admired. But my dad taught my brother and sister and me early on to always do what you said you were going to do. And if you’re going to take the time to do anything at all, do it right.

Matt Hyatt: (58:30)
Man, I’ll tell you about it. That all by itself, just to do what you said you’re going to do, sets you apart from 80% of your competition in any business. Not just, not just cleaning business, but great lesson.

Dave Hollister: (58:41)
Yeah, I think so. It’s always been kind of stuck in my wiring and my siblings wiring too and I think it’s served us well.

Matt Hyatt: (58:48)
That’s awesome. So, what’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned and let’s kind of keep it to this career, the cleaning crew? Is there anything particular you guys have learned that’s been super important?

Dave Hollister: (59:04)
Keep the right people on the bus.

Matt Hyatt: (59:06)
Oh yeah, that’s important.

Dave Hollister: (59:07)
People that don’t fit, the longer they are on the bus, the more of a cancer it is to everybody. The quicker you can figure out who the right people are, the faster you can get pointed in the right direction.

Matt Hyatt: (59:22)
It’s tough to do. Nobody wants to fire someone, but at the same time you do run into the situations where, you know what, sometimes the best thing, not only for us, but also for the person that’s leaving, to go find a better bus, something that’s better suited for you.

Steven Tomlinson: (59:40)
Absolutely. That’s true. And I would say once you find those people that are the right people absolutely empower them.

Matt Hyatt: (59:49)
Yeah, I love it.

Steven Tomlinson: (59:49)
Bring people along who are going to do better than either Dave or I, or anybody in our senior management team could do. Like, you know, we, we expect when we hire someone that we are.

Matt Hyatt: (01:00:01)
Going to raise the bar.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:00:02)
That’s right. Absolutely.

Matt Hyatt: (01:00:04)
Yeah. I like that. I like that approach. So tell me, how do you guys learn? Are you book people? Are you podcast people? YouTube people?

Dave Hollister: (01:00:15)
So, I can’t read. I’m a book on tape guy. One of the recent books that I listened to was Emotional Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine. I think I’m probably butchering his name.

Matt Hyatt: (01:00:34)
I’ve heard of that before.

Dave Hollister: (01:00:36)
You know, it teaches you, you have but two sides of the brain and one’s the survival side of the brain and the other’s the Sage side of the brain. And so as you grow up as a baby, you are in the survival tactics, which as you grow, can actually turn out to be harmful. They can be why you’re successful and also go overboard on the other side. And it’s being able to recognize, what they call saboteurs, what your saboteurs are and how to recognize them and get through them and think more of a positive state of mind. It’s been awesome for me. It’s been a great book.

Matt Hyatt: (01:01:20)
Very cool. You know, I know you’re joking when you say you can’t read, but I am the same way. Especially as I’ve gotten older, it’s harder for me to sit down and have the patience to get through something longer. And so I often have to listen if I’m going to get through it. I’ll fall asleep.

Dave Hollister: (01:01:40)
I mean, I’m in the car all the time. So it’s easy to hit play either on a podcast or, you know, a book on tape or something to that effect.

Matt Hyatt: (01:01:50)
For Chris and Jessica who are in the room here, tapes were these things that we used back in the old days to playback audio.

Dave Hollister: (01:02:01)
I did say book on tape didn’t I? An audio book. I apologize.

Matt Hyatt: (01:02:08)
How about you Steven?

Steven Tomlinson: (01:02:09)
Oh man. I love to read, but I always read at night right before bedtime. And if I may get 15 minutes, I’m like, because I crash. So I’m a very slow reader for that reason. I might carve out a little bit of time on a weekend. I also always have four or five books going at the same time. I’m so ADD, but sometimes I’m in the mood for fiction and sometimes in the mood for something completely different. I’m a, dork flag a little bit, but I’m reading Marcus Aurelius Meditations right now. I like philosophy stuff.

Matt Hyatt: (01:02:49)
You’re a cerebral guy.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:02:49)
Well, sometimes, sometimes much less so. I try to pretend, but I do think it’s important to read fiction too. I really enjoy it. There’s a lot to be gained from that. I think it teaches you empathy to get in the mind of people who are not you.

Matt Hyatt: (01:03:12)
They’re valuable too.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:03:13)
I like all sorts of different fiction, but I’m reading a Ken Follett book right now called Fall of Giants.

Matt Hyatt: (01:03:24)
Oh, interesting.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:03:25)
But I’m definitely a podcast guy. If I’m working out or working in the yard or driving, I like the Tim Ferriss podcast. I like a little bit more mindless entertainment, Dax Shepard I think does a really good job.

Matt Hyatt: (01:03:41)
He does have a great show, doesn’t he?

Steven Tomlinson: (01:03:42)
Yeah. It’s entertaining. He’s got good guests.

Matt Hyatt: (01:03:44)
He has some pretty deep questions too. He’ll easily wander into the woods with you and really pull out some stuff you probably wouldn’t normally hear on a podcast.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:03:55)
That’s right. And I like Philosophize This. And there’s another one that I’ve recently been turned onto called the Knowledge Project by Shane Parrish.

Matt Hyatt: (01:04:12)
Oh, I haven’t heard of that one.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:04:13)
Yeah, he’s a real smart guy and asks really good questions and has good guests also.

Matt Hyatt: (01:04:19)
I will call you a prolific podcastor then.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:04:21)
I think that’s fair to say these days. I’m definitely deep into some podcasting.

Matt Hyatt: (01:04:25)
Yeah, man with all the coaches and everything else, your brain must be growing at an amazing rate.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:04:31)
I don’t know. I might be deflecting most of it.

Matt Hyatt: (01:04:34)
So for our listeners that are interested in reaching out to either of you guys or Level Seven, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

Steven Tomlinson: (01:04:41)
I would say just go to our website. It’s easiest thing to do. l7fs.com.

Matt Hyatt: (01:04:47)
Wow, you have maybe one of the shortest domain names I’ve heard in a while. Look at you.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:04:50)
I know. We’re pretty proud of it. Letter L number seven, FS as in facility services .com. It’s easy to contact us from there.

Matt Hyatt: (01:05:00)
Awesome. You’ve been terrific guests. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Good job y’all.

Steven Tomlinson: (01:05:06)
Thank you so much.

Dave Hollister: (01:05:07)
Thank you.

Matt Hyatt: (01:05:08)
On that note, it’s time to wrap things up. Steven and Dave from myself and our audience, thank you for joining me today. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We hope that this episode provided you with some new ideas to help grow your business.

Music: (01:05:18)
[Outro]

With over 40 years of banking experience under his belt, Bill McDermott made the shift from business banker to consultant after life through him a curveball. In this episode of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, Bill provides audiences with the key steps every business should consider when attempting to accommodate the current needs of the marketplace.

Bill McDermott | 770.597.3136 | Bill J McDermott on LinkedIn

The Profitability Coach

Music: (00:14)

Matt Hyatt: (00:15)
Hello everyone. And welcome to episode number 25 of the rocket it business podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt. And today we’re talking with my friend and financial expert, Bill McDermott over 40 years, 40 years, Bill forty years of banking experience under his belt Bill made the shift from business banker to consultant after life threw him a curve ball. And today we’ll learn how Bill has built his practice and adopted, adapted to the needs of the marketplace. Bill has a great story. I’m looking forward to hearing it some keen insights and I’m excited to share with our audience. So I’m going to jump right in and Bill, welcome to the show,

Bill McDermott: (00:50)
Matt, Thanks so much. It’s a pleasure to be here. Excited about our talk today.

Matt Hyatt: (00:54)
Yeah, absolutely. So Bill, tell us a little bit about yourself. I want to hear a story. I know I came from a banking background, but you’re an entrepreneur like me. And so we have a lot in common. I want to hear a little bit about your story and how you arrived at the entrepreneurial doorstep.

Bill McDermott: (01:11)
Yeah, so it’s a, it’s my story. So of course I think it’s a great story. But 12 years now as an entrepreneur, I was not an entrepreneur by choice as having spent 32 years in the banking industry, the great recession hit and I was the chief commercial lender at a community bank. And the bank said, Bill, you’re doing a great job, but we’ve got to cut costs. And you were the last one in, so you’re the first one out. And so at that point we had two daughters in college, had a mortgage to pay and I had to figure out how to reinvent myself. So had a, you know, had a little conversation with, with the man upstairs and said, uh, well, you’ve closed the door. How about opening a window? And

Bill McDermott: (01:58)
By the way, would you put a little neon around for me so I could see it.

Bill McDermott: (02:02)
And so that launched a great adventure of helping business owners become better financial managers. I saw in my banking career that generally business owners were great salespeople. They were great client delivery or operations people. Just about every CEO I met really struggled with the financial aspects of the business. They don’t teach it in school and there’s no on the job training. You know, when you’re the CEO.

Matt Hyatt: (02:33)
Right.

Bill McDermott: (02:35)
In my banking career. Also if I take it back all the way to the beginning. So I was the repo man for a bank auto dealer department, coming out of wake forest with my high powered undergraduate degree. And at that time, banks believed that you had to learn how to collect loans before you learned how to make loans. And so I had a, I had a, tow tow bar. I can’t remember what you call them, but anyway, I had a, I was the repo man.

Matt Hyatt: (03:10)
Wow. So you’re the heavy they send out to the field to pick up these cars that were moving at pace.

Bill McDermott: (03:13)
You know, I don’t, I didn’t really command much of a physical presence one year out in school. And plus I was newly married. So my wife thought she was going to be the youngest widow ever, but we survived and I did my best to collect those, collect those past due car loans. I have some stories,

Bill McDermott: (03:35)
But, but, but I don’t think your listeners would really be that interested in

Matt Hyatt: (03:39)
I don’t know. We could go a whole different path here than what we planned. That’s pretty interesting. So I actually, I don’t know that I remember that we have something in common there because I sort of started my career as a bill collector. I was a bill collector for JC Penny, back in the day. I didn’t have to go knock on any doors or see anyone in person everything was done on the phone. But what I found was, so my approach was Mr. Nice guy, you know, I’m here to help solve your problem and let’s see if we can work through it’s a payment plan or whatever. And what I found was that was actually very helpful and

Matt Hyatt: (04:15)
Sort of the,

Matt Hyatt: (04:18)
What’s the word I’m looking for, the training, the care and feeding of Matt Hyatt, you know, young professional, and just learning to work with people through difficult conversations.

Bill McDermott: (04:28)
Yeah, my clients tell me that I have a fair amount of empathy. And so I, I recall early in the days I tried to take, yeah, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar. And so why not try to put yourself in that person’s situation, understand what their circumstances are, what they can do, what they can’t do. Have reasonable expectations. I mean, let’s agree. Banks don’t want to repossess cars. And so the reality is allow that person to continue to use the car function in their life. Figure out a good solution that creates a win-win for both parties.

Matt Hyatt: (05:11)
All right, there you go. So I remember the financial crisis and some ways it feels like it was a long time ago. And in other ways it feels like it wasn’t that long ago, right?

Bill McDermott: (05:22)
Yeah, that’s for sure.

Matt Hyatt: (05:22)
Twelve years, right? It goes by fairly quickly. But I do remember one particular experience of going in a, there was a job fair career fair that was happening was probably 2008, maybe mid to late 2008 and arriving at this career fair. We had a booth, right? We were looking to hire and recruit young tech talent really, but just being shocked at the number of suits lined up outside the door to get into the career show. And it was, it was a very scary thing. A lot of people unexpectedly lost their jobs and that, and you’re absolutely correct. I don’t think it was unique to you. There were a ton of folks that, we’re not talking about entry-level employees necessarily we’re talking middle level and even high level executives, fun, fine. Suddenly finding themselves without a job. This was a scary time. So you taking the initiative to say, okay, I’m going to reinvent Bill McDermott, and now I’m going to be an entrepreneur. It was a brave thing, but we, we get a lot of courage when we’re forced to. Right.

Bill McDermott: (06:38)
What did they say? Necessity is the mother of invention.

Matt Hyatt: (06:41)
Yeah, exactly.

Bill McDermott: (06:42)
I think the other thing too, Matt is my dad was a banker. He was a career banker, but his career did take a turn at one point in time where he had an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a sucessful finance corporation. But I think at that point in time, I held onto the belief that if you work really hard, your company is going to take care of you because I saw how companies took care of my father.

Bill McDermott: (07:15)
The other thing is, I think there is

Bill McDermott: (07:18)
A, there is a path that we seem to gravitate towards, which is go to college, get a degree, be a successful professional, work really hard, and you’ll have the ability to retire one day and then you can do what you love. And so in looking back, I bought into that dream, but that was not my dream. I believe at 54 years old, with 32 years of banking experience, I was destined to launch my own business. So believe it or not for any listener out there at 54, I started a business from scratch. You can actually do it anytime that you want to. Yes, there are risks involved, but that was the start of living my dream, Matt because what I had seen for years in banking, as I mentioned, business owners, struggle with how to improve cashflow, how to improve profitability, how to grow their business.

Bill McDermott: (08:33)
How am I sure that I have a well conceived strategy where I’m clearly differentiating myself in the marketplace? How am I doing at establishing processes so that I’m not having redundancies in my organization? How am I executing? Am I effective as well as efficient and then cash, you know, how do I create cash in my organization? Can I collect my money faster? Can I increase my revenue? Do I need to increase my prices? And that’s something, you know, I certainly tip my hat to you as a successful CEO of a 25 year business. I believe it’s, it’s roughly 25 years. You have seen a lot, but yet you have, have built a business and really, you know, beat the odds. Most 80% of businesses fail in the first five years. So, so 25 years, it’s not only a credit to you, but also a credit to the team that you built.

Matt Hyatt: (09:32)
Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, you know, it’s funny you say, you’re talking about building your business and starting a business at 54. Like I said, that does take quite a bit of courage. And I think for a lot of folks, it’s tough to make that sort of scary decision without some sort of pressure to do it right, because there’s some comfort and safety and what’s known and certainly an entrepreneurial venture. Is there a lot of unknowns? So for that, I am curious though, I remember talking with you when you were planning to start your business way back in the day and you had a business plan and you had an idea of what you wanted to do. How does that compare that plan that you wrote 12, 14 years ago to the one that you’re actually executing now?

Bill McDermott: (10:25)
Yeah, actually it’s different. That’s a great question. So when I started in the great recession, I was really focused on businesses that were actually in trouble. There actually is a department of the bank called the special assets department. S A D

Bill McDermott: (10:46)
Yeah. So you’re sad if you’re in that department, but, uh, yeah. Well, and

Bill McDermott: (10:53)
So they’re special because there are special risk with those businesses. And so excessive risk banks, banks run their business based on risk. And of course the economy dealt all of us, uh, a blow. So my first business was actually, negotiating banking plans for businesses that were in special assets and then finding them financing. So quick story, I was actually speaking at the Southeast accounting show to a group, CPAs talking about something called forbearance agreements. Forbearance agreements were very common back then because the bank didn’t want to liquidate a business, but there was a default on the loan. And so you go into forbearance because the bank is delaying declaring a default. And so I had a CPA that said, you know, raise their hand. I have a client that’s about to sign one of those. Can you help? And so what led there is there was a business retail business, five locations, only two of them were profitable, $16 million in debt.

Matt Hyatt: (12:09)
Wow.

Bill McDermott: (12:10)
Because they owned the real estate on all the locations. So actually over a three-year period, we negotiated $16 million down to a million. We had two short sales, both were approved by the lender, but that last million dollars, they actually, the bank drew a line in the sand. We’re not going to renew it. You have to pay it. We couldn’t pay it. And so the only alternative was bankruptcy. Well, nine months later, the lender said, yeah, look, uh, pay us 10 cents on the dollar. And we’ll settle. So out of that million dollars, they were able to scramble and write a check for a hundred thousand dollars.

Matt Hyatt: (12:52)
Wow.

Bill McDermott: (12:52)
They had negotiated $16 million of debt down to zero. And also we’re left with two profitable locations with no debt having eliminated all the debt on the other three as well. So I did a lot of that.

Matt Hyatt: (13:08)
Wow, yeah.

Bill McDermott: (13:09)
And so, but what I found is once you help a business owner like that, they want you as part of their team. So I started something called the monthly financial review. They wanted me to coach them on their business. And so what I did was actually take the financials, look at the trends. How are they doing as far as liquidity, are they collecting their receivables, well, turning their inventory. If they have it, are they generating cash?

Bill McDermott: (13:44)
How profitable are they, are the trends positive or negative? And why? Are they leveraged? Is the amount of debt relative to the amount of equity in the business high or low. And then the last thing was really just understanding how they were, yeah. How many cash on hand sure. That they had as well. So the monthly financial review morphed into what I am today is the profitability coach. And so from negotiating banking plans and finding financing, I still do the finding financing. That’s about half of my business. It’s difficult to borrow money from a bank if you’ve never done it before. And so I help businesses find financing. And then I also do the profitability coaching. So about 50 50 mix roughly. And it changes depending on the economy, but the economy is really moving right now. I have quite a few clients that are making significant capital investments, equipment, real estate buying. And so, financing is an important part, but also just teaching those business owners how to be better financial managers and how to have the profitability in their business is really what I’m passionate about.

Matt Hyatt: (15:04)
Right. I love it. So there are a lot of things that you said they’re going to think that are interesting and worth diving into a little bit, but one is that while it’s probably important to sit down and think about what a business might look like before actually launching one and a business plan is probably not a bad idea. I’ve found that it is absolutely worth doing some pathfinding. Once you’ve launched the business to find the, what the market really needs and what we’re good at, right? What are we capable of delivering and what, what the folks actually want to pay for and buy. Right. And so, and part of it is probably just, what is the state of, of the marketplace? You know, back when you started, there were a lot of folks that were facing bankruptcy or parents, by the way, forbearance deferment of payments. Isn’t that how that works? We’re not saying, Hey, you don’t have to pay. We’re saying you have to pay, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna delay coming after you.

Bill McDermott: (16:09)
Correct.

Matt Hyatt: (16:09)
Essentially. So back to being able to pivot, I think is a really important trait and capability for any entrepreneur and any business needs to be looking for. Where’s the opportunity, where are my interests? What do I think that I’m good at? And what does the market want?

Bill McDermott: (16:28)
Yeah. So as you’re mentioning that two things come to mind in my experience, first, I believe it takes a village to get started. There were, there were many people that I talked to one person suggested to me, there is a great book by Michael Gerber, it’s called the E-Myth it, that book encourages you to build a prototype for your business. And so to your point, having a plan is important, even though my plan changed, Gerber’s book, I think really guided me on creating my version of a business plan, because it causes you to focus on things like, well, why am I starting this business? You know, Simon Sinek says, know your why, and also what is it going to take as far as resources, people, time and money. And I think the other thing I’m going to take a page, you remember Jim Collins, his book.

Bill McDermott: (17:31)
Good to great.

Matt Hyatt: (17:32)
Sure.

Bill McDermott: (17:33)
So Collins asserts that good is the enemy of great. And in order to be great, you really have to look at three circles and then determine where those circles meet. So the first circle is, what am I passionate about? I’m passionate about making business owners, better financial managers. I love to see them have the, the business of their dreams. What am I, what am I best in the world at? My clients tell me I’m a pretty good listener. And so listening to things and having the ability to connect the dots either in strategy or the dots in execution is, is what my clients tell me I’m, I’m really good at. And then the third thing is what drives your economic engine? So how do I take making business owners, better financial managers and being a good listener? Well, that’s consulting in a nutshell. Consultants help business owners. And of course, coaches not only help business owners, but also, you know, they not only provide the fix, but they can actually walk the client through the fix as well.

Matt Hyatt: (18:51)
Right. I’ll tell you all the books that you mentioned are they, they’re sort of foundational for a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of great material on all three of those books, like you, E-Myth was foundational for me. One of the things I love about E-Myth was the idea that you would sit down and really think about all the different hats that you wear in the business. You know, for those of us that have bootstrap businesses, I think you and I fall in that category early on, you sort of figure out, wait a second. You know, I got into it because I have an affinity for computers and technology. Right. I like, and like that. And, you know, got, got to the point where I had some skills in that area. So I was the technologist. Well guess what, you’re not going to actually sell anything, unless you go talk with some people that want to consume technology services.

Matt Hyatt: (19:47)
And so you wear the sales person hat. Well, I guess I probably should do some marketing around that. I needed to, you know, have business cards, printed a need to go to some chamber events and join some civic organizations. So I’m wearing the marketing hat. Yes. I also need to be an accountant so I can get my invoices out and figure out what to do when the checks arrive or don’t. So all of those things are various roles in our business. And you know, when you and I started, I think we were both in the same boat.

Matt Hyatt: (20:19)
How many people work, work at rocket IT? Well, there’s three: me, myself and I, yeah. We ended up doing all of those things. And then the key would be that over time that we could hire experts in these various functions, whether that’s internal team members or external teams to come in and help with those things. And that was just super helpful for me on E-Myth to sort of, Hey, okay, here’s, how I’m going to eventually get some of these things off of my plate so that I’m not doing all of those things, but you’re right. We don’t probably, we probably don’t enter those things. I don’t know. Maybe, maybe you had the experience. I didn’t have, you know, how, how do I actually sell the service that I’ve created and how do I build my skillset around sales? Probably the biggest one for me. And it’s an ongoing project is how do I lead people effectively?

Bill McDermott: (21:16)
Right.

Matt Hyatt: (21:17)
That’s not something that I learned coming up through bill collections or in my education, those things you had to sort of figure out and of course, books and videos and today podcasts and YouTube all help in that area.

Bill McDermott: (21:35)
For sure. Yeah, no question. And I think the CEO just starting out has to be all things because you’re right. It is me, myself, and I. Kind of reminds me, I’m working with a professional services firm. It was a one person firm. Now it’s a three-person firm. The lead owner has done a fabulous job. Building revenue revenue has doubled in the last 12 months just having a fabulous time, including COVID. And so, but to her detriment, she has a hard time letting go. Delegation does not come natural to her. And so, you know, all of us have those little tapes that play inside our heads that say, if this is going to be done right, I have to do it myself. And so part of this is having the mindset of being willing to delegate. Interesting fact, only 3% of companies make it beyond 10 million in revenue that have ever been started.

Bill McDermott: (22:54)
You know what, the number one reason is why they don’t get beyond 10 million?

Matt Hyatt: (22:58)
No.

Bill McDermott: (22:58)
Delegation,

Matt Hyatt: (22:59)
Really.

Bill McDermott: (23:00)
And so I found early on, I tend to be a big picture person. I’m very strategic. You put me in something that requires details and I really struggle.

Matt Hyatt: (23:15)
Right.

Bill McDermott: (23:16)
And so one of the first things that I did probably after about a year in business is I found someone who is incredibly good at details who handles all of those flawlessly. As a matter of fact, it is her strength. And so I’ve found that, and I’m sure you have too, in your experience, you certainly find people to surround you that are really good at what they do. And sometimes that person that you’re delegating to can do that task so much better than you can.

Matt Hyatt: (23:53)
For sure.

Bill McDermott: (23:54)
And it’s actually fulfilling to them to do it because that’s their strength. And so the whole concept of, of building your team, finding the strengths in each person in your organization, and then playing to those strengths and then being willing to let go of those things to feel no one is going to do this the same as I’m going to do it well, guess what you know they can do it better. And so that’s something I’ve found that sometimes unintentionally a CEO can be the choke point in their own organization, which is causing some inefficiencies as well as some ineffectiveness.

Matt Hyatt: (24:38)
I love it. You’re absolutely right. I can think of a number of examples in my past where, you know, there have been tasks that either are my responsibility or the responsibility of one of our other team members and you realize, oh my goodness, not only am I not maybe the very best person to be doing these things, but I’m actually finding that that’s a draining activity. That is a very taxing activity. When there are other people that may be wired just a little bit differently that they might gain energy from doing those things. We can find the folks that are interested and engaged in those activities. Then everyone’s better for that.

Bill McDermott: (25:19)
Creates a win-win.

Matt Hyatt: (25:20)
Absolutely. Absolutely. So kind of going through some of the things that we’ve talked about in the past. One of the things that we’ve discussed is just how do you figure out when and how much to invest in your team members?

Matt Hyatt: (25:35)
Because once, once we’ve hired somebody and brought them in, we all want to grow as a, as professionals and grow in our skillset and we want to be able to, grow careers. So how do you make that choice? What’s the, what’s the balance between, okay, I need you focused on doing the things that we agreed that we’re going to spend our time on versus, okay. I need to put that aside and we need to go spend some time learning something new or expanding our skill set in a certain area. How do you make that choice about when, when to make those investments?

Bill McDermott: (26:11)
Gosh, that’s, that’s a great question. In my experience, I’m, I’m thinking of a, another professional services firm who there was a change at the top and this particular firm didn’t really have an effective business, you know, outfacing business development effort. So that was incredibly critical. But the other thing to this point is they also didn’t have a ongoing talent development initiative. And so what this CEO did was really first adopt the CEO mindset. In other words, I’ve got to spend some thinking time outside of all my other CEO duties to do this. And so speaking to when do you invest in talent? I think really from the start, part of an interview process, in my opinion, might include understanding what those, that person’s strengths are or what their gifts are. Getting back to Jim Collins, his book, what are they passionate about? What are they best in the world at? And so finding out what those strengths are and employing them in the organization, I think really from a very early point, yes, the work has to get done. They’re accountable for a task or a function inside that organization in order to make the organization run. But I think it’s equally important to have a talent development and a talent management strategy.

Bill McDermott: (28:06)
And part of that strategy I think is, is from, from the CEO standpoint, excuse me, not the CEO standpoint from the employee standpoint, they really need to know the organization and the CEO, the management team at the top really cares about them. People don’t care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. Right. And so I think part of that is really understanding what is that person’s strengths? How do they, how do you get them in a position to leverage those strengths and then guess what, you know, strengths develop and additional strengths also develop. You mentioned earlier leadership. Leadership is something that is often missed in organizational development. I’ve seen a lot of organizations that have really great managers, but don’t have a lot of leaders. You know, my definition is managers manage a process, but leaders have vision. And so the ability to see things in your mind’s eye, you know, the mind is a powerful thing.

Bill McDermott: (29:19)
What we, what we see in our mind we tend to bring about. And so I think talent development is so critical. And I think it’s certainly an ongoing process. I think first it’s important to have a strategy. There needs to be people accountable in the organization for, for executing that strategy. And then think there needs to be metrics in place, whether it be an employee satisfaction index, whether it be having a suggestion box, leave it up to the, to the management team to decide. But I think talent management is critical. This professional services firm that I mentioned has been going at their program for about three years now, their revenue’s up 10% has been consistently up 10% for the last three years. They’ve added head count. I want to say their head count is probably grown 10, 15%. And they have a not only a surviving, but a thriving culture because of it.

Matt Hyatt: (30:25)
Right. I’ve heard you talk before about growth mindset versus fixed mindset. What, what do you mean when you talk about that?

Bill McDermott: (30:31)
Yeah, now you’re, you’re getting on a topic that I really love to talk about. So I’ll start with a story. So I’m dating myself here a little bit, but Michael Jordan was a famous basketball player and he played at the university of North Carolina. And when Carolina won the NCAA title, Jordan hit the winning shot and he was interviewed after and he said, the interviewer asked him. So right as you were taking that last shot, what were you thinking? And he answered the question. He said, what I was thinking is I can’t see myself missing. Well, the interviewer took that as an incredibly arrogant comment. He misunderstood because of what Jordan was saying in my mind’s eye. I saw the ball going in before I took the shot. So mindset. So another book, I’m a big reader Matt. So Carol Dweck writes a book called mindset, and essentially there are two mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset and a fixed mindset is, comes from a place we’ve been given all of the abilities, all of the tools that we need at birth.

Bill McDermott: (32:05)
And so it’s basically the concept that leaders are born and not really made, but a growth mindset is someone who doesn’t really believe that they can be limited by just the skills they have today. They can grow and adapt and develop new skills, new talents, and grow throughout there as a person, as well as, as a professional through the years. So it’s a mindset that I have. I’ve never finally arrived. There’s always more things that I can learn. I can do this a little better. Yes. Tomorrow than I can today. And I’m committed to making gradual continuous improvement. And so the mind is a powerful thing. So I was, as a young teenager, I was playing golf at country club in suburban Chicago. And I came to this tee, the fairway Matt was lined with trees all the way up, both sides of the fairway.

Bill McDermott: (33:19)
I’m looking at this, I’m getting ready to hit my drive. I am almost paralyzed with fear. There’s no way I can hit this shot. And so I had an adopted uncle. His name was uncle Stan, and I was Billy back then. He said, Billy, the widest fairway is only six inches. I looked at him. And so he said, yeah, the widest fairways only six inches. And he was pointing from one side of his, his head to the other. In other words, it’s all in your mind.

Matt Hyatt: (33:51)
Right.

Bill McDermott: (33:51)
And so what I believed then as well as now is we all have self limiting beliefs that we can’t do something, but having a growth mindset is really about breaking through those self limiting beliefs and really being the person that you were meant to be. And so, as you can tell, I do a lot of reading.

Bill McDermott: (34:17)
I, I believe I have a growth mindset. Certainly I am most effective coaching business owners that also have a growth mindset because they always believe that they can do things a little bit better, make the environment a better place to work at for the benefit of their employees. And, and so that’s really what, uh, what a growth mindset is. I can learn more, I can become better. I can do more and I, I can be more fulfilled and more satisfied. And that’s really what I found when I launched my business 12 years ago. If I, if I had finished my career as a banker, I certainly would have been happy, but I’m not sure I would have been as satisfied because for the last 12 years now, certainly there’ve been bumps along the road. So I don’t want to minimize that. But gosh, it’s felt like a lot of tailwinds,

Matt Hyatt: (35:22)
Right.

Bill McDermott: (35:22)
It hasn’t, it’s just flowed. And when you love what you do, it just has a way of lifting your spirits. I told my wife, when I first started the business, man, everyday feels like Christmas, and I’m about to open a present. And so, so that’s, that’s really what a growth mindset is about.

Matt Hyatt: (35:42)
I love it. You know, as you’re kind of talking through that and previously about the investment in people, I began to sort of think about what, how does that play into the long term plan for every entrepreneur and when I mean long, I mean, very long, most of us when we start our businesses, we’re thinking about the near term future. How do I get through the first month?

Bill McDermott: (36:14)
Yeah.

Matt Hyatt: (36:15)
How do I make payroll through the first year? What do I hope my business looks like two or three years from now. There’s probably less emphasis at least early on in what happens 10, 20, 30 years down the road. And what I’ve seen over and over again from my friends and acquaintances that have started and ended businesses over a long period of time, is that many times our fellow entrepreneurs don’t really have a plan for what is, what is the end game look like for the entrepreneur?

Matt Hyatt: (36:47)
And so I want to unpack that just a little bit and talk about it. If you’ve got experience in that area, because, well, you’ve mentioned the I’ve been running this business for longer than 25 years. You’ve said that you started your business at 54 and we know you’ve been running it for some time. You and I are beginning to, you know, if we’re looking 3, 5, 10, 15 years out, there’s probably going to be a transition that’s going to take place. How do we prepare for that? And specifically going back to developing our people, none of us, I don’t think most of us probably don’t want our businesses to bend when we decide to retire. Right. And so there has to be a plan in place of how do we develop the people within the organization so that they can run the business with our help. Right? And so just like unpack that a little bit and wonder if the folks that you’re working with and, and your business, if that’s on the radar or are as a whole, are people really thinking about how to transition out of the business sometimes?

Bill McDermott: (37:52)
Yeah, such a great question. And the answer is yes.

Matt Hyatt: (37:55)
Okay. Good, that’s good.

Matt Hyatt: (37:58)
It seems like a lot of folks end up with no plan.

Bill McDermott: (38:00)
Well, yeah, unfortunately you’re right.

Bill McDermott: (38:02)
And so I think two things that are going on and, and one of those is a, is a mindset thing. I think first, a lot of business owners are, have their head down, they’re grinding through the day-to-day aspects of their business. And they are so busy working in their business, Matt, they don’t take time to work on their business. You know, if I was, if I was a lumberjack trying to cut a path through a forest, but all I was doing was cutting down trees. I could be cutting a path to a cliff or to a lake. You know, somebody needs to shimmy up a tree and take a look from above and see where in the world this is going. Right. And so, yeah, so part of it, I think, is a business owner’s mindset that they need to be mindful of working on the business.

Bill McDermott: (39:07)
So that would be number one. And number two, yesterday, I had this very conversation that you brought up, this business owner has been so busy generating value in his organization that he really hasn’t thought much about how do I preserve the value that I’ve created. And so business succession planning is, is really absolutely critical. And again, it takes a village, I would say at least to start, someone needs to have a, have an advisor that they can go to and say, Hey, I’m only going to exit once. I want to be sure I’m going to do it right. You know, how do I do this? They need to have a really good CPA because that succession of that business will certainly create some tax consequences for the owner at exit. And then the third thing is usually you have to have a really good attorney.

Bill McDermott: (40:18)
And, and so the whole concept of exit planning is kind of, okay, what’s my number, a lot of business owners that I talk to don’t have a number and they haven’t factored in taxes and they haven’t factored in if they have any debt, because typically most businesses are bought as an asset purchase and debt has to be paid, paid off out of those proceeds. And so what’s my number. And then am I selling to insiders? Is there a management team that I’ve groomed to take over? And so that is certainly one choice. Some businesses are sold to outsiders to a strategic or a financial buyer, but yeah, the whole process of succession planning is a thing. There are probably three things that I’m talking with, several of my clients that I’m doing this with right now, making sure that they have financial statements, preferably audited, but at least reviewed because typically a buyer they’re going to try to shoot holes in your business.

Bill McDermott: (41:36)
They’re going to say, well, your numbers haven’t been verified by an independent third party. The second thing, a lot of business owners haven’t thought through, you know, there is going to be a group that stays and runs the business after that owner exits. And so has that owner done a good job of putting compensation agreements in place that give some insurance to the buyer that, that management team doesn’t walk out the same day that the, that the owner does. So first would be, what’s your number, second thing, are you selling to an insider or an outsider? Another option that is worth considering, I have one client that’s employee stock ownership plan. And so an Aesop is also a way for a business owner to exit, and then probably between financials, compensation agreements for the management team. The third thing that gets just about everybody is documented processes in writing.

Bill McDermott: (42:48)
And by the way, is there a management person or team in place to make sure that there’s, those processes are being followed because what I find, and I’m probably guilty of this myself a little bit, you know, I, I can be the cobbler’s child that has no shoes having those processes in writing your sales process, your operations or client delivery process, your finance process, Billing and payment, producing reports, things like that, all of that needs to be in writing. And I would really suggest packaging it and basically name it. You know, the ABC company way, you know, this is how we do business here because it’s powerful to handle, to hand over to a buyer, a documented processes of, of how we do business. And it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but I’d say if you can, if you can get 80% of the process documented in 20% of the time, I think you’ve, you’ve pretty much got it there.

Matt Hyatt: (43:57)
Right

Bill McDermott: (43:58)
So that’s the thing, as far as, as business succession planning or exit planning, it’s, it’s a big deal.

Matt Hyatt: (44:04)
Yeah. You know, we, we work with a number of coaches and consultants and by the way, I think that’s super important. You’re the profitability coach. I think there are a lot of folks out there that ought to be working with a profitability coach, leadership coaches. They’re all kinds of different folks that we would bring into our organization to help make sure that we’re pointed in the right direction and keeping the train on the tracks.

Bill McDermott: (44:29)
Sure.

Matt Hyatt: (44:30)
But one of our consultants that we work with on a regular basis talks about the value creation strategy. And specifically what they’re talking about is, hey, you know, you built this business that may have purpose and mission. That is very altruistic. You’re on deliver a great service that helps people, you know, that’s as an altruistic type of service, but at the end of the day, that business needs to generate profit as fuel, but also as a return on that investment of time and resources from, from the entrepreneur.

Matt Hyatt: (45:12)
And so that, that’s where that value creation strategy comes in is, okay. As the entrepreneur, as the major shareholder of this business, how am I going to create value and get a return for that investment? And that might in fact probably does include, okay, well, part of the way is we’re going to generate profits year to year and take some of those profits. Right. But another important way is that at the end, is there a plan or an exit that generates additional value in return for those shareholders? And I think that’s the part that at least for a lot of smaller organizations and solo entrepreneurs, there’s not always a great plan in place. I just think it’s an important thing that folks are so focused on.

Bill McDermott: (45:57)
No question. I think, who was it? Covey said, I believe start with the end in mind and work backwards. And so I think each business owner needs to define for himself or herself. What’s the end game? Is it a financial number? Is it a revenue number that I’ve grown to? Is it the number of people that I have employed in my organization, everyone defines it on their terms, man, but not having a plan in my mind is, is planning to fail. So, so I remember, I think it was IBM back in the day, had planned ahead with the D kind of beginning to fall off. So, so make sure the D

Bill McDermott: (46:37)
Doesn’t fall off and plan ahead.

Matt Hyatt: (46:40)
So as you look ahead, years from now, you retired and sailed off into the sunset. What’s the legacy that you hope to leave behind Bill.

Bill McDermott: (46:52)
So probably back to, to what I mentioned when I started, I saw business owners struggle with financial management. And so my legacy I hope will be, I will have left the world a better place making business owners better financial managers, not only understanding their numbers, but understanding how to leverage their numbers to really drive profitability. And so if I can, if I can leave a legacy of having made business owners, better financial managers who can understand and leverage their numbers and really have the business of their dreams, I hope that’s how I’ll be remembered.

Matt Hyatt: (47:46)
I bet that’s exactly how you’ll be remembered. That’s that’s great Bill. So let’s, let’s kind of wrap up with a couple of questions that we try to ask all of our guests. And I know you talked about it, you’re an avid reader and you’ve read some of what I consider the, the classics E-Myth for sure. Good to great assignments, set X all about the Y you all, those are just great reads. Can you tell us about any other, what, what are you reading right now? What podcasts are you listening to? What are you learning these days and growing?

Bill McDermott: (48:19)
Yeah, so I guess a couple of things first give a shout out to Sally Hogshead. She has written several books on branding. One of them is fascinate. Okay. So how do you have a brand that really fascinates people? So that’s an excellent read. Another one that I’m reading right now is by Patrick Lencioni, five dysfunctions of a team. And so that’s an excellent book. Podcasts. I love guy Raz, his podcast on NPR, how I built this. And so those are, you know, those are the things that I’m reading on a personal note, things I’m reading also. So I’m a rose grower. And so I love to grow roses. Part of getting me through COVID was being able to take clarity breaks and go walk in the, in the rose garden a little bit

Matt Hyatt: (49:18)
Kind of peak season right now. Isn’t it?

Bill McDermott: (49:19)
Yeah, it is. And so, so I do some reading on, on how to grow, how to grow roses.

Matt Hyatt: (49:27)
Interesting. As an aside, I don’t know if you’ve ever made it to Portland and the rose garden, there is of course an unbelievable place is your garden, is it like that?

Bill McDermott: (49:40)
No, not even close. It’s hard to grow roses in the south, just because of the humidity humidity. So Portland cooler climate.

Matt Hyatt: (49:52)
Sure.

Bill McDermott: (49:53)
Less humidity.

Matt Hyatt: (49:55)
It does get hot during the summer, in the winter.

Bill McDermott: (49:57)
Yeah. Yeah. And so, but yeah, you have to, you have to have ideal growing conditions and we certainly do spring and fall, but, but summers here are hot.

Matt Hyatt: (50:10)
So Bill, you mentioned a couple of times that it takes a village. Can you tell us about one person that’s had a profound impact on your journey?

Bill McDermott: (50:21)
Yeah. One, it would be hard to narrow it down to one. Can I have a couple? So I think first professionally Colin Boylock is a CPA with Jones and Cob someone that I’ve known probably 30 years. Colin was kind enough to sit me down and say, okay, Bill, you’re now a business owner. These are the things that you need to do. And these are the things that you need to be thinking about. That was absolutely critical. Even coaches have a coach, I’d have to give a shout out to Dean Harbory. Dean has certainly helped me understand who I am as a business owner, but even more important who I am as a person. I am a hyper achiever, which can mean my professional life is going great, but I don’t necessarily have as much in reserve for my personal life, my family life.

Bill McDermott: (51:24)
And so Dean is, has been invaluable. Third person without a doubt on the personal side is my wife. My wife is my biggest fan. My biggest supporter. I married my high school sweetheart. And she has supported me and, and affirmed the decisions. And has really helped me at times when maybe I didn’t see something because I had some self limiting beliefs myself, like I mentioned earlier. So I would say those three are probably the big ones that I’m confident I’ve left one or two people, one or two people out. But those are the ones that, that really stand out to me.

Matt Hyatt: (52:06)
It’s always great to have a partner in life, right?

Bill McDermott: (52:09)
Yes.

Matt Hyatt: (52:11)
Because it is easy, especially in the early days of a business to just get swallowed up by that whole thing. So, so that’s good to know. So any key lessons that you’ve learned and any big ahas that you’ve learned as an entrepreneur that maybe weren’t obvious when you’re working at the bank?

Bill McDermott: (52:30)
Yeah. So I think, and we touched on it a little bit earlier, be open to pivot your business based on what your clients are asking you to do. And so if I had stuck to my original plan, I probably would have done nothing but negotiate loans and find financing.

Matt Hyatt: (52:55)
Sure.

Bill McDermott: (52:55)
Coaching practice never would have happened, but clients kept asking me to help them. So understanding when you need to pivot and why you need to pivot. And then the other thing is your clients can be great market intelligence for products and services. I have a handful of clients that I might call and say, Hey, I’m thinking about launching this product or this service, what do you think? This is what I think it would do for you? If I offered it, would you buy it? And so some of those I’ve implemented some of those I haven’t, but, but yeah, knowing when to pivot and also being alert to new products and services that maybe your clients might want, but didn’t know you had the ability to offer

Matt Hyatt: (53:51)
Love it. So Bill McDermott, the profitability coach for the benefit of our listeners, who who’s an ideal client for you and how, how, how would they reach you?

Bill McDermott: (54:02)
Oh gosh. An ideal client for me is probably someone with a growth mindset. Someone who is committed to making gradual continuous improvement in their business, someone who is a high achiever. And I would also say the best way to reach me several ways. First they can connect with me on LinkedIn. My profile is Bill J McDermott. Also my mobile number is 770-597-3136. Also, you can go to theprofitabilitycoach.net to schedule a call with me if you just want to have an initial discovery call. So those would be the best ways.

Matt Hyatt: (54:48)
Fantastic. Well, I know Bill, it’s time to wrap things up. Thank you so much for being here. Our audience and I, of course, have very much appreciate your time to our listeners. Thank you for tuning in, should you have any suggestions on future topics that you’d like to hear more about? Please email us [email protected]. And finally, before we sign off, I’d like to provide our security focus listeners with a limited time offer through the end of 2021 Rocket IT is offering audience members access to its phishing testing and security training platform. Completely free of charge to see if you’re eligible for this offer, simply visit rocket it.com/phishing, which is spelled P H I S H I N G. Thank you so much.

In episode 24 of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, audiences are greeted by two of metro-Atlanta’s most outgoing legal professionals, Chief Magistrate Judge Kristina Blum and attorney Jody Campbell.

Beyond doing the important work of their professions, Kristina and Jody have formed a philanthropic partnership that brings incredible value – and huge helping of fun – to our community.

Kristina Blum | [email protected]

Jody Campbell | [email protected] | 770-712-0923

blumcampbell.com

Music (00:00:15):

Matt Hyatt (00:00:16):

Hello everyone. And welcome to episode number 24 of the rocket it business podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt. And today we’re sitting down with two of the most outgoing legal professionals. I think I’ve met judge Kristina Blum and attorney Jody Campbell beyond doing the important work of their professions, Kristina and Jody have formed a philanthropic partnership that brings incredible value and a huge helping of fun to our community. And we’re in for a treat today. Jody, Kristina, welcome to the show.

Kristina Blum (00:00:43):

Thanks Matt. So great to be here and see you.

Jody Campbell (00:00:47):

Thanks for having us.

Matt Hyatt (00:00:48):

Absolutely. So I’m going to just dive right in here and start hitting with super tough questions. Kristina, you are Gwinnett county’s, first female, chief magistrate judge, and I’d love to know what was the path to get there.

Kristina Blum (00:01:05):

Well, I, I actually, for years I’ve been a lawyer. I graduated from law school in 1994, I think. So I started representing you get the, you always tell people, you should take the first job you’re offered. It’s always easier to find a job. And sometimes you need to figure out what you don’t like to do before you can find what you do love to do. So I started working at this law firm, downtown representing cities and counties, and through just a couple of different law firm moves. I ended up being a senior assistant county attorney here in Gwinnette county. And one of my clients was the Gwinnette county magistrate court. So people don’t know, you know, judges and, and, and courts need attorney advice too. There might be issues that come up about policy or changes in the law, or even peoples, you know, sometimes Sue judges for reasons that, you know, have some to no merit.

Kristina Blum (00:01:56):

And, and I worked with Warren Davis, who’s the chief who was the chief magistrate at the time. And ironically asking you that question, I’m sitting right here at this desk and I was his lawyer and he’s one of my favorite people. He and I were already talking this morning and, and I was sitting here and after being his lawyer for a few years, he said to me, he goes, Kristina, I think I know what you’re supposed to do with your life. And he called me from this desk and he said, you’re supposed to be a judge. And I go Warren you crazy. I said, you’re crazy. And, and he, he pushed me into applying to be a magistrate judge. And I, you know, I, I applied to be a full-time judge and I didn’t get it. And I’m super thankful the first time I didn’t.

Kristina Blum (00:02:34):

But then Warren brought me into the core as a part-time magistrate. And I did that for five years and I kinda got into it and loved it. I, my glamorous job in the magistrate court was the first five years. I worked every single Saturday at the jail handling first appearance hearings for people who were arrested and dealing with bond issues and things like that. Yeah. People think judging is really glamorous.

Matt Hyatt (00:02:59):

Sounds like it.

Kristina Blum (00:03:02):

I worked, but at the time I had a six month old and a two year old. So it was kind of nice to be out of the house. And my husband enjoyed the, the father, you know, child time that he had with just the kids. So after a while, then I became a full-time judge in 2009. And having had the experience of, you know, being in the trenches with magistrate Corp.

Kristina Blum (00:03:24):

And then my full-time judge is primarily provides judicial assistance to other courts. So when I became a full-time judge, heck I was, I did juvenile court, recorders courts, period court, state court, I’d done trials, I’d done everything. And I really decided that it was something that I enjoy doing. I enjoy trying to solve problems for people and, and try to be part of the solution. It’s a, it’s a burdensome job. And if anybody who wears a robe, does it feel that it’s a burden, then they’re not in the right role. But in 2013, the current chief at the time, George Hutchinson, was appointed by the governor to be a spear court judge. So that left the chief magistrate judge job open. And the local legislation provides that when there’s a midterm change, the spear court judges, there were 10 at the time get select the new chief magistrate.

Kristina Blum (00:04:16):

So at that time in January of 2013, the superior court judges selected me to fill the unexpired term of then chief magistrate, George Hutchinson. So I have now been I’m in my third term, I’ve had two elected terms and then one appointed term. And it’s a job I really love, but I always tell people, you never know the impact you can have in the course of somebody’s career or job or in life or Michonne. As I am, like I said, sitting in this desk right now where one phone call 16 years ago changed the course of everything for me.

Matt Hyatt (00:04:54):

Unbelievable. So is it it pardon me for asking, but is it unusual to have women judges in Gwinnett?

Kristina Blum (00:05:05):

No. I think, you know, people say, oh, of course, it’s, you know, I, I was the first female magistrate, but a lot of people don’t know that in 1983 magistrate courts were actually created by the Georgia general assembly. They were created to take the place of recorders courts and justice of the peace courts, which were combined. Fortunately, we still get to keep our recorder’s court because it does a valuable service to us and dealing with county ordinance violations and traffic. But magistrate court provides a lot of judicial support to the other branches of justice. You know, we do, gosh, I’ve been a juvenile court judge, a probate I’ve done every court, I’ve done every kind of calendar because some other judges go on vacation. Or if a judge is in a murder trial and they can’t get to any of their domestic cases, one of my judges or myself, sometimes we go up there and we handle those cases to keep things moving.

Kristina Blum (00:06:00):

You know, I would say justice delayed is in fact, justice denied. If you have to wait for a family court decision for a year, that’s a, that’s your life’s on hold. So we’re very grateful, not only for our original jurisdiction things we have to do, but also to provide that judicial support role. But there’s a ton of women we have. Yeah, we have,

Jody Campbell (00:06:21):

here’s a fun fact, I was sworn in by…

Kristina Blum (00:06:23):

Women are great judges.

Jody Campbell (00:06:25):

Absolutely.

Kristina Blum (00:06:27):

Yeah. But, but what I was saying is that when, when the Georgia court, when the general assembly created magistrate courts in 1983, we’ve only had I’m the fourth chief magistrates. So there was judge Fred Bishop, judge Warren Davis, judge George Hutchinson, and then me. So I hope, I hope I have done a great service to my sisters out there by representing if the magistrate court well, and I will tell you a weird thing.

Kristina Blum (00:06:55):

When I became the chief shortly after all of the Metro chief magistrates were women and we formed a tight little group too. We talk all the time. I still talk to the chief magistrate of Fulton, Cassandra Kirk, all the time and to cab barrel Anderson. So we, we all know each other cob had a wonderful female, chief magistrate who moved on to become their da. But now, um, now there’s a guy and he always says, I hate breaking up the girl band, you know, be now the only guy, but, but I think women have, have a, an empathy and, and a patience that makes a woman not to say, I have plenty of male judges that are phenomenal, but I do think that women are good natural judges.

Matt Hyatt (00:07:45):

I would agree with that. So to make it perfectly clear for us lay folks, what exactly is the mission of the Magister court?

Kristina Blum (00:07:54):

Oh my gosh, it’s the best. Our court is the most accessible to anybody. I love what I do. I love what I do well, here’s the thing magistrate court handles and it’s, we handle things like all the search and arrest warrants. My court runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I got a text from one of my judges in the middle of the night, last night with an issue that came up. So we keep the community safe by being accessible. We also, you know, people have a right to have a judge determine whether there’s sufficient evidence on a probable cause standard before their Liberty interests can be compromised. So by the time somebody is in jail, even 36 hours, one magistrate judge may have looked at that case three times. So there’s a lot of due process and constitutional protections that my court provides in the criminal context.

Kristina Blum (00:08:45):

We also handle most of the landlord tenant cases for the county. And we, we had an amazing project or project reset. I hope people have seen it, but it was a little idea myself, Marlene Fausque and Matt Elder started last year. And we’ve now interceded in over a thousand evictions spending over $6 million in cares act funding, keep people in their homes. So we’ve got solution-based opportunities. We do a lot of debt collection, but we have to provide a lot of protections with that. We also have a lot of, you know, in addition to landlord tenant matters and, and debt collection, we do do that, but we have small claims court just like the people’s court. It’s not as exciting or sexy as judge Judy or some of those that, that instigate, I think the conflict in a case, but we do a lot of like small business owners. If you have a claim for less than $15,000, that’s our jurisdictional limit. Jurisdictionals means what we can and cannot do. If it’s less than $15,000, you can sue in our court and you don’t have to have a lawyer for your business. For RocketIt say, somebody owed you guys money. And it was $2,000. It’s a lot of money to me, or even $400 to hire a lawyer now, not, not any offense. I’m married to one. I sleep with a lawyer every night and I love him, but

Jody Campbell (00:10:07):

His employment matters to your home, your mortgage payment.

Kristina Blum (00:10:09):

It does, but you have

Kristina Blum (00:10:11):

To make a decision. Then you have to make a decision as to whether it’s worth it, to retain an attorney, to, to chase that now in state and superior court, the rules require you to have a lawyer. If you’re a business, but in my court, you don’t have to. And the other thing we offer is in small business court world, or just conflict world, or say your neighbor’s tree falls on your fence and they won’t fix it. And you want to sue, we can give you opportunities to resolve that conflict in usually now pre pandemic and post pandemic 60 days is our timeline. And we do it swiftly. And we also provide free mediation opportunities. And we also have court at night. So if you do have a business, you don’t have to close your business to come to court. So there’s a lot of things we do in our court that make justice accessible to people who, who need it, but can’t hire a $400 an hour lawyer.

Kristina Blum (00:11:07):

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. So, so we’re busy. We run about a hundred thousand matters through a year. Again, I’m talking pre pandemic and, and we, we try to be solution-based in what we offer. But most of our customers, as I call them, come in are self-represented. So we do a lot of work trying to break down the system and give people the tools they need through our legal process to solve their problems. We do it with multilanguage. We do it with interpreters. We do it in the best way. We know how, but I hope it shows that the mission of this court is to make sure that our third branch of government is accessible to people, all people. And that’s why I love magistrate court.

Matt Hyatt (00:11:51):

I love it.

Jody Campbell (00:11:54):

Let me jump in. Let

Jody Campbell (00:11:55):

Me just jump in and say, uh, because I, I feel like I have to defend my profession a little bit here.

Jody Campbell (00:12:02):

No, no, no. Hang on. Hang

Jody Campbell (00:12:02):

On. As a lawyer, I love it. When I get to use magistrate court, because well, for two reasons, one, because any lawyer that doesn’t accept the financial reality of their client’s situation is doing their client. A disservice hiring a lawyer is an investment, and you should expect a return on that investment. And so it’s my job to try to solve your problem in as cost efficient, a manner as possible. The magistrate court is built for speed and efficiency. So where if I file a lawsuit in state or superior court, I might not even see a courtroom for 10, 12 months in magistrate court. I file a lawsuit. I’m going to get in the courtroom in 60 days at the latest. And so time is money to my clients. And so trying to solve those problems, if I can go to a magistrate court, I’ll do it 10 out of 10 times

Kristina Blum (00:12:52):

And make no mistake. We have a lot of lawyers today. We have what’s called garnishment calendars going on, and we have attorneys trying to work out, you know, resolving judgements and things like that. And our attorneys in mag court do a great job. They are really collaborative and trying to figure out, you know, we can do unlike other courts, as part of our judgment, we can do payment plans, payment plans to keep people from using the processes of levy and execution and, and even garnishment. But our lawyers are great and mag core. And a lot of our lawyers like Jody recognize that if I have a client that has a small business it’s to my advantage, to work out a, a, you know, a retainer structure, a financial structure, because I know it’s not as big a commitment for me as an attorney, it’s not going to last three years. And so, so I’ll, I’ll have a different kind of payment structure with that client knowing we can do it in magistrate court and then renegotiate when we go up to if, if it goes to a different court later on. So, so we do love having lawyers in math Corps. And for the most part, you know, we have the same, you know, our landlord tenant lawyers are great. They’ve all been pretty amazing through the pandemic too. I got to give them huge,

Jody Campbell (00:14:05):

Huge props here. And here’s the real, here’s the sad reality of our job, Matt, because of the cost associated with hiring lawyers, the longer the case goes, the more you have to pay your lawyers, the harder it is to resolve a case. So my, my experiences, I have a significantly higher success rate, both reaching an agreement and making sure that agreement is fulfilled. If I’m in magistrate court, because of the structure, I’m able to keep costs and expenses down. It just, it’s a, it’s a no brainer. Really is

Matt Hyatt (00:14:36):

Great. I love it. I learned a lot this morning already.

Kristina Blum (00:14:41):

Come to court with me a day. I’ll give you the judge experience.

Jody Campbell (00:14:45):

Be careful what you wish for. She’ll take you out to the jail and you’ll see the, the very dark underbelly of, of judicial system.

Matt Hyatt (00:14:54):

I’ve done a police ride along. I’ve done principal for a day with our school system. I’ve done a fire department rival. I haven’t done anything in the court system.

Jody Campbell (00:15:02):

Be careful what you wish for my friend.

Matt Hyatt (00:15:03):

Yeah. Yeah. That’d be good. So Jody, let’s learn about you. My understanding is you also went to law school and fresh out of law

Matt Hyatt (00:15:11):

School landed a partner role.

Jody Campbell (00:15:13):

That’s wrong.

Matt Hyatt (00:15:15):

That’s wrong? So, correct me.

Matt Hyatt (00:15:18):

Thanks a lot, Chris.

Jody Campbell (00:15:19):

Yeah. Chris way to set that up. The checks in the mail, Chris. So I had, I had options coming out of law school. I could’ve gone to a downtown law firm, or I also received an offer from where I went to, which is the oldest law firm in Gwinnett county, web Tanner [Powell Roots? and ] Wilson, which is now Powell and Edwards. It was actually founded by Marvin. Alison who’s a former Gwinnett county judge was Mr. Alison, the judge Kristina. No, his, his partner Charles Pittard was.

Matt Hyatt (00:15:49):

Oh, I see. I see. So you said it’s the oldest firm in Gwinnette county. How old is it?

Jody Campbell (00:15:54):

Oh, God, I think it was founded in the 1950s.

Matt Hyatt (00:15:57):

Oh Wow. Okay. So that’s a long time. Yeah.

Jody Campbell (00:16:00):

Yeah, It has been in continual operation. The name has changed, but it’s the same kind of family core group, if you will. Right. So the, the option for me was to go downtown and work at a downtown law firm or come out to the suburbs and work in. And for me there was kind of two deciding factors. Well, three, I should say one. Sometimes the stereotypes are true. And with big downtown law firms, they grind their first year associates. And you know, sometimes you don’t see a courtroom or a deposition or anything for 3, 4, 5, 6 years at Web, Tanner, and Powell. I was sworn in on a Friday on Monday morning, I was sitting second chair of a jury trial on a multi-million dollar case.

Matt Hyatt (00:16:39):

Wow.

Jody Campbell (00:16:41):

So I’m very ADD. And so if I’m doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, I can’t really, yeah. I mean, look at my walls.

Jody Campbell (00:16:51):

It’s very, it’s very kind of frenetic and chaos, keeping it excited, but if I’m doing the same thing over and over, I get bored quickly. And the second part of it is I’m a people person I need to be in a courtroom. If you put me in a library or in an office writing memos all day, uh, that’s, that’s, that’s a recipe for disaster and it’s a recipe for a very unhappy Jody. And then the third decision was, you know, if there’s one thing that matters most to me, it’s my family. And I made a promise to my wife that I would be able to come home and have dinner with her every single night. And when we started having kids, I was gonna, I was gonna be there. And so I didn’t want to commit to, there was a wonderful lawyer named Mike Terry.

Jody Campbell (00:17:36):

He’s a brilliant lawyer at a downtown law firm. He’s argued cases in front of the Supreme court of the United States. In fact, for a while, he had the record for the largest jury verdict in Georgia history, which actually came out of Gwinnett county, the six flags case, Kristina, it was a Warner brothers shareholder case that he tried it. But I remember I had, was having dinner with Mike. When I was in law school. He was like a mentor in this thing called the end of court that I was a part of. And I was a pupil of his. And he was telling me about how some days he would come home to give his kids a kiss, goodnight, and then drive back to the office and be at the office until midnight or one in the morning. And I was like, I’m sorry, you’re brilliant. That’s no life for me. So that’s how I decided to come to web Tanner, Pemberton Wilson.

Matt Hyatt (00:18:23):

And when did the partner thing happen?

Jody Campbell (00:18:26):

Four years. So most, most time just kind of generally speaking partnership comes along in like here, you know, six, seven, somewhere in there. I was fast tracked a bit,

Matt Hyatt (00:18:38):

Right.

Jody Campbell (00:18:39):

I became a partner right at the four year mark.

Jody Campbell (00:18:45):

And it was wonderful. It was, it was a blessing. I mean, obviously it was a validation. It was a endorsement by my colleagues and my partners that they believed in me and they believe what I was doing was good and that I had a bright future. But at the same time, I don’t know if I had necessarily the maturity to accept that role. I don’t know if I was necessarily ready for it. I was there for two years and then a friend of mine from law school who was managing a litigation group down in, at a law firm in Peachtree corners for a, a regional law firm that had offices in Mississippi, Alabama Tennessee said, Hey, I’ve got this great group of young lawyers who are litigators, but they have no courtroom experience. I needed a leader to come down here and groom this team, will you come and do it?

Jody Campbell (00:19:36):

And I jumped at the opportunity. Actually, I had a lunch with Kristina and I was telling her how worried I was and how I wasn’t sure what it was going to lead to five years down the road. And she said, who cares? About five years down, worry about, worry about, just get to Friday. And that’s that, that helped me make the leap. And eventually five years later, I opened up a law office with Kristina’s husband, Jim. So now my name’s on the door. So it all worked out well, but that was that’s my path to where we are today.

Matt Hyatt (00:20:16):

I love it.

Matt Hyatt (00:20:17):

So I want to get to the law firm, but beforehand I want to let’s let’s unpack. How did you two meet or you, were you a lawyer in Kristina’s court or it happened a different way?

Jody Campbell (00:20:29):

Well, Matt, Kristina, if you don’t mind,

Kristina Blum (00:20:32):

sure.

Jody Campbell (00:20:32):

You were there, Matt. Kristina was a member of the leadership Gwinnett retreat committee and Matt and I were in.

Kristina Blum (00:20:45):

Yep. Wow. Yeah, that was a decade ago. And

Jody Campbell (00:20:50):

That’s crazy. But you know, obviously as a young lawyer you’re taught and Kristina hates it. When I say this, I’m gonna say it anyways. A good lawyer knows the law. A great lawyer knows the judge. Well, your knows what the judge, but, but it’s but Kristina,

Matt Hyatt (00:21:08):

Is it wrong?

Kristina Blum (00:21:11):

Yeah, it should be for sure.

Jody Campbell (00:21:15):

No. What, what that means is let me tell you what that means. What, what I, what that means to me,

Kristina Blum (00:21:20):

A great Lawyer reads the judge

Jody Campbell (00:21:22):

That I will agree with Kristina, but also a great lawyer knows the judge and the judge knows the lawyer and there’s a rapport and a trust that the lawyer is a good person is an honest person. And you can trust what they’re saying. So, but, but of course, you know, as a young lawyer, I’m trying to foster these relationships with people in my world, in my world includes, I mean, I was, I was literally in Kristina’s court. She wasn’t the chief magistrate at the time, but I was in the magistrate court four days a week, literally. So of course I’m like, I’ve got to get to know Kristina Blum. I’m gonna be in front of her.

Matt Hyatt (00:21:57):

So at leadership Gwinnett, you each know who the other, was, So you just didn’t have that friendship and bond yet. True.

Jody Campbell (00:22:05):

I knew who she was. I doubt she knew who I was.

Kristina Blum (00:22:08):

Uh, okay. I probably knew his name, but what he was saying is we were on the dance floor. That’s what he, yeah,

Matt Hyatt (00:22:22):

Where all good. Legal partnerships start.

Jody Campbell (00:22:26):

We started through song and dance.

Matt Hyatt (00:22:29):

I love it. So that was back in 2011. That’s been 10 years. Obviously you’ve become great friends over, over that period of time. So let’s, let’s unpack a little bit what happened next? You’re out there and hanging out on the dance floor, you gotten to know each other and then you got back to

Jody Campbell (00:22:48):

The business. It wasn’t, no, it was a fail. Let’s go ahead and proceed. I’ll let you pick up the story.

Kristina Blum (00:22:53):

Oh, you’re about to tell people my medical history. He’s like, he always loves the story and it’s just a yucky story.

Matt Hyatt (00:23:01):

Let me get my hipa-compliance officer in here.

Kristina Blum (00:23:04):

He was, we were dancing and I would do the YMCA and I threw my hands up and I, I, you know, I’m a pretty athletic person, not, I can’t throw a ball, catch a ball, kick a ball. But Jody and I just, well, Jody and I just finished an 11 and a half mile tough Mudder this past week. We’ve done our second or adventure race of the year. And we’re about to do our third. So that kind of stuff I do cross again, there you go, Jody, Jody probably wins. I got it in really early, but, but I, I have had, I had the shoulder pain. So I throw up to do the YMCA and my shoulder just popped. So right. As Jody’s trying to, I guess, make his friendship move. I was like, oh my God. And I went and long story short, it was, I had a tumor in my shoulder. Yes. That surfaced. And it was underneath my trapezius muscle back here. And when I lifted it up, it just kind of, it broke through the muscle. So I had to have orthopedic surgery.

Matt Hyatt (00:24:10):

So basically Jody saved your life.

Kristina Blum (00:24:10):

Please don’t tell him that.

Jody Campbell (00:24:14):

Yes.

Jody Campbell (00:24:17):

Obviously I’m just meeting Kristina for the first time. We’re dancing.

Kristina Blum (00:24:20):

It was a benign tumor by the way.

Jody Campbell (00:24:22):

So, so we’re dancing and all of a sudden she starts doing this. I’m like, okay, either one or two or two, she’s faking it. Cause she’s annoyed by me.

Kristina Blum (00:24:36):

it was not,

Jody Campbell (00:24:38):

women have done both of those to me,

Kristina Blum (00:24:42):

But our friendship like AF I think Jody and I like the next year, I, you know, we both are incredibly passionate about leadership Gwinnett, for the, for the reason that I believe that to really affect change in a community, you have to mobilize, galvanize, and incentivize the people of influence. So, so leadership Gwinnett, of course, it pulls together people, you know, in different areas of the community. And I’ve always given so much time and effort to this organization. Not only has it brought me so much personal satisfaction and personal, just joy, but it also, I think really you, you, you lead from the top down. So if you can get people who are hospital pres you know, CEOs and all this excited about, you know, making a difference, that’s not just about dollars and cents, then you can really, you can really force multiply that.

Kristina Blum (00:25:36):

So I’ve been involved in leadership Gwinnett the whole time. So I had to the next year I graduated in 2009, I think so. So that was, I was on the retreat committee, our chief state court judge Pam South was the chair that year. Who’s one of my favorite people in the whole building. And she, the next year they made me the co-chair with doc Schoeller. Who’s the principal of an elementary school in the central cluster. And she was amazing. So we had to pick committee members and we remembered Jody from the retreat about being, you know, warm and the people we look for on a committee as somebody who’s going to be like a camp counselor, who’s going to be a host. Who’s going to make people feel comfortable. Who’s going to make people feel welcome. And so Jody was one of our committee selections, and that was, that was when it started.

Kristina Blum (00:26:28):

And over the years we started figuring out about each other that we have a lot of similar features to our personality and a lot of, um, super specific, mostly useless talent that somehow that’s why that’s phrase. I always say that we have kind of turned into a little bananas cottage industry for philanthropic organizations. And we were talking on the phone this morning, cause we actually talk every day. He is next to my husband. He’s, he’s my best friend. He’s my brother. We don’t, I introduced him to people as my brother now because our families are so intertwined and his kids call me at K. And, but, but we were talking this morning and you know, talking about that, I think he was kinda asking me some questions, like, what do you think? And I said, I don’t know. I think our friendships gotten to the point where, you know, we, we are deep enough in our relationship that he told me one day, a couple of weeks ago that made me cry.

Kristina Blum (00:27:26):

He said, even cause I was being a little jerk. He goes, even when you’re the jerky just jerk on the planet because you’re still my second favorite person. And I think when you achieve that sort of, adult friendships are hard. And I think when you sort of achieve that with someone, you know, he’s got my back, I’ve got his, and together we use our mostly useless, super specific talent to, to, I guess, get other people excited and help other people figure out what super-specific mostly useless talents they have. And that’s kind of one of our missions.

Jody Campbell (00:27:59):

Yeah. And to piggyback on that. So when I joined the retreat committee there, I won’t, I won’t go behind the curtain of Oz. I won’t tell everybody the secrets of, of, of leadership Gwinnett, but there are certain components where creativity, enthusiasm, showmanship, and mainly a complete lack of self-awareness are the single are the four most important factors. And it just so happens that Kristina and I, I think are, uh, about the same person on each of those levels. And so that enables us to do things and plan things and programming that is really designed to kind of remove the, the professional facade a little bit, peel back the onion and get to know people on a truly deep level, because to, again, piggyback on what Kay said. Another part, part of the reason why I love leadership Gwinnett so much is because it takes these insanely important established leaders in our community. And it really strips them down to just who they are, not what they are. And, and once everybody learns who you are and when you become friends with the who, not the, what, that’s when the relationship matters. So as Kay and I have being a perfect example, that’s when I stopped seeing her as judge Blum. And I started to see her as my best friend, Kristina. And that’s when that’s when the magic really starts to happen.

Matt Hyatt (00:29:36):

So you’ve, you’ve called Kristina, Kay, a couple of times to tell Jojo and Kay, where’d that come from?

Kristina Blum (00:29:43):

Here’s here’s the thing that I told you. We talk every morning. Let’s talk about that, Chris. No, there are only two people that call him, Jojo. That is me and Ms. Martha Campbell.

Matt Hyatt (00:29:57):

Oh really? Okay. All right. So it might be four now because you know, there’s me and, and our listener.

Kristina Blum (00:30:07):

Well, here’s a funny story about Kay. He started calling me Kay years ago and, and, and I don’t know this wasn’t all that long ago because hammer is, I’ve been married to Jim for 27 years. He’s amazing. And I, hammer when your last name grownup is hammer, that’s what people call you. They call you hammer. So when I got married, I was like, what do I want to do? I was like, I’m not, you know, I’m not really a hyphen. That’s a lot of work. It seems like I respect those women, but I wasn’t always going to write that my signature is terrible. So I said, hammer is going to be my middle name. So I changed it. You know, just now everything hammer is, is legally my middle name now. But one day we were sitting there and I don’t think he knows this about me.

Jody Campbell (00:30:55):

We should do this.

Kristina Blum (00:30:56):

What? We’ll wait, hold on. So I go, Hey, Jody, you call me Kay all the time. Did you know that’s actually my middle name? K A Y. I was born Kristina, Kay, Hammer; K A Y.

New Speaker (00:31:06):

I was convinced she was playing a prank on me.

New Speaker (00:31:09):

I said, so when you hear, when I hear him calling me Kay, in my head, I don’t think of as an abbreviation. I think it was just my middle name. And he looked like no idea. And I was like, yeah, that’s actually my name. So your middle name, my real middle name is Kay.

New Speaker (00:31:24):

Is Jojo your middle name, Jody.

Matt Hyatt (00:31:28):

That would be the crazy coincidence.

Jody Campbell (00:31:30):

No, it’s Jody, Charles Campbell. I’m named after my grandfather. Charles was his name, but yeah, no, my mom called me, Jo Jo. My wife calls me, Joe. Kay’s always just call me Jody or Joe. And then she started picking up Jo Jo, you know what it was? I think we were at a mutual Christmas party and my mom was there and Kristina heard my mom call me Jo, Jo and Kristina, just slipping Jojo in. And I think that’s where it picked up. And that’s what it’s been ever since.

Matt Hyatt (00:32:02):

So I don’t want to miss out. You said, are we going to do this or we’re going to do what?

Kristina Blum (00:32:06):

I don’t know. I don’t know what he was saying.

Jody Campbell (00:32:08):

W what, what are we doing? What

Matt Hyatt (00:32:11):

Are we going to do this Kristina? That’s what you said, Jody,

Kristina Blum (00:32:14):

About the name. I don’t know what you were talking about.

Matt Hyatt (00:32:17):

Maybe you were going to break into song. I was ready,

Kristina Blum (00:32:21):

Matt. It is bananas. How many people ask us that when they I’m at a meeting or something, you know, Jody talked

Matt Hyatt (00:32:28):

About reputation.

Kristina Blum (00:32:30):

I know, and it’s we, but here’s the thing we use that there’s an intentionality, the way we do things and how we do them. And in leadership Gwinnett, you know, Jody and I kind of formed this friendship, but I will tell you, our friendship is leaders put as part of our friendship. But, you know, we just did the tough Mudder this past weekend. We’ve got adventure races. We’re going camping together this weekend. There’s all these other little subsets of things that, that keep us entertained. But I think that, um, you know, the song and dance thing we started using that years ago, because when you walk into a room of all of these people who have fancy titles, and, and I’m never so entitled that I’m going to think I’m going to have this title. You know, my title doesn’t define me. If you answered the phone, I’m like, Hey, it’s Kristina, I’ve got the robot and I’m on the bench.

Kristina Blum (00:33:26):

Please call me judge Blum, because it’s about the ceremony and the solemnity of the process. But, but I think we use song and dance and stuff like that, just to remind people what they forget. And I think part of our charm is that we never stop trying to have fun. I mean, what is all of this for? So when we do the song and the dance, now we love throwing people off. Like, what is that? What are they doing? We know we’re not the greatest singers. Now we are really, really good dancers. We’re like super good dancers, but we know why we do it is it’s almost like we’re giving people permission to, to be ridiculous and to be comfortable with not being so buttoned up and put on all the time. And, and that, yeah, you might have a fancy title, but I want to know about Matt.

Kristina Blum (00:34:21):

I want to know, because at the, how will we get things done is about relationships. It’s not about titles. My title may be why you answered the phone call, but my relationship with you is why we’re going to have a conversation. That’s how we got project reset going is I was able to call commissioner [Fausque] and said, can you come to court with me today? I need to show you what’s going on. And we need to figure this out. And I was like, Marlene, come help me, Matt, come in. And it was at, it was through these conversations. It wasn’t about judge Blum, commissioner Fausque. It was about what, what tools do you have access to that? We can, we can fix it. So the songs and the dances and the ridiculousness are really two purposes. Number one, we want people to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Kristina Blum (00:35:07):

And we’re really good at that. We want people to remember that, you know, I go home at the end of the day and I, my job is part of the fabric of my being, because I love it. And I love my mission. But at the same time, I’m still about figuring out who I am and what I like to do and where my talents lie. And we unlock little keys to people. Sometimes unintentionally finding out they can do this or that, that is always such a joy to me to learn something or to watch somebody learn something about themselves or remember something they forgot they loved. And that’s such a, such a fun thing to be a part of. Yeah.

Jody Campbell (00:35:47):

And the old adage you can’t lead where you’re not willing to go yourself. If we’re, if we’re asking you to be your authentic self, if we weren’t authentic ourselves, w w we’re we’re just hollow. So that that’s the case, right? It’s, it’s, there’s an intentionality behind it. We’re not just doing it because we can, we’re doing it because that’s who we are. That’s what we love to do. And we asked you to share what you love to do and who you are with us.

Matt Hyatt (00:36:12):

That’s terrific. Let’s pause for just a second. I think that not all of our listeners know what leadership Gwinnett is. And so let’s, let’s just point out because also not all of our listeners may be from here in Gwinnett. A lot of communities have a leadership program, where they bring folks from the community together, teach them all about what’s going on in the community or district that they’re in. So everything from, like I said, earlier, police and fire to court systems, how the educational system works and really shining a light on what the opportunities in the community are to get involved. Right. And so for us in Gwinnette, that’s a one year long program. How many, how many classmates we have typically about 40? Does that sound?

Jody Campbell (00:36:59):

Now we now have 42. When we went to the classmate, it was 36.

Matt Hyatt (00:37:08):

Nice, so That’s what leadership Gwinnett is. And that’s, that’s a common thread for, for us on this call. So that’s, that’s terrific. So let’s talk about some of the projects that the two of you have gotten involved in, because I think what happens a lot is you’re, you’re, you’re a ton of fun. You’re fun to be around, but also you do things in sort of a big and funny way often. And so what are some of those things that you’ve gotten involved in, in the community?

Jody Campbell (00:37:35):

Where did we start?

Matt Hyatt (00:37:37):

I want to know about Gwinnette duck Derby. Let me just cut to the chase. I want to know what in the world is that.

Jody Campbell (00:37:43):

So the Gwinnette duck Derby is actually the primary fundraiser for mine and Kristina’s rotary club. We’re in rotary together. We’re members of the Sugarloaf rotary club or rotary club of Sugarloaf. And that’s a cute guy. Shocking. I know we’re kind of the, we’re not, we’re not your granddad’s rotary club. We’re the, we’re the fun crowd. But the Duck Derby is every single year we sell ducks, rubber ducks that we back before COVID we would literally put them at the top of a water slide, and then they’d float around the lazy river. And, you know, the winning duck would be bought by somebody and that person would win the cash prize or what have you. And so Kristina and I, our rotary club came to us and the people who were planning this particular was Ginger Powell and Jen Fennel, our dear friends and amazing women and leaders in our community. They said, Hey, would y’all kind of be our hype people, which all make promos and which y’all be the MCs of the actual, you know, duck Derby in the past. Kristina and I have both worn a mascot, duck, costume, and gone down the lazy rivers ourselves

Kristina Blum (00:38:54):

And wait, let me, let me just stop for a second because I am a legitimate superhero. If this is the qualification I was wearing the duck costume at one year when we did it and a toddler, we were watching all the ducks come down a toddler, nobody was watching this baby, walked into the deep end of the pool, just walked in, stepped down, stepped down, and I’m looking around going, is anybody going to get this baby? And all of a sudden, and I’ll never forget this. I see this toddler looking up at me from underneath the water nobody’s in. So I am wearing the duck costume. I jumped in and saved the baby. So I saved a baby wearing a costume; superhero.

Jody Campbell (00:39:38):

That’s how I met Kristina Blum. And we’ve been friends ever since

Kristina Blum (00:39:42):

If that was the criteria, if you saved somebody in a question in a duck costume, yes.

Matt Hyatt (00:39:48):

Does an adult in a duck costume jumping into a pool sink or float? What happens?

Kristina Blum (00:39:54):

Um, okay. I’m going to be honest with you. I only came up to here, you know, like my chest, like area. So I had to go shoulder deep to scoop the baby off. And then by the way, the parents weren’t super thankful. I’m like, cause I was a little indignant, like I was soaking wet and I’m like, who’s supposed to be, and I had clothes on underneath. Who’s supposed to be watching this baby. Where are the lifeguards? I think I go into,

Jody Campbell (00:40:23):

Well, Kristina, you have to understand. They also, they probably

Kristina Blum (00:40:26):

Indignant superhero. I was an indignant Superhero.

Jody Campbell (00:40:29):

Their ducks probably didn’t win the race either. So it was like a double loss.

Kristina Blum (00:40:32):

I was like, I just saved a baby. Okay. But anyway, the duck Derby. So they’re

Jody Campbell (00:40:38):

Like, let’s use Jody and Kristina’s powers of enthu to, to, to build enthusiasm, to build excitement for the event. So that’s that, that one, some other things.

Kristina Blum (00:40:47):

Well, we made up, well, what we did is one day I go, I got this idea and it always starts with one of us going. I got an idea and it, I, I said he was coming to my house with his family and you know, and Lindsay, by the way, my husband and Lindsey, Jody’s wife, have a tight bond because I think the two most thankful people in the world that Jody has me and I have Jody are our spouses because they don’t have to deal. Like Lindsay will call me and go. He needs some Kristina time, take him off my hands. So we were sitting around and they were coming over and I’m like, Jody, we got to do this. What are we going to do? So I don’t, I don’t even think I showered that day. We were coming over for a barbecue. So I said, bring the duck. And we made like a duck training video where all these different scenes where it was, it was like a weird Al song. And I trained him and then we, I do video editing. So I edited the video together and it was, it was actually pretty funny, but you know, we, we put it out there. And then I think how many views did that?

Jody Campbell (00:41:55):

It got, it got like 2,500 views and our duck sales, I think went up like 300%.

Kristina Blum (00:42:03):

Maybe I should’ve showered, but it was like a, it was like one of those eighties montages where at first the duck was terrible and I’m training the duck for the duck race,

Jody Campbell (00:42:12):

A hundred percent of Rocky montage. Okay. The start in Rocky struggling. And he’s struggling. He’s struggling by the end. He’s running up those stairs, dead sprint. That’s exactly what it was.

Matt Hyatt (00:42:20):

So I want to make sure it, did I hear correctly that we might be able to find this on YouTube tomorrow,

Kristina Blum (00:42:28):

For sure. Yeah. Um, I’ll, I’ll tell you the craziest project of recent times we were at rotary, speaking of rotary, we were standing there and Brooke Waters who’s in our clubs. She’s also, she’s an executive, she’s one of the, um, the glance Gwinnette, which is a shorter leadership program in Gwinnett county. She comes up to us and cause it kind of, at last year she goes, you know, we weren’t able to have our Christmas party this year. So people do this to us. They just drop stuff in our lap and they go, can you come up with something for us to celebrate the holidays? And I, for my first thought to her was, Hey, pretty lady it’s November. Like, are you mean for like next month? And she goes, yeah. And I said, well, and I looked at Jody because we have these ideas and we, I turned to him and I go, wouldn’t it be funny if you and I wrote 2020 as a musical.

Kristina Blum (00:43:21):

And Jody’s like, yeah. And Brooke goes, that sounds great. Do that. And then she walks away and he’s like, what did you do? So we had to come up with in six weeks, we wrote 2020 as a musical. And it was really funny. It was really, it was, and we, we corralled some of our friends to do it. And then when we got into the process of it, we didn’t think we were trying to give some people, you know, the chance to reflect and to, you know, 2020, I tell people all the time presented, not just obstacles and challenges, but it was a lot of opportunities there to really refocus re-imagined redirect. It was really, I mean, there were some experiences from 2020. I wish it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t fun, but you need to look for the chance to really downshift, take your foot off the gas and rethink. I mean, a lot of people had that. That was a gift. If you look at it the right way, if your perspective was calibrated properly, its a gift. So Jody and I used that tool of creating this musical and it wasn’t all just skewering, like social distancing. There were some moments in there. And, and then we brought in some friends to do it and doing a musical where we had to rehearse by zoom and then doing it at the Eagle theater we had. And just in that short timeframe, I think a hundred people, yeah.

Jody Campbell (00:44:40):

A hundred tickets got sold. We, and we turned it into a fundraiser for the leadership Gwinnett organization. We had, we had people watching digitally. So yeah, necessity was the mother of invention, as they say,

Matt Hyatt (00:44:52):

That’s awesome. So I, what I read here is that one of your fundraising ventures actually raised some pretty serious cash. It’s like a hundred thousand dollars. Right. Okay. How did that happen?

Kristina Blum (00:45:06):

That’s Shelly Shwarzler

Jody Campbell (00:45:06):

Where credit is due.

Matt Hyatt (00:45:09):

the library Gwinnett county library system, right?

Jody Campbell (00:45:11):

That’s Right. We MC’d their, their gala.

Kristina Blum (00:45:16):

She might have raised $200,000 if we weren’t there, Matt, again, it’s all about perspective.

Matt Hyatt (00:45:19):

I was positioning it as a win.

Jody Campbell (00:45:27):

Yeah. Here’s the thing. Uh, Kristina and I, we, what we don’t do is we don’t do any of this for credit. Okay. We’re not trying to, I mean, it’s about the mission. It’s not about us.

Kristina Blum (00:45:36):

And helping our friends.

Jody Campbell (00:45:38):

That’s right. And so when our friends need something like Shelly, who was a dear friend of both ours

Kristina Blum (00:45:41):

Oh. And an amazing woman, she’s just beautiful and brilliant and amazing. And she put together an amazing event.

Jody Campbell (00:45:48):

Yeah. She put together an event. She goes, I need somebody to keep the energy up during the gala. And would you all do it?

Kristina Blum (00:45:52):

I think she said, she goes, it’s a library thing.

Kristina Blum (00:45:59):

I said, do you want us to read from classics while we’re up there? And she’s like “no”

Jody Campbell (00:46:03):

oh, so it’s that? So instead we did like, you know, we did some song parody and we made, we, we literally scoured the internet for every literature book pun. You could find, because we were like, we need some humor, but you know, the whole school board is going to be right there. And my wife said, so I don’t want to get her fired.

Kristina Blum (00:46:20):

It was really stupid. What we did, we started off by singing 24 karat magic by Bruno Mars.

Jody Campbell (00:46:27):

Because why not?

Kristina Blum (00:46:29):

What was the, how did, what was the song? Barry? I remember Jody, if we’re here at magic. No, but it was what was something, something magic in me. I honestly,

Jody Campbell (00:46:37):

I honestly, I honestly do not. Remember

Kristina Blum (00:46:41):

A lot of what we do, Matt is honest to God. We just try real hard to crack each other up. He can make me laugh so hard. In fact, we talk every single day in the mornings and usually I have a routine like my, my husband and I get up and we have coffee together every single morning at 6:00 AM. I have coffee with my husband. So we sit there and sometimes we’re scrolling the news and whatever, and we’re chit-chating and on the couch. And, but almost every morning, Jody and I send each other, something stupid from the internet. Like I said to him yesterday, my, what I sent him was a picture of William Defoe. And it just said, I prefer to call him William da friend.

Kristina Blum (00:47:25):

It could be something stupid, but I think our whole goal and the weird thing is we were talking about this. We’re not competitive with one another. I’ve never had, you know, as an adult right now, my friendships that I have with, I don’t know, there’s like four or five people in my life right now that my husband tells me all the time. He’s like, you can’t live without. And I’m like, I can’t. And there are people that support you and make you better. It’s not about a competition. It’s about who’s, who’s gonna love me being me. And I think that’s really special when you can find those people in your life and you have to prioritize them and make time for them and all the great things. And, but, but back to the library gala, yeah. I don’t know if it was our best work.

Jody Campbell (00:48:15):

I don’t know. I had it. I enjoyed the heck out of myself. I got to rent a tux with tails. It was great. It was putting on the Ritz.

Matt Hyatt (00:48:26):

There you go. Man. We’re really dating ourselves now.

Jody Campbell (00:48:28):

Oh yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:48:29):

Most of our listeners have never heard of that before. So I just, I just love the partnership and the friendship and the bond that the two of you have. I think it’s pretty rare. I don’t think it’s something we can go shop for. Do you agree?

Jody Campbell (00:48:45):

Absolutely. But, but, but again, I hate to sound like a broken record. It all comes back to being authentic. You know, the, the, if, if I, and I talked about this, but if I had continued to see Kristina as judge Blum, if I was married to this, if I had prioritized in my head that the professional personas matter more than the real personal connections, I would have missed out on easily, one of the two most important relationships I have in my life. And so I cannot stress this enough. And I even said this, you know, one of the things that we do in leadership Gwinnett is we, everybody gets to give a little graduation speech. And I vividly remember mine, Matt and I, I thanked my class, I thank you. And all of our classmates for letting me, I remember it for letting me be the real me and for accepting me as the real me and for, for realizing that I’m more than just my job. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think you’re right. What Kristina and I have is, is, is rare, but it doesn’t have to be, if you just give yourself permission to be the real, you, people will accept you people and you will find those kindred spirits and those kindred souls and y’all will find a way to utilize each other’s talents.

Kristina Blum (00:50:12):

But I don’t think it’s that simple because what’s interesting is, you know, I tell people all the time at this point in my life and my career, I’ve, I’ve gotten to the point where I am the same person sitting in a boardroom with, you know, uh, at th when I was on judicial council with the Supreme court justice and, you know, for Georgia Supreme court and all this, I’m the same person sitting in that room say, you’re gonna get the same Kristina that you would having a beer with me, you know? And I always say, I don’t want to worry about which version of myself I gave you.

Matt Hyatt (00:50:41):

I think that’s so important. I think that’s a super key thing. I don’t want people to miss it. It is so important to be the same person. It’s a lot of work. If you’ve had your professional persona and your personal persona, your persona with your spouse, right. So better to just one persona applies everywhere.

Kristina Blum (00:51:01):

Okay. So, so when you talk about it, you know, saying I’m the same person in this boardroom is that I am, if you have a beer with me, it’s not, it’s just not that simple and, and achieving these kinds of adult friendships. A lot of it is you every day, you should be figuring out who you are and what you like and what motivates you. And I had a, at somebody in my office the other day, and they’re like, I don’t like doing that. It’s not a job. I enjoyed. I go, well, then you need to take from that, the gift you were given, which is, I know what I don’t want to do. And, and I, and I, I say like having friends like Jody and things like that, and what we do is trying to figure out what I like to do and who I really am and what my purpose is.

Kristina Blum (00:51:43):

And I think the greatest saw sadness or sorrow that some adults in our, you know, middle when you hit middle age is that they get, so quagmired in a routine that they don’t know, they go to work, they go home, they watch, I don’t watch a lot of TV. And when I do, it’s really, really bad TV, I’ll play that. But, but, you know, I think people forget to learn and get to, forget to experience. And they’re like, I’m tired, I’m this and that. And, you know, trying new and different things is something that everybody should do. Like Jody and I made a goal this year to do three adventure races, the Spartan, the Savage, and the tough Mudder. We did the tough Mudder last Saturday. And we did it in the torrential pouring freezing rain.

Matt Hyatt (00:52:29):

Oh yeah. Crazy rain. Yes. Yes.

Kristina Blum (00:52:33):

I cannot exaggerate the amount of mud and it was 11 and a half miles. It was really bad. And there were times I wanted to quit. Like, I was like, why am I doing this? And then I’m like, you know what? Cause I can, and I will. And I willed myself through it and Jody and I were talking about it. And I said, you know, I’m ashamed to say, I felt like quitting. A couple of times, my knees were killing me because people were slipping right. And left. There were miles, seven to 10 were in what I called the torture forest, just running through mud. This thick people wiping out all over the place. My knees were killing me because the mud was just so punishing. We were freezing soaking wet. And there were a lot of obstacles that were really scary too. And I was like, I think in my head that quit, quit, quit kept coming up.

Kristina Blum (00:53:17):

And Jody was like, I would never have let you do that. He goes, and I go, and, and you know what? I kept going because I was like, he’s not going to let me quit and, and having those kinds of things and okay, so you don’t want to go out and do a tough Mudder, our bet, our other best friend, Molly McAuliffe who’s principal at Stripling elementary, she is, she’s doing her first adventure race this weekend up in ASCA doing it’s a bike canoe is eight hours, bike, mountain biking, canoeing, and trekking. So for sure, but it’s that experience. And well you know, we just came back from skiing, Lindsay. Campbell’s like, I’ve never skied and it’s that. And she tried it and did it and took the lessons. But it’s that constant. Like if you’re not every day is an experience. And that’s what I never, I hate missed opportunities.

Kristina Blum (00:54:07):

I hate missed opportunities. So w when I wake up in the morning, I’m like, what am I going to get to do today? And what problem am I going to get to solve? And, and I think people in a, in a weird way, people forget that. So my relationship with Jody, he never lets me forget that. And as much as I’m the big sister of the relationship, he’s taught me two very valuable things that I keep very close to me. And I usually, I don’t have it on today, but I usually have a bracelet. One time we were doing some stupid musical. I don’t know what we were doing. It was pretty stupid. It was a long time ago. And I was playing Maria and he was Captain Van Trap. And we’re about to perform this. And I always do this thing. I freak out before. We’re about to do this. I’m like so stupid because I’m like, I go, this even pushes my limits for stupidity. And I’m sitting there and I kept cracking up and messing up and messing up. And Jody looks at me and I’m not gonna swear on your podcast, but he goes, handle your stuff.

Kristina Blum (00:55:06):

Yeah. And I, and I thought about that phrase and I thought, that’s really just all you need to do every day, every day. I just need to end. So we all have bracelets that say, H Y S.

Matt Hyatt (00:55:20):

oh, nice.

Kristina Blum (00:55:21):

That’s reminds you just handle it. And, and the other thing Jody taught me, the lesson that he taught me as a friend is, is he goes by whatever crisis. Number one.

Matt Hyatt (00:55:36):

I’m ready.

Kristina Blum (00:55:37):

Don’t freak out. And I tell them, I use that in court all the time. I was like there’s because my job has a high level of emergency. My court is very emergency room. There are dramas and traumas every day. And I always say, I always tell people, we’re going to see good people on their worst day. So how are we gonna handle that? And, but, but when my staff or anybody gets like, oh my gosh, this is, I go rule number one, don’t freak out. And I’m so Jody, Jody has taught me those two things that have measured sort of, you know, how, how we integrate with one another. But having that ability, when you achieve these adult friendships to figure out what you like. And if I always say there’s three people in your life, there’s people, you tolerate, people you like, and people you need and, and, and prioritizing. Those are the people you have to find. Yeah.

Jody Campbell (00:56:34):

Th the only thing I’ll add to that, Matt is, and I agree with you, Kristina. We are always learning one thing. My father-in-law did this. I remember just being really weird. I started, I’ve been with my wife since we were 17. Okay. Yeah. We’ve been, we’ve been married for.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:52):

She’s a patient person.

Kristina Blum (00:56:52):

She is.

Jody Campbell (00:56:52):

the most patient woman ever. Yeah, no, we’ve, we’ve been, this is our 17th year of being married. We’ve been together for 23, but I went over to dinner at their house. And at every time I was over there, we’d sit down and my father-in-law would go around the table and go, what did you learn today? Because if you didn’t learn something today, you’re dead. Okay. You learn something every single day. And that’s part of the learning about yourself, learning what you like. My point about the authenticity and being your authentic self is simply in doing that. You’re going to find the companions that are going to help you in that self exploration. And here’s my example of that Kristina’s life partner, my law partner, Jim Kay, when we opened up Blum n’ Campbell, you know, Jim and I had, we knew each other, we respected each other. We practice law in the same area. So we

Kristina Blum (00:57:38):

Vacation together.

Jody Campbell (00:57:41):

But on a professional level, we had interacted many a times. Right. But that’s, we, that’s how we knew each other first day, first day at Blum n’ Campbell, he comes in. And do you remember what he was wearing, Kristina? I do.

Kristina Blum (00:57:55):

I don’t know. Probably khakis and a golf shirt.

Jody Campbell (00:57:57):

That’s exactly right. He was wearing polo

Jody Campbell (00:57:59):

Tucked in with press khakis and loafers. I was wearing a pair of jeans, not jeans, but they were like, you know, like casual pants, flip flops and a t-shirt.

Matt Hyatt (00:58:10):

Oh, wow.

Jody Campbell (00:58:11):

Do you know what Jim is wearing today? A pair of jeans, a t-shirt and flip-flops. And I don’t know if it’s for the better, but, but, but, but the point being the point being is that, you know, that’s, that’s one of those examples of does that define who you are or is there more to it than that? You know, everybody knows Jim Blum was one of the most well-respected real estate litigators in the state. I mean, people who are friends call Jim and say, I’ve got this case. What would you do, Jim? And guess what? They’re going to do that, regardless of where, whether he’s wearing a button-down shirt or t-shirt because Jim Blum is Jim Blum. Right? And so part of being that authentic self and finding what you like and what you’re comfortable with, and don’t get me wrong when we’re in court, we’re suit and tie. When we’re getting with clients wear suit and ties, that’s really more about their expectations than our expectations of our own. Right. But part of what Kristina is talking about is she’s so right. Life is a constant evolving process of, you know, finding what, who you are, what you like and finding those people that are going to help you in that journey.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:21):

So we’re going to jump into our lightning round and this. So this is the question that we ask each of our guests, we get to ask two people. So we have, I guess, six answers coming at this time. So, uh, let’s, let’s dive right into that. I want to know for each of you tell us one person that’s made a profound impact on your journey.

Jody Campbell (00:59:40):

Oh, are we not allowed to say each other?

Kristina Blum (00:59:42):

Jody, Of course.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:44):

Yeah, of course.

Jody Campbell (00:59:51):

Okay. So this is what I say that Kristina is the sister that God gave me 30 years too late. I have two brothers who I love dearly. I can’t wait for you to be ready, Jody. You had to wait for it to be ready. It’s overwhelming. Kay being your friend is sometimes a little bit overwhelming. I have two brothers who I love dearly, who I’m very, very close to, but, but you know, like I said, like Kristina is my sister. I mean, my kids call her aunt. Kay. There’s just,

Matt Hyatt (01:00:30):

that’s awesome.

Jody Campbell (01:00:31):

When I, when I’m booking a trip or I’m thinking of doing something immediately, I think. All right. So it’s going to be me, my family, Kristina, Jim, her son will come her daughter, Maya she’s college aged. So she doesn’t think we’re cool anymore. Oh, wait, no, this trip might be cool enough. She will come on this one. It, it just it’s, you know how there’s people in your life that you just can’t think about doing something without them, Kay’s, that person. For me, obviously with my wife being on top of the pyramid, I feel like that’s fairly important for us

Matt Hyatt (01:01:05):

Of course.

Kristina Blum (01:01:08):

I mean, I only have one sister. So Jody is the brother I’ve never had. And he, he, yeah. I mean, he’s, I think our relationship, I think, you know, when people talk about, we laugh, nobody ever says Kristina or Jody, Kristina, it’s always Jody, Kristina, Jody Kristina. And, and we, you know, Jody, I think again, you know, as I, as I, my kids are now, I have a freshman at Georgia tech and then I have a sophomore in high school, my sophomore in high school, my son worships Lindsay Campbell. That is his person. But, but I I’m thankful because the things that I, I love my job, I love my mission. And I, of course, Warren Davis, the guy I told you about at the beginning, judge Davis, who called me changed the course of everything. Cause he saw something in me. I didn’t see in myself. And he, and he made me think, Hey, there’s something different for you that maybe your purpose hasn’t been fulfilled yet. And I still don’t think it has, but I’m happy doing what I’m doing right now. And that’s all that matters. But with, with Jody, as my friend, I think getting, getting to have that kind of relationship and friendship has made me a whole lot more comfortable being me and who I am. And, and we had an argument cause we do, we do pick at each other. Well,

Matt Hyatt (01:02:35):

Brother and sister, that’s pretty typical. Yeah.

Kristina Blum (01:02:39):

but I, I did have this conversation with my husband the other day because I said, you know, Jody and I got a TIFF and then we had lunch and we were staring at each other across the table and there’s no anger cause we can move past it. But, but it was like, here’s what I think I did that made you angry and I’m sorry, but here’s what you did. And we had this completely grown up conversation about it and then realized afterwards, I almost felt like, wow, that was pretty evolved of us. And, and, and when you have a comfort level with someone that you can really just say, what’s on your mind. And I, I think my life is enhanced because of the friendships I have. I, I have a fullness and a completeness that I don’t want to take for granted with the women and the men that I get to be part of their lives. And I certainly have integrated them into mind. So being thankful for that, that’s why I lay my head on the pillow at night with a smile.

Matt Hyatt (01:03:44):

Awesome. So tell us, what’s, what’s the single most important lesson you think you’ve learned in your professional career so far?

Kristina Blum (01:03:52):

For me, it’s always, always, always developing the next round of leaders. You should always be training your replacement. My, how I got to where I am and the success I have. I do not believe is any short measure from the investment I put in other people. I mean, people don’t follow you because you have a fancy title. People follow you because you’re worth being followed. And, and I think every day I come in, I was here late last night with one of my newer judges. Who’s just a doll and she’s such a gem and she’s got all the right goods and treats people the way they should be treated. And there was an issue. So we sat and worked through it. But I think, I don’t think we care for our community enough unless we’re worried about who’s coming behind us and make sure that we are sharing the knowledge and the lessons we’ve learned and make sure we’re investing in other people’s success. Because I take great pride when people I have helped or mentored or worked with, have a success. And I think that’s super important for anyone in a profession to make sure that we’re protecting the people in the future, by building up the leaders behind us,

Jody Campbell (01:05:07):

That’s spot on, for me there is the single greatest component to personal and professional success is honesty, honesty, in who you are and, and, and how you interact with people. Come, I keep sound like a broken record. People know? Yeah. The, the craziness, the lunacy, the Fernet facism, which is an actual word, Kristina and I had this conversation this morning about it. That’s who I am all the ridiculous shenanigans that Kristina and I do. That’s the authentic me, you know, in my profession, there’s a lot of people that have a very traditional sense of, or impression of what lawyers are. And, and that is that you can be yourself and still be respected and trusted as a legal advisor. People trust me with their lives, their businesses, their livelihoods, their families.

Kristina Blum (01:06:00):

He’s a really good lawyer,

Jody Campbell (01:06:01):

but, but you know, here’s, here’s what I I’ve, I’ve learned by being the true me by showing people the true me and by not being ashamed of that, they know that I’m authentic. They know that I’m honest. So when it’s serious Jody time, and I have to give you serious advice, you can take it to the bank. That it is my truly held belief, because if it’s not my truly held belief, I’d probably end with jazz hands or some other kind of, you know, pun or joke or something. So just being honest, be honest in, in who you are at all times, and people will accept you and trust you.

Matt Hyatt (01:06:42):

Any current books or a favorite podcast.

Kristina Blum (01:06:46):

Um, I’m reading a book right now. One of my, one of my other really, really best friends, his name is Steve Pereira. He went to key west last week. He and his wife, Alisa are two of my dearest friends. There are two of my dearest friends and we last year we went to key west. It was the one trip that survived the COVID and we went down there and I had this great idea. I thought, Hey, it’s going to be really fun. Let’s read Hemingway and discuss it in Key West.

Matt Hyatt (01:07:20):

That sounds actually kind of cerebral.

Kristina Blum (01:07:21):

So Steven, who I love goes, Kristina its great. I love it. And then his wife Alisa in who’s a brilliant lawyer. She goes maybe. And then, my husband’s like, I ain’t reading it. So the only two that read the book for me and Steve and we got down there and we discussed the book and key west, and it was really kind of an interesting thing.

Kristina Blum (01:07:42):

So we got, when we decided that we have our book club, which my son says, can’t be a book club. It’s just two of us. So we, we read, then we decided we were going to read some of the classic literature just to go back and discuss it as adults, rather than high school kids that they make you read. So we read as I lay dying by Faulkner and we had a book discussion about that. And then we read wise blood by from Flannery O’Connor and now we are reading right now. The heart is a lonely hunter by Carson McCullers.

Jody Campbell (01:08:11):

You note the very dark theme here. Yeah. Honestly, it’s more of like a therapy session for some really depressed people.

Kristina Blum (01:08:20):

I will say when we discussed, as I lay dying, we went to a coffee shop on a Friday afternoon and we, we discussed the book for two hours and then we took our guitars and we played guitars in the park for an hour afterwards. Wow. We met, we met our spouses for beer. It was great. Book club.

Jody Campbell (01:08:41):

So my book, uh, so I’m mostly a pleasure reader. So like, you know, I have, I have kids that are young teenagers, young adults. So a lot of Harry Potter, a lot of Percy Jackson, but one of the things that I do, my, my oldest daughter is a big swimmer and I’ve managed my neighborhood swim team. And so I’m, I’m managing, I’m literally running, swim meets, and you can only imagine, like I’m pumping music, I’m making it a party atmosphere and, um, you know, rooting on kids that aren’t mine, et cetera, et cetera. And a parent walked up to me. She goes, you remind me of Bob Golf. Oh. And I was like, I don’t know who Bob Goff is. I had no idea. I had no idea. And so she bought me, the book loved us. And so I just finished. Love does. And then during COVID during the quarantine in, in, in February, March, April, um, I don’t, Kristina has a job that, of course like it lends itself to crisis management.

Jody Campbell (01:09:39):

Okay. The, the courts have got to keep running. There are so many to work touches every day and it touches so many people. Kristina had to be on every single day and she was solving some of our community’s greatest problems during COVID. Well, I was sitting at home helping my daughters with math homework. Okay. And I did that because my wife is sitting at home teaching her kids. And so I had to stay home and kind of be the support system for my, my daughters. But every single day at five o’clock, I put on a costume of some kind like Gilligan or Mario or Centaur. And I would walk around the neighborhood with my dogs. And I literally, my neighbors would come to the end of their driveway with lawn chairs and sit and wait for me to walk by. What’s Jody, going to do today. And that was fine.

Kristina Blum (01:10:36):

Protecting the community, man. We all add

Matt Hyatt (01:10:39):

Value, right? Yeah.

Jody Campbell (01:10:41):

You know, some people, some people’s strengths are stronger than others, but again, I, if, even if I was able to give people five minutes of a distraction from the struggles of COVID, I was going to do it. And, and so a friend of mine, a friend from high school actually works for Bob golf’s publisher. He reached out to me and said, Hey, have you read Bob golf? I said, it’s funny. You mentioned that I’m in the middle of love. Does he goes, I’m going to send you his next book. Everybody always. Oh, so I’m now in the middle of that,

Kristina Blum (01:11:11):

Just on a total side note, this is another fun, weird random fact about us, Matt, whenever we go on vacation, we take a costume with us. We, our Amazon carts are constantly filled with them. I literally just bought a pound of banana Laffy taffy. It came this week,

Jody Campbell (01:11:31):

So,

Kristina Blum (01:11:33):

Oh, Jody. And it’s our favorite candy? So, well, pixie sticks are mine, but banana laffy taffy. So the costumes like the centaur costume, he mentioned was a purchase that we were sitting in his office. And I was like, I think I know what I’m going to get you for your birthday. I’m going to get you or for your anniversary a centaur costume. Cause Lindsay teaches Latin and he bought it before I did. And it came to the office and he put it on and showed it like an inflatable centaur in the back. And we brought it to Spain and it was two o’clock in the morning. We were in Madrid and are the normals as we call them, went to bed. So Mia, Jody and Molly grab the centaur costume, which we had packed and taken to Spain, went to a national Monument, cross four lanes of traffic with this and did a photo shoot. Jody is, the centaur standing in front of this national monument.

Jody Campbell (01:12:23):

Its a triumphal art.

Kristina Blum (01:12:25):

had to fluff up the centaur

Matt Hyatt (01:12:31):

That seems sort sorta, seems dangerous to me. Like, I don’t know. I think I would be afraid that I was breaking some local ordinance.

Kristina Blum (01:12:37):

We weren’t sure. And I may not be able, I may not be welcome back in Spain. I don’t know

Jody Campbell (01:12:41):

I have confidence in my legal abilities to talk my way,

Kristina Blum (01:12:46):

But we did that with a Viking costume in Iceland. We brought a Viking costume to Iceland. We brought,

Jody Campbell (01:12:52):

We brought a Sasquatch costume to big sky.

Kristina Blum (01:12:54):

That was my birthday. Present to Jody was a full Sasquatch costume because Jody and I also have jackets and all the gear to hunt bigfoot

Jody Campbell (01:13:04):

Yeah. And if y’all want to, if anybody wants to see these photos, I’m not shy. I put them on my Facebook, just Jody Campbell on Facebook go to last year and you’ll see my costume parade every single day.

Matt Hyatt (01:13:14):

Well, I, as, as a casual internet observer, I certainly enjoyed pulling up Facebook every once in a while. I think I logged in just for that, just to see what Jody was up to. That’s pretty awesome. So that’s how social media, all right. So that actually leads me to my next question. When people want to learn more about the two of you and what you’re doing, what’s the best way to reach you or learn more about you

Jody Campbell (01:13:37):

For Kristina its to get arrested.

Kristina Blum (01:13:39):

No, no

Kristina Blum (01:13:44):

I’m always just excited to show people the, what the justice, you know, what you see in the news and what you see. I mean, the people I work with and the things that are getting done, there’s so much more good going on in bad. And the bad is what only gets focused on. I always say this, I go, there’s so much more good in the world, but the bad is just a lot louder, the bad, so much louder. So I always, if anybody’s really interested about coming to court, watching hearings or things like that, or they have an interest in it, they just email me. I mean, I don’t, I don’t have screeners or people, you know, or stuff like that, but just email me. It’s [email protected] and it’s K R I S T I N A dot B L U M Gwinnettcounty.com. And if I’m not the right person, I’m happy to find the right person, always happy to share. And quite frankly, show off some of the amazing things our court system is doing for the community.

Matt Hyatt (01:14:38):

I love it. Jody?

Jody Campbell (01:14:39):

for me, for me, it’s, you know, I have a legal need. Give me a call. No, I’m easy way to find me is to go.

Matt Hyatt (01:14:48):

No, you’re not kidding.

Matt Hyatt (01:14:51):

Seriously. If you have a legal need, then we’re going to,

Jody Campbell (01:14:54):

Yeah. If you have a legal need, or if you just want to grab a cup of coffee or a beer. Give me a call. I don’t care if you’re

Kristina Blum (01:14:59):

Watching this Jody, how, how

Jody Campbell (01:15:03):

I was getting there, but I got interrupted. Go to Blum Campbell, B L U M, Campbell, like the soup, blumcampbell.com. Or you can email me at Jody, which is [email protected]. And watch this. I don’t even mind doing this. I’ll give you my cell phone number 770-712-0923. Give me a call. We’ll grab a beer.

Matt Hyatt (01:15:27): I love it. I love it. On that note. It’s time to wrap things up, Kristina and Jody from myself and our audience. Thank you for joining me today and to our listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Should you have any suggestions for future topics? You’d like to hear about email us at [email protected]. And finally, before we sign off, I’d like to provide our security focus listeners. With a limited time offer throughout the remainder of 2021 rocket. It is providing audience members with access to its phishing testing and security training platform. Completely free of charge to see if you’re eligible for this offer, simply visit rocket it.com/phishing. That’s P H I S H I N G. Thank you. Thank you, Jody. Thank you, Kristina. Awesome job today.

Have you ever wondered how some of today’s most well-known businesses craft the perfect office cultures for innovation and creativity? In this episode of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, we sit down with Halogenex President and business coaching extraordinaire, Lee Wolfe to hear how he’s helped shape major players, such as Chick-fil-A, IBM, Fujifilm, Emory University, and General Mills.

Through his expertise, Lee continues to help business owners create cultures of high-performance, while empowering people to shine brighter and embrace their talents. And now, with his more recent involvement with Convene, Lee is looking to connect leaders who want to develop best practices and maximize performance.

Lee Wolfe | 770.979.3467 x2 | [email protected]

Rocket IT | 770.441.2520 | [email protected]

Halogenex

Convene

RightNow Media

Ryan Bonilla : (00:00)
Today’s episode is brought to you by Rocket IT. Is your team still working remotely? Is it starting to look like a more permanent solution? Let us help you streamline that experience and increase productivity by creating a reliable network, increasing collaboration and boosting security. Click the link in this video description for more information about Rocket IT’s remote workforce roadmap.

Matt Hyatt : (00:37)
Hello everyone and welcome to episode 23 of the Rocket IT business podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt. And today we’re talking with my friend and business coaching extraordinary Mr. Lee Wolf. For the past 31 years, Lee has served as the president of Halogenex serving as both a coach and consultant to organizations like Chick-fil-A, IBM, Fujifilm, Emory university, General Mills, and even Rocket IT. Through his expertise, Lee continues to help business owners create cultures of high performance while empowering people to shine brighter and embrace their talents. And now with his more recent involvement with Convene Lee is looking to connect leaders who want to develop best practices and maximize performance. Lee, welcome to the show.

Lee Wolfe: (01:19)
Thank you, Matt.

Matt Hyatt : (01:20)
Super glad to have you here. You and I have known each other for a good long time and you have been helping my team and we have seen the result of your influence on the organization. And so I wanted to give our listeners an opportunity to spend some time with you, because they don’t know you. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background. What is your professional background and how did you get into the coaching business?

Lee Wolfe: (01:45)
Well, I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree I got from University of Georgia. I have experienced organizational dynamics is varied as the army and Fortune 50 corporation and family business have everything from a business size to different industries. And what I’ve found is that people who are running businesses, executives, need somebody that they can rely on. Somebody they can talk to. Somebody that has expertise to be able to relate to their conditions and their struggles.

Matt Hyatt : (02:25)
You know, it’s funny you say that. Absolutely correct, executives do need people that they can talk to. And I have several times in the past told folks that being an entrepreneur or a business owner can be a very lonely experience because if things aren’t going well, or if there’s stress and, in our lives, there are not many folks that we can talk to. We can’t talk to our employees about it because that would scare them and probably make things more, less stable, right. Less stable than they might otherwise be. We can’t talk to our customers about it. And we most certainly can’t go home and talk to our spouse about it because that was here, that person too. And so having someone from the outside that’s maybe not directly vested from a financial perspective can be very helpful, just distant being able to talk. And I imagine that’s true with managers too. You know, they, if, if someone’s struggling, they don’t want to go to their boss and say, Hey, I’m really struggling here. Can you help me? Because that might put them on shaky ground and, and all the other same dynamics must most apply.

Lee Wolfe: (03:37)
That’s true.

Matt Hyatt : (03:38)
Did you start out thinking, you know, someday I’d like to, to be, a business consultant or is that something that kinda came along later?

Lee Wolfe: (03:47)
No, I was pretty much thrust into it as, um, when our family business was acquired. I, um, show the acquiring company what needed to be done. And they were very impressed and worked with them for five years. And they finally said, come show us nationally what you do locally.

Matt Hyatt : (04:13)
Oh, really? Wow.

Lee Wolfe: (04:15)
So I started working with the 50 or so locations that they had nationally helping them improve their performance. And that’s how my consulting business began.

Matt Hyatt : (04:27)
Wow.

Lee Wolfe: (04:27)
It was an internal consulting effort and it worked out well.

Matt Hyatt : (04:34)
It’s a huge spread between companies like General Mills. everybody knows that that organization. Chick-fil-A a lot of folks know that organization and small businesses like Rocket IT and others. And I know you’ve worked with a number of locally based businesses here in Gwinnett County. How in the world do you manage the differences between those I I’ve struggled. I’d just give you an example. I know that I have struggled and I’ve talked to you about this in the past. Even hiring somebody out of a large organization to bring them into a small organization. Often there’s such a culture shock there.

Lee Wolfe: (05:09)
Yeah.

Matt Hyatt : (05:09)
That’s a difficult transition. How do you, how do you find that working in those different, you have to sort of put a different hat on when you go into these different organizations?

Lee Wolfe: (05:19)
Not really.

Matt Hyatt : (05:22)
Really?

Lee Wolfe: (05:22)
The issues of business are the same, no matter what the size is.

Matt Hyatt : (05:26)
Interesting.

Lee Wolfe: (05:27)
You get to hierarchy this much stronger in a larger business, but the issues are almost identical from one organization to another. So it’s a matter of working through the structure of whatever the company has from a communication and coordination standpoint and a leadership standpoint. But when you’re working at the top of an organization, which is what I do there, they’re very, very similar.

Matt Hyatt : (06:00)
How about that? I wouldn’t have guessed that. Tell us about the name Halogenex where did that come from?

Lee Wolfe: (06:06)
It’s we decided that we were interested in shining a light on problems and solutions and the halogen bulb is the most bright, bold that you can, you can acquire. So halogen is the first part of the name to reflect what we do and EX is for excellence, which has to do with the results. So we shine a light and we create excellence in results. So in our name, we have our mission.

Matt Hyatt : (06:40)
I love it. Yeah. That’s, that’s very nice. I had actually thought about that before, but, I love how you put that together. So tell me I’ve I often refer to you and I often introduce you to my friends and colleagues as our business coach. I have gotten the impression, maybe that’s not your favorite description. You think of yourself maybe as a business consultant or a mentor. Tell us a little bit about what does Halogenex do. How do you describe the organization?

Lee Wolfe: (07:10)
Well, business performance consulting is a fundamental that we use. Executive coaching comes with that, or it can be separate depending upon the need of the organization. And both are supported by behavior profiles that we use in order to expedite results in working with people.

Matt Hyatt : (07:35)
Got it. Do you have a preference? Do you find it more fun to work with large organizations or small ones?

Lee Wolfe: (07:41)
No. I prefer to work locally. I have traveled enough in my career. I don’t need that anymore. I don’t need to wear out any more seats on the aircraft.

Matt Hyatt : (07:59)
Right. How’s the Zoom and Teams deal working out for you?

Lee Wolfe: (08:03)
It works, okay. I missed the interpersonal relationship, which I think most people do, but the thing I appreciate the most about it is the commute time.

Matt Hyatt : (08:14)
Yeah. It’s a lot easier, right?

Lee Wolfe: (08:16)
Yeah.

Matt Hyatt : (08:16)
I know for our team, we’ve got some folks that are closer to, services like high-speed internet and some are a little further away. And so that’s one challenge that we’ve run into a little bit is just sometimes if somebody is not got a great internet connection and I’m, I’m right here in Metro Atlanta, I don’t even have great internet at my house. And so sometimes I have to come into the office to do that. It seems like that’s working out okay for you?

Lee Wolfe: (08:41)
Yes. It’s it’s working fine.

Matt Hyatt : (08:44)
Yeah. So let’s, let’s jump into talking a little bit about businesses and some of the common pitfalls we all run into. We are all somewhat familiar with the statistics of the number of businesses that start every year and the number that fail. And it’s always rather shocking to hear how many businesses just don’t make it past their first year or five years. A lot of businesses never make it to a a hundred thousand dollars in revenue or a million dollars in revenue. And of course the statistics are worse and worse. The higher you go, what do you find are some of the potential hurdles that folks just have to eliminate out of the box if they’re going to have any kind of staying power?

Lee Wolfe: (09:27)
Well, the traditional answer to that is, is cash and cash flow. Where people are, they’re just fundamentally don’t have enough cash to start the business. But beyond that, I find that there’s other conditions that are there. I’ve found that entrepreneurs can pursue their vision too far and too fast. And, and their expectations that their unique approach to their market will create demand in the short term. It often does not. Then that result is a lack of truly objective planning and forecasting that identifies significant obstacles in advance.

Matt Hyatt : (10:08)
So you think it’s a good idea to have a great business plan and kind of cash in the bank to start a business?

Lee Wolfe: (10:16)
Well, I don’t think you need a ton of cash. I think you need enough to be able to support yourself and move forward, but you also have to be realistic and what the revenue stream is going to be able to generate. And it’s, it’s, it’s one of those conditions that having some objectivity prior to the investment effort that you’re making as an entrepreneur can add a lot of benefit.

Matt Hyatt : (10:49)
You know, it’s funny, these days there seems to be this huge focus on two, two things. One is failing fast with a new business and then, and then the other is getting funded. You know, we hear that a lot, a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly in the tech world.

Lee Wolfe: (11:09)
Right.

Matt Hyatt : (11:09)
It seems like their entire focus is to get to attract venture capital funding, angel funding and get money in the door. What do you think of those two concepts?

Lee Wolfe: (11:22)
Well, I think what I’ve found is that people who are starting businesses and have a focus on their market focus in raising funds, like you’re talking about often are reticent to get assistance. The assistance that’s available, even free through SBDC, through other organizations with retired executives, for example is available to anybody. And even then they tend to resist it because they’re just single minded and single focused and narrow visioned. And that’s what gets them into trouble. More than anything else, they can create an exciting message to raise funds, but getting the, the down and dirty work done is often more difficult than they imagined.

Matt Hyatt : (12:28)
Right.

Lee Wolfe: (12:28)
The business is easy. Running a business is very simple. You run it by the numbers until people are involved, then all bets are off. So it’s the people issues that often will undo a business.

Matt Hyatt : (12:45)
So do you prefer failing fast or slow success?

Lee Wolfe: (12:51)
I think depending upon your situation, both can be okay.

Matt Hyatt : (12:54)
Really? Okay that’s really interesting. Yeah. I don’t know. As, as the, a member of a steadfast member of the slow success crowd, the failing fast thing has always sort of made me scratch my head a little bit. So go ahead.

Lee Wolfe: (13:10)
There is a significant difference between people who are successful as entrepreneurs and people who are excellent employees, and sometimes people who are excellent employees think they have the ability to start and run a business on their own. And they found out the hard way they don’t .

Matt Hyatt : (13:31)
A lot of, a lot of moving parts there, right?

Lee Wolfe: (13:33)
Yeah. It’s a different attitude that it’s a, it’s almost a sacrificial attitude that entrepreneurs have to have. They, they put themselves on the line and, and sacrifice basically everything for where they’re trying to go. Whereas employees who make that decision are losing the security that they had as an employee. And that becomes an obstacle to them and to their families. And it often can undo what they’re trying to accomplish.

Matt Hyatt : (14:06)
Right. You know, it’s funny you say that. I, I think the experience that I have seen and the people that I’ve known over the years is the, the idea of an employee turned entrepreneur. And by the way, I, I belong to that club. So I was an employee and turned an entrepreneur The ability to do that fades with age, I think. And I think it all has to do with not just what you’re used to, but also what you have to lose potentially. And so my thinking is, is that become a choosing to be, to start a business and become an entrepreneur is often something that is maybe more easily accomplished when you’re young, because you don’t have as much as risk. Maybe you don’t quiet. You know maybe you’re not married yet. Maybe you don’t have kids, a mortgage, those kinds of things. It might be easier to make that leap in your twenties or in some cases, even your teens than it might be when you’re 40, 50 or more. Do you find that to be true or, do you think that, just depends on the situation?

Lee Wolfe: (15:09)
No, I think you’re right. That’s what I’m calling security. When you, when you have a need for security and consistency, becoming an entrepreneur does not fit

Matt Hyatt : (15:22)
Right.

Lee Wolfe: (15:22)
Because you, you are risking the ultimate condition when you start a business.

Matt Hyatt : (15:30)
Well, let’s move on. So speaking of employees, I think that’s probably one of the biggest challenges you said yourself. Gosh, if it was just as simple as, “Hey, I need to have a certain amount of money in the bank and a business plan, and here’s my marketing plan and what I’m going to do,” it might be easy. Then you throw people into it and suddenly it gets complicated. How do you manage that well? And I know you’ve been involved a number of times, even with Rocket IT as we’ve attempted to find and onboard new team members. So, you know, speaking from, from experience, what do you find are some of the common pitfalls? And do you think business owners are maybe too quick or too slow to make those kinds of hiring decisions?

Lee Wolfe: (16:12)
It’s interesting. You have a question like that because in one organization you can have both conditions.

Matt Hyatt : (16:19)
Really?

Lee Wolfe: (16:19)
Where you can hire too fast in certain circumstances, and you can hire far too slow in other circumstances. I’ve seen both conditions and both have serious detrimental effects on the business. Hiring or failing to hire are both based on the lack of understanding of the needs of the business from a personnel standpoint. This includes defining job requirements, recruit, planning, and selection. Proper onboarding is, is a critical aspect. And the preparation of performance-based evaluations. When those things are in place, you have a structure that you can apply and use when the need arises for personnel. The commitment and complexity required to have that be consistent and effective in a hiring process is often intimidating to an entrepreneur who functions on the fly because it’s, I know what I’m doing. Let’s just, let’s just move ahead. So they make quick decisions and hiring and firing, and the result is they find they experience very costly turnover and the turnover conditions will often prevent them from moving forward on hiring because they are just trying to avoid overhead increase. And so it’s a, it’s a kind of a self fulfilling condition that moves from one extreme to the other.

Matt Hyatt : (17:55)
Speaking from experience, that’s a ton of work putting, putting together the list of conditions under which you will hire, the job requirements, being able to assess candidates, doing the marketing necessary to attract quality candidates in the first place, onboarding new team members, just planning for that, I think could take quite a lot of energy. Is there a canned approach that can work or is this really every entrepreneur needs to sort of invent this process for themselves?

Lee Wolfe: (18:30)
It is very culture focused, Matt. So you have to have a structure that works with your environment, works with your mission, works with the purpose that you have in mind for your business because the recruiting process is very, very unique for companies who have specific needs. Here’s one of them, here’s one of them that has a high technical demand for capability and competency. Also a high demand for continual learning. So you have a culture focused that defines who you need to recruit, and all companies will have the same kind of emphasis depending upon where they are.

Matt Hyatt : (19:18)
It can become an emotional decision too, sometimes hiring or firing. We get particularly enamored of someone because of their personality or sense of humor, or even just the way that they present themselves in an interview. when maybe not always, the competency might not always kind of line up. Do you find that’s a common pitfall?

Lee Wolfe: (19:45)
It is. And in working with clients, particularly from an interview process, there is, there is a relationship that’s developed during an interview that can be deceptive. And that’s where behavior profiles come in, who can be highly objective and beneficial. But fundamentally, I like to explain to clients that hiring a person is an investment decision and thinking of it as an investment decision, you have to determine how the investment will be identified and how it will be used to be able to advance the business. So you can take a little bit more objective approach when you think of hiring in that way. Clear performance objectives and measurement are also a critical condition. In general, under achievers, negatively impact cultures. I’m going give a short answer to this very significant question here. Peer level accountability is often overlooked. When managers see potential in an employee who is underachieving, often use a sports example to demonstrate this dynamic, the decision to increase the investment with additional training, mentoring, closer supervision versus cutting losses and providing the employees opportunities elsewhere can be actually, can be supported and directed by looking at peer level personnel. This simple approach, eases management decisions to invest further and cut the losses simultaneously reinforcing the culture. I have told clients that the best possible firing decision that can be made is for peer level people to tell somebody not to come back to work.

Matt Hyatt : (21:44)
So when you say that you’re referring to the manager seeking feedback from the people that the candidate work with, or are you suggesting that the people that the candidate work with actually approach the team member and say, Hey, buddy, maybe you need to go find a different job.

Lee Wolfe: (22:08)
What I’m saying is when the culture reaches that level, where the peers feel highly competent to do exactly that, you’ve reached the pinnacle of opportunity. I have experienced that. I experienced that in my own business, and that was the one condition. I’ve only had one EOC complaint that I had to deal with.

Matt Hyatt : (22:32)
Really? Wow.

Lee Wolfe: (22:33)
And when that person came in, he came in and told me about an employee that I didn’t even realize was an employee. Was my failure. I didn’t recognize that. So I told him he needed to talk to the operations manager and he came in the office about 10 o’clock in the morning. He came back in the office about 5:30. I was impressed by that because I didn’t think bureaucrats would work that late. He said, his response to me was, I want to know how you do it. I said, what are you talking about? He said, the people that this person was working with told him not to come back to work. And I said, I wasn’t aware of that. He said, they told him that he did not measure up to their expectation of people that were going to work with them.

Matt Hyatt : (23:28)
How about that?

Lee Wolfe: (23:29)
And he said, I’m denying this, this request. And just want to know how you do that. I said, well, I didn’t do anything that was up to them.

Matt Hyatt : (23:42)
That’s great. Yeah. I don’t know. it was certainly had input from team members a number of times. Yeah. Just talking about their experience with, with coworkers, of course we’re in a pretty small organization. There’s no question, who works here and who doesn’t, but it is interesting to hear that that you’ve experienced that in one of your organizations. Well, let’s talk a little bit about raising people up inside an organization. Do you find that there are some common misconceptions when it comes to rising leaders in an organization and how, how they achieve success?

Lee Wolfe: (24:23)
Common misperceptions? I’m not sure what you mean by that.

Matt Hyatt : (24:30)
So, here’s the, here’s the common thing that happens in my industry. It certainly happened in Rocket IT, and in my peers that I’ve talked with all the time. It’s very frequent occurrence that happens. And that is that we have an amazing technologist or an amazing sales person that is a technically competent and does a great job and has become sort of the defacto next manager in the organization. Hey, this person’s so great at their job. We should get them to lead other people in the organization. And so I don’t, know that, that’s a, it just, over a long period of time, I don’t know that that’s a recipe for success. It can work, but I don’t know if it’s the path that I would recommend. So that’s an example of maybe a, a common mis perception or, or conception of, Hey, we should take our best technical folks or our best workers and promote them to managers.

Lee Wolfe: (25:29)
Right.

Matt Hyatt : (25:30)
So that’s, that’s the kind of thing that I am referring to. Do you find that, that that’s a common issue out there with other businesses?

Lee Wolfe: (25:36)
It is. And you’re exactly right. Probably the most common condition is the highest performing sales person becoming sales manager, which often is a miserable failure.

Matt Hyatt : (25:48)
Right.

Lee Wolfe: (25:50)
The same thing can be true of high tech conditions where that technical competency does not lead to leadership and the ability for people to, to manage others. That becomes a particularly personal agenda. When people have the ability to lead others, it’s recognized often by other people, even more than supervisors, more than managers would see that. So the relational aspects that are important from a leadership standpoint become even more critical when you’re promoting. And you’re looking for leaders within an organization that can accomplish and maintain the culture that you’re trying to promote and sustain.

Matt Hyatt : (26:52)
Right? I do think there’s a pretty natural concept or idea that, you know, what, if I’m, if I’m going to play say sales manager, I need someone who’s walked in those shoes, right? I need someone who’s been a successful salesperson, right. Or I’m going to put a technical manager for our, some of our clients, their engineering firms. I need somebody who’s an engineer in order to lead other engineers. Do you think that’s a true statement, or is there value in that? Or is it, you know what, no, it’s all about just leadership skills versus the technical prowess of the other roles.

Lee Wolfe: (27:32)
It depends upon the organization. You have to have people in leadership in your organization that have technical competency. You cannot have a conversation with someone about a technical issue, dealing with a customer, which is all relational without having some basis in technical competency to carry on a communication with people internally. On the other hand, you don’t have to be the highest achieving tech person in the organization. You have to be a person who is going to be accepted by the organization and, and has the ability to go challenge and support the people that report to them.

Matt Hyatt : (28:15)
Hmm. I love that. You know, we’ve, we’ve talked here on the podcast before about the support challenge matrix and how it’s so important to balance those two things to be an effective leader. And it is something that I think is a learned skill. So that’s something we often run into is, Hey, I’ve got this, this person that I think has leadership potential. They don’t have the skill set yet, but they have the technical background. For example, going back to the technical manager. Luckily I think that’s a skill that can be learned. I don’t think that necessarily folks are natural leaders. Do you agree with that or no?

Lee Wolfe: (28:59)
I think you’re probably right. That there are a few out there. There are a few who have natural ability. It just is part of their experience. They learn it in school, they learn it in sports. They learn it with their families, but it’s a rarity.

Matt Hyatt : (29:19)
Right. You mentioned that you got started in the business consulting realm because of a sale of a family business. I’d actually like to dig into that a little bit, because I think that that is something that I have found pretty common. And at least in my circles, in my industry that a lot of fellow entrepreneurs and business leaders, aren’t really planning for a future transition. And I have found that those that don’t plan for it end up near the end of their career. And, Oh my gosh, now I’ve got an emergency. I’ve got this business that I need to either unload or shut down, which can be painful for all kinds of reasons. Do you find that folks do a good job of, of planning and what are the steps that you’ve seen are most critical in that process for those that planned well?

Lee Wolfe: (30:14)
No most business owners do not plan well. I think it is a condition that is actually fearful.

Matt Hyatt : (30:23)
In what way?

Lee Wolfe: (30:25)
Too fearful for them to consider what the alternatives are. Fearful from a standpoint of having to look at yourself as potentially out of the picture and creates an anxiety that’s difficult to deal with. That is, is a fundamental condition that’s critical, just like starting a business. You need to have plans in place for transition in your business. And you never know when it’s going to happen. I have a client who has a customer who has a very successful business, locally, about 150 employees and he dropped dead at 50 years old.

Matt Hyatt : (31:19)
Oh my goodness.

Lee Wolfe: (31:20)
And had no plans, no transition. Everything is up to the estate. And it’s turning into a very, very difficult situation. The planning process for transition of business is in my mind as critical as the startup planning. Once you have a significant business going, you got to be able to have a, a plan to be able to protect your employees, to protect your business, protect your family. But oftentimes we get so caught up with running the business, enjoying what the benefits are of the business that we don’t look at the opportunity to plan for the future.

Matt Hyatt : (32:10)
Interesting. Is that something that you work with entrepreneurs on?

Lee Wolfe: (32:15)
Well, I encourage, you really need to have a team of people. You need to have your CPA. You need to have your attorney. Probably need to have a consultant to help you, but it takes a team to put that together because there’s legal obstacles. There are conditions that you start planning. There’s always transitions that will change over time, whether it’s with new legislation, whether it’s with family environments, whether it’s with environmental conditions or the condition of the business itself. So you have to be planning for flexibility and having those things addressed as part of the objective is, is critical.

Matt Hyatt : (33:04)
Yeah, I like that. Thing I’ve been doing for a number of years now is annually or biannually, depending on what’s happened in the year, meeting with our CPA and our business attorney, personal financial attorney. All of those things together has been super helpful to my family. So I liked that idea and maybe bringing a coach in and also just to make sure that the transition, that there’s a plan in place for transition, because it can come sooner than we expect. Can’t it?

Lee Wolfe: (33:37)
Exactly. Right. And it can come with opportunity as well, and it can come with somebody approaching you to buy your business, and you have to have your resources in place to be able to deal with that as well, because that can be a very unsettling condition.

Matt Hyatt : (33:52)
Right.

Lee Wolfe: (33:55)
I have a client who was about to, was expecting that they were going to conclude the sale of their business December 31st. They found out in January that the purchasing company is backing out of the deal.

Matt Hyatt : (34:12)
Oh my goodness.

Lee Wolfe: (34:13)
So those kinds of things happen and you’ve got to be prepared for whatever the eventual outcome would be.

Matt Hyatt : (34:22)
Well, I’ll tell you what, with the year that we’ve had amidst the pandemic, I think we’ve all become masters at flexibility and planning, but as we kind of look ahead, I think there’s optimism that we’re going to see an end to the pandemic sometime in 2021. But I think we all know this is, there’s a bit of a wildcard there. We don’t really know what’s going to happen. What are you advising that your clients focus on right now in this era of unknowns?

Lee Wolfe: (34:57)
Well, the conditions we have right now are, um, are so difficult for small businesses. The conditions that have been supported by the government have basically empowered large companies to be gobbling up more and more market share. Constantly evaluating market conditions and providing product solutions and support is critical for any company, but it’s going to be even more critical as we move forward. I believe that we have an opportunity coming up as we start to get back to what is not considered normal, but it’s going to be different. And, and I think it’s going to be different because things are going to move a lot faster internally and externally creating opportunities for moving quickly, having a flexible workforce, having a flexible dynamic approach to the market, being able to move quickly internally and externally is going to be important. Companies will have to accelerate access to new external opportunities at the same time, accelerating internally to meet new challenges. And those new challenges are going to come from clients that you don’t even have at this point. Customers that didn’t exist before we went through this, this stressful time. And the traditional annual goal setting is not going to work. It’s going to have to be faster objectives. It’s going to have to be identifying and setting short-term objectives that will achieve monthly or quarterly goals and be required to maintain focus and initiative. That’s going to be a shift in attitude. There’s going to be a shift in priority because the, the organization and the small company that is responsive is going to be the one that’s gonna gain the, the opportunities. And it’s going to be critical that that happen. At the same time, the internal structures are gonna be different. I doubt that we’re ever gonna return completely to just face-to-face conditions. The, the cost effectiveness of, of Zoom communications with both customers and employees is, is beyond a doubt, a benefit to the companies. I can’t see us rejecting that as we move forward, but if you take a look at it, it will accelerate the ability to communicate. It will accelerate the opportunities to communicate because it is so cost-effective and that’s going to increase and requiring additional flexibility on the small business part.

Matt Hyatt : (38:13)
You know, something you said in there, I thought fell into the easier said than done category when you were talking about how we need to be prepared to move more quickly to act on opportunities and that sort of thing, and, and not only internal, opportunities, but external opportunities. You know not too hard to say that, but boy doing it kind of left a question mark in my head a little bit, but something you said afterwards was maybe changing the velocity or the timing of our strategic planning. And that’s something we’ve been doing at Rocket IT as, you know, for some time where we transitioned from an annual strategic planning process to a quarterly strategic planning process. And that has, I think it was very lucky and fortunate that we happened to do that. I don’t know, maybe 12 months before the pandemic, was when we started doing that. And we were working with your guidance through the book the 12 Week Work Year. I think that’s what it’s called.

Lee Wolfe: (39:23)
Right.

Matt Hyatt : (39:26)
And you’re right. That was helpful to be able to just not only speed up our planning process, but make sure that we’re focused from quarter to quarter on the right things has been tremendous and really helpful. Are there other tips there that you can think of in terms of how people can prepare their businesses for that change in velocity?

Lee Wolfe: (39:45)
Yeah, I think, I think it’s going to come back even further. I think you’re going to be looking at monthly conditions.

Matt Hyatt : (39:51)
Really?

Lee Wolfe: (39:51)
And you’re going to be looking at maybe even weekly objectives, because I think you’re going to find customers becoming impatient and there’s going to be a move to move farther faster as the economy comes back and it’s going to be an opportunity to truly accelerate in that regard. I think you’re moving in the right direction. There’s no two ways about that, but you’re moving in a direction that most companies haven’t even considered at this point.

Matt Hyatt : (40:30)
Interesting.

Lee Wolfe: (40:30)
In fact, I think many have just buckled down and tried to survive.

Matt Hyatt : (40:37)
Right.

Lee Wolfe: (40:37)
Rather than looking at the opportunities to structure for thriving as the business has a potential to do.

Matt Hyatt : (40:47)
How do business owners and leaders know if they’re moving at the right pace on these kinds of things? Is there an objective way of looking at our businesses to tell whether we need to put our foot on the gas or the brake?

Lee Wolfe: (40:59)
Well, the ultimate condition is the financial measurements and that’s where employees should be very key to understanding how a particular your key leaders should understand exactly how your organization responds from a financial impact standpoint, both positive and negative, so that they can have the flexibility and the interest to move the dial in the right direction. And they don’t have to wait around and stew until somebody makes a decision to tell them what to do.

Matt Hyatt : (41:37)
Right. You know, it’s interesting that you say that. I’d remember not terribly long ago, but in the early and middle days of, of Rocket IT, a lot of thought that I put into whether to run the business as an open books, business sharing all of the nitty-gritty details with, with my team and whether that will be helpful or harmful to the business and the team to, to do that. And as you know, we eventually settled on that different team members would have access to different levels of information. And so our executive team has a complete knowledge of the full P and L versus some of our middle managers are going to have access down to the gross profit line. And then , our remaining team members, you know, they have visibility into the revenue and, nothing below the revenue line and that’s worked for us. But have you seen a move for more transparency and finances with your clients over time? Or do you find that a lot of business leaders like to keep their numbers close to their chest?

Lee Wolfe: (42:48)
Well, a lot of privately held companies do exactly that keep the numbers almost exclusively to themselves.

Matt Hyatt : (42:56)
Interesting. .

Lee Wolfe: (42:57)
And that’s a mistake what you’ve done. Let me tell you the caveat to that. The people that you share financial information with have to have the maturity, have to have the perspective, have to have both self confidence and the confidence of the owner that they will be justifiably involved in making decisions based on the financial performance. It takes a while to grow those people. They don’t come to you ready for that kind of condition. On the other hand, many privately held companies have people in place that they trust and they, they utilize as leaders in the organization, but they don’t share the financial information with them. That’s a mistake. And that is also part of what we talked about just a few minutes ago, with the transition of a business. Those people will become the most critical aspect to transitioning the business either with an acquisition or because of the change in ownership, for whatever reason, they will end up being more of the security going forward. So including them in financial disclosure is pretty critical.

Matt Hyatt : (44:20)
I totally agree. And I like, and I like that thought process. It was something you mentioned though that I think is interesting and worth diving into a little bit, as you were talking about our leaders being prepared and ready for that new information. You know, a lot of times when folks are gaining access to the finances for the first time, not only are we learning about things about, you know, how the P and L works and the balance sheet and cashflow and those kinds of things, which are the learning process there, but I think there’s also just a complete change in perspective of, Hey, I’ve been kind of looking at this from my own point of view, as an employee in the organization. And now I’m gaining a new point of view from an owner or a stakeholder perspective. Tell us a little bit about that perspective change and why it’s so important to the behavioral aspects of what we do.

Lee Wolfe: (45:21)
Well, what you’re talking about is introducing risk. And when people understand that it’s not just their personal income, that’s a priority when they’re in leaders of an organization, but it is their sense of the business opportunities and downsides their personal risk associated with it just as the owner, has dealt with for the entire time he’s owned the business. And that sense of risk becomes a factor that is critical for decision-making and long-term benefit for the leaders in the organization. That’s often not understood by owners of companies and they see it as more as revealing the secrets of their business, rather than forcing the opportunities on people, their leaders in particular, to share the burden and to be able to understand what’s necessary to run a business and.

Matt Hyatt : (46:27)
Well, I’ll tell you why. And I love that Lee. I think that’s so important for people to understand. And I think I went a long time without really understanding it. You know, there are certainly fear as a business owner of, Oh my goodness. If I pull back the curtains and show folks, you know, how the business works and how it makes money and how much money it makes that there might be some sort of a revolt or surprise or something like that. And, and, and I’m not suggesting that isn’t the case every time, it might, that might actually be the case sometimes. But I think that idea of introducing risk when you are inviting one of your team members to share in the knowledge of how the mechanics of how the business makes money and what the effect of, decisions are on that, that important fuel for the organization. The ultimate result if done successfully is that it is no longer the sole burden of the owner or the leader to worry about that risk. And having other people involved has been well, it’s made a huge difference in my life. And so I think that’s super important. I’m glad you, you mentioned it.

Lee Wolfe: (47:49)
Well, I’m glad you’re experiencing it very positively.

Matt Hyatt : (47:55)
The alternative doesn’t sound fun at all.

Lee Wolfe: (47:57)
Well, the alternative is picking the wrong person and not structuring the way you introduced the information properly and you have done it properly. So it’s working and that’s the way it should be.

Matt Hyatt : (48:11)
Not that not to say that there weren’t any bumps in the road, you know, there’ve been things that we’ve worked through, but having, having a coach help us out with that, not working, not only working with me, but working directly with some of our leaders, I think has been super helpful. So let’s talk about coaching for just a second, because I think that many times, again, just speaking from my experience with peers, friends that, that run other businesses, there’s this idea that, well, I, you know what Lee, I think I had this when, when I first contacted you for the very first time we talked, I talked with you about the fact that I felt that I needed a business coach, and you helped me understand that it wasn’t just me, that there are other people in the organization that needed some outside perspective also. And ultimately that made a huge difference in my business. And I’m grateful for that. Tell me a little bit about the transformation that people might see when they invite a coach into a business, especially if that coach has influence in other parts of the organization, besides just the leader of the organization.

Lee Wolfe: (49:28)
Well, my experience has been when I start at the executive level, the top, the owner, the CEO of an organization, that it grows to the next level as well, because the transition is important as the executive owner of the business is looking to transform or build or sustain or promote their culture. Typically the transformation requires that they have people that are directly reporting to them involved and supporting, and being able to understand what’s going on and how it’s going to be transformative for the entire corporation. It’s the culture of every business is driven by the top, it’s driven by the executives. And when you’re talking about transformational culture change, it is a very important condition that requires more than one person driving the bus. So it’s important to understand who is going to be actually promoting the process and, and developing the culture and sustaining it as it moves forward. And that’s not quite often understood. Every, every company has a culture and it’s always driven by the owner or executive of the organization, but they don’t often understand that it’s either driven and developed by default, which is around their own personality or it’s driven and promoted by direct planning. And the planned culture is far more effective than the default culture. So the transformation of a culture becomes a critical condition that really requires leadership beyond just the owner of the business.

Matt Hyatt : (51:28)
I love that because, and again, you know, I’m speaking a lot from my own personal experience, growing a business from one person up, there was a period of time there where, you know, especially early, early on, you are 100%, you’re doing everything. We’ve joked many times about being the technician and the salesperson and the bookkeeper, the marketing person, so on, but then eventually you’ve got to hand over some of those reigns and bring other people into the organization and let it go. And, that includes, I’m not saying I’m not suggesting that folks outsource culture building to their leaders, but that is an effect what, what can happen as the other leaders in the organization have more influence, they can impact the culture. And of course, as the leader of the organization, we want to keep that thing on rails and working in the same direction.

Lee Wolfe: (52:24)
Right. That’s a critical leadership focus because you’re talking about a shift from being individually responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen to now being responsible for others who have the same requirement to be responsible for what fails to happen or what does happen positively.

Matt Hyatt : (52:49)
So Lee, when you go in and work with these very diverse organizations, large and small from all kinds of different industries, are there some common benchmarks that you use to measure progress and make sure that you’re feeling confident that we’re moving in the right direction?

Lee Wolfe: (53:03)
Yes. I think probably communication effectiveness is number one. When I hear an owner CEO, tell me, this is what I think we’re doing and how we’re doing and I find from their direct reports that they have a completely different opinion. That’s a cause for concern, right? The other is achievement of prioritized goals when things are prioritized and the achievement is working in the right direction and it’s consistent with where the owner wants to go. Then that’s a farming condition. Technical condition is a three 60 feedback tool, which gives the owners and the leaders in the organization the opportunity to see what the opinions of the organization are. The ultimate goal obviously is the achievement of the business and the performance of the business. And those things tend to tend to blossom. And I have been told by many clients, I had no idea we could reach this. We could do this well, right. It’s.

Matt Hyatt : (54:18)
The ultimate compliment, right?

Lee Wolfe: (54:19)
Well, it’s a compliment to them because they had the resources and the energy and the capability all along. It was just a matter of structuring it so that they could achieve it.

Matt Hyatt : (54:30)
You mentioned some of the different personalities at work earlier in our conversation. And yeah, I’ve seen this play out in my organization. And what I’ve come to believe is that some folks are more natural task oriented people. So they feel success by having a list of things to do and checking the box and making sure that those things get done. And then others and, and I think I fall into this category, prefer to spend their time sort of thinking about what the future is going to be like. And they tend to, you know, a lot of times folks would refer to me as a dreamer, for example, because I’m thinking about what you know is going to happen 10 years from now. And I quickly get bored with some of the task-based things of, of getting things done. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs are faced with a very difficult challenge of being good at both. Do you find that folks make the transition to successful leader that they’re wired in a particular way? Or do you think that’s accessible to everyone?

Lee Wolfe: (55:43)
I think you’ve made the transition very successfully. You have moved from the task oriented focus, which is required to be successful initially to a more visionary condition, which is, when you’ve got a successful business, is much more satisfying to the owner to be able to guide and direct the business from, from a vision standpoint, rather than having to check off the boxes and deal with it from a task standpoint. Not everyone can make that transition, Matt. And what happens with those who can’t? They end up stagnating. They end up being able to only move as far as their personal capacity can allow the organization to move. They end up either with a burnout condition or they end up selling their business, but it is not, they’re not able to transform both themselves and the company to achieve much higher levels. That is not an uncommon condition. And it’s unfortunate, but it’s a matter of the decision process that the individual owner makes. If they make a decision, I want to get out of this, I want to stop doing this. I want this business to run more effectively either without me, or because of me from a vision standpoint, they can make the transition, but often it’s, it’s very difficult to do.

Matt Hyatt : (57:25)
Thank you for the compliment, you know, I point out to our listeners that I’ve had a lot of help and it’s been a long period of time. That’s something that, worked out for, for a long time. So it wasn’t something that’s happened overnight. And I would suggest that, that transition’s not over, it’s still something that’s under development. Tell us a little bit about Convene. We’ve mentioned it in our intro. Tell us about your focus there and what you’re doing.

Lee Wolfe: (57:54)
Convene is a national organization, which has as its mission to connect, equip, and inspire Christian CEOs and business owners to grow exceptional businesses and become higher impact leaders to honor God. That’s the basic mission. I am the chairman of the local advisory board on which members focus on that mission for their businesses. And so that’s a peer level support group.

Matt Hyatt : (58:22)
So you’re leading a group in the Metro Atlanta area of Christian business owners that are looking to build their businesses. And at the same time honor their faith. And I think one of the benefits that I’m hearing out of that is that not only do participants have feedback from their peers, but Hey, they get a, a really great business coach out of the deal, too.

Lee Wolfe: (58:52)
It comes along with the whole situation. Yes. I work with them on a coaching process as well as the forum team.

Matt Hyatt : (59:01)
Gotcha. I love it. We’re going to ask you towards the end of this, how folks can get in touch with you. But I think there might be some of our listeners that might be interested in talking more about that.

Lee Wolfe: (59:11)
That’s be great totalk with them.

Matt Hyatt : (59:14)
So I confess Lee. I’ve known you a long time and the entire time, all I’ve really known as that you’re older than I, but I know that I’ve been thinking for a while, Gosh, one of these days I’d love to retire, but you seem to get a lot of energy out of, out of working. How do you, how do you relax and unplug?

Lee Wolfe: (59:32)
Well, I think you’ve experienced some of that. My wife and I have a cabin in Toccoa, Georgia.

Matt Hyatt : (59:39)
That’s right. Up in the mountains.

Lee Wolfe: (59:39)
We’re on the Lake Lake Hartwell, and I enjoy relaxing up there and fishing and being on the water and working with little projects that I start. And my wife has said, you’ve always got some project going on. And I said, I hadn’t thought about that, but that’s the way. So it’s just fun to keep that kind of thing going.

Matt Hyatt : (01:00:05)
I love it. So do you try to separate your business and your work depending on your location? Or are you happy to, to work in the mountains and do projects back on,

Lee Wolfe: (01:00:19)
I do both.

Matt Hyatt : (01:00:20)
Okay.

Lee Wolfe: (01:00:22)
Work from the cabin and work from home. It’s just a matter of what the schedule is.

Matt Hyatt : (01:00:27)
You must have a good internet up there.

Lee Wolfe: (01:00:28)
I do. It works. At least it’s been reliable so far.

Matt Hyatt : (01:00:34)
Excellent. Well, fantastically, I think it’s time to move on to what we call our lightning round. And this is just a few questions that we ask all of our guests. And I love to hear some answers from you. So tell us about who’s the person that’s been in your life that’s made a profound impact on your journey.

Lee Wolfe: (01:00:54)
I had when I was just a first Lieutenant in the army, I was reporting directly to a Colonel and he actually impacted me probably stronger than anybody else experienced.

Matt Hyatt : (01:01:09)
Really?

Lee Wolfe: (01:01:09)
And shortly after I left the service, he was promoted to general.

Matt Hyatt : (01:01:14)
Wow.

Lee Wolfe: (01:01:14)
But he had a great deal of impact on me and I also on him, but he gave me the support that was necessary to completely transform a process that the army had been doing wrong. He supported me to correct it and the results were astounding. So he was very instrumental in making that happen. He also tried to prevent me from leaving the army, but that was a different story.

Matt Hyatt : (01:01:48)
You know, it’s really great. And I don’t know how those things happen, but it is really great when someone takes an interest in another human and sort of takes them under their wing and says, Hey, let me, let me see if I can help you out here. It sounds like that’s what happened.

Lee Wolfe: (01:02:03)
That’s exactly what happened.

Matt Hyatt : (01:02:06)
So in your, you, you might have, you might have the opportunity here to give us the best answer we’ve ever heard. I’m going to set you up for success here because you’ve had so many interactions with several different, all kinds of businesses and industries. What’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned in your professional career.

Lee Wolfe: (01:02:25)
That’s a very simple answer for me.

Matt Hyatt : (01:02:28)
Oh good.

Lee Wolfe: (01:02:28)
I’ve learned to ask more questions than to make statements. And I’ve found that asking questions is a farther, carries the results much farther than making statements.

Matt Hyatt : (01:02:44)
Is that because you’re learning something out of asking the question or is it because you’re causing the person you’re asking to think?

Lee Wolfe: (01:02:51)
Both. I’ll tell you the other secret about asking questions is you can ask questions continuously until you get the person to understand what you’re trying to communicate.

Matt Hyatt : (01:03:06)
I think our kids do that.

Lee Wolfe: (01:03:08)
Yes.

Matt Hyatt : (01:03:08)
Why is it like that? Why?

Lee Wolfe: (01:03:10)
It works with everybody except your wife.

Matt Hyatt : (01:03:17)
I love it. So are there any books or I don’t know if you do you, are you a YouTube guy? Do you listen to podcasts? What, what’s your favorite way to learn and what are some of your favorite influential media?

Lee Wolfe: (01:03:30)
Well, I have a whole library of books, but recently, I’ve been able to use the services provided by Convene to all its members.

Matt Hyatt : (01:03:41)
Oh, interesting.

Lee Wolfe: (01:03:42)
And that’s called Right Now Media. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that.

Matt Hyatt : (01:03:46)
I’m not familiar.

Lee Wolfe: (01:03:46)
Right Now Media includes in-person videos of virtually all the well-known business leaders, well-known coaches, well-known authors. And it is a very powerful tool to be able to use that. And I’ve been using that more than anything, both with my forum team and personally.

Matt Hyatt : (01:04:08)
Interesting. So kind of like a private Ted talk channel for company members?

Lee Wolfe: (01:04:15)
Yes.

Matt Hyatt : (01:04:15)
Very nice. Is there a favorite speaker out there that you enjoy hearing?

Lee Wolfe: (01:04:19)
I probably think Pat Lencioni has been enjoyable. He’s he’s very personable in his presentation, but there are others that are just as good.

Matt Hyatt : (01:04:34)
Right.

Lee Wolfe: (01:04:34)
And I have a message that’s worth hearing.

Matt Hyatt : (01:04:39)
Yeah. Pat Lencioni is a favorite for sure. Lee, thank you so much. What’s the best way for people to reach to you if they they’re interested in Convene or interested in coaching services? How can they reach you?

Lee Wolfe: (01:04:49)
Well, my office phone number is 770-979-3467 and it’s extension number two.

Matt Hyatt : (01:04:58)
There you go.

Lee Wolfe: (01:04:58)
My email for Convene is [email protected]. So I would welcome the opportunity to speak with anyone that listened to this and found some benefit in it.

Matt Hyatt : (01:05:14)
Excellent. Terrific. Well on that note, I think it’s time to wrap things up. Lee from myself and our audience. Thank you so much for joining us today and to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Should you have any suggestions on future topics? Did you like to hear more about, please email us at podcastsatrocketit.com and finally, a quick plug for Rocket IT. We help businesses leverage technology to create seamless networks that encourage productivity and profitability to learn how a personalized roadmap can bring efficiency to your business and clarity to your team. Visit Rocket IT.com/roadmap-help or click the link in this episode’s description. Thank you so much, Lee. We loved having you.

Lee Wolfe: (01:05:53)
Thank you.

In episode 22 of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, Matt Hyatt sits down with fellow entrepreneur and CEO of Gaskins Surveying and Engineering, Brandon Hutchins.

As an employee turned business owner, Brandon’s passion for supporting his peers makes him an amazing steward of the organizations he leads.

As if one business weren’t enough to keep him busy, Brandon is involved in multiple businesses at the same time, while serving as a hands-on coach for his leadership team at work and the new entrepreneurs he mentors.

[email protected]

Gaskins Survey and Engineering

Integrity Construction Management

Leadership and Self-Deception

5 Voices

The Pursuit of God

Colleen Frangos (00:00:00):

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Rocket IT. Experiencing malware, data loss, or a recurring technical glitch? Your technology should be seamless to your team. Visit Rocket IT.com/roadmaphelp or click the link in the video’s description to see how you can benefit from one of our personalized roadmaps. [inaudible]

Matt Hyatt (00:00:34):

Hello everyone. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt. And this is show number 22 of the Rocket IT business podcast. Today we’re talking with my friend and fellow entrepreneur, Brandon Hutchins. Before we dive in, let me tell you a few things I like about Brandon. First and foremost, Brandon has a big heart for people around him and I think that shows in everything he does. He’s an employee turned business owner, and he’s been an amazing steward of the organizations he leads and yes, that’s right organizations, plural as if one business weren’t enough to keep him busy. Brandon is involved in multiple businesses at the same time. Brandon is also a very hands-on coach for the leadership team at work. He leads a men’s group through his church and actively supports and mentors, other entrepreneurs all while raising a family with his wife, Nancy. Brandon, welcome to the show.

Brandon Hutchins (00:01:21):

scraping here. Thanks man.

Matt Hyatt (00:01:23):

And I’m so glad to sit down with you. We had a little chat beforehand catching up a little bit, but I always enjoy spending time with you. Brandon, you live on the other side of town, so we don’t get to see each other in person too often, but glad for technology like zoom, let us get together and hang out a little bit.

Brandon Hutchins (00:01:41):

way on the other side of the world in Marietta, Georgia.

Matt Hyatt (00:01:44):

That’s right. Well, you know, it’s probably not very many miles, but as we all know, traffic is horrendous around here even during the pandemic. And so,

Brandon Hutchins (00:01:52):

but it’s still, it’s still not just skipping the job.

Matt Hyatt (00:01:56):

So I want to kind of start off in the way back machine here a little bit, I know you graduated from Georgia tech, which means you’re super sharp. I know that engineering background right out of school, you landed the job, a little tiny company called Kirsten young. I’d love to kind of hear a little bit about that. How did that happen? Was that your, your aim and was it what you expected when you, when you got in there?

Brandon Hutchins (00:02:22):

Yeah, I’ve thought through that period of time a lot, and I have a senior in high school. I have one in college and one is a senior in high school and two that are younger, but we’ve been talking about college and we’ve been talking about career and all that kind of stuff. And to be honest, man, I didn’t know. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I you know, I liked math. I like the technical side of things and I was thinking about sports to a certain degree. And anyway, I ended up going to tech and without that vision, for what I wanted to do With my life and I kind of looked around, I was very driven. The joke that I kind of have is I kind of looked around and said, well, the Coke building is kind of one of the biggest buildings I sure would like to be the CEO of Coke one day. So

Matt Hyatt (00:03:16):

There you go. There’s still a chance.

Brandon Hutchins (00:03:18):

Yeah, there’s still a chance. But you know, I, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And consulting really felt like a great Avenue for me. It’s like, you know, I’m going to be exposed to businesses. Hopefully I can add some value to them along the way. And you know, it was a really good fit for me. It was great, because there were just a ton of sharp people. I loved the way they structured their business and got to travel a lot, which at the time was kind of cool. I don’t know if I’d love that today, but back then it was nice and just made a ton of friends. And I think one of the things that I really enjoyed at Ernst and young, they did a good job of showing you how to, how to do well. They define success for you, you know? So it was like, Hey, if you want to win here, here are the bullets, you know, in my personality is like, give me a checklist or a bullet list. And I’m like, yeah, that. So if I want to do well, that’s what I have to do to either, you know, get good ratings or get promoted to the next level. And I appreciated that and they did that while connecting the culture piece of the equation. So I think that was the first time my eyes were open to what a good culture look like. And I really enjoyed just being with the people and meeting tons of friends that really, I kept in touch with even some to this day. So I was only there for two and a half years and it probably felt like 10 as fun as it was, we, we worked a lot. That was you know, that’s kind of, you know, somewhat of the tradition as the younger folks in the organization. We, we worked a lot and but I enjoyed it, you know, I think when you’re doing something that you’re enjoying you, the time seems to fly, you know?

Matt Hyatt (00:05:21):

Right.

Brandon Hutchins (00:05:21):

And so we, yeah, I piled in the hours in that period of time.

Matt Hyatt (00:05:27):

So you mentioned something that I think a lot of young people face is, you know what, before we know it, we’re legally an adult before we know it, you know, 20, 22 years, 25 years old and not everyone’s sort of figured out what they want to do yet. I think college can be a great place to figure that out, but I am curious your, your degree at Georgia tech, did that kind of line up with what you were doing at Ernst young?

Brandon Hutchins (00:06:00):

So as an I E it’s kind of, it’s definitely not open-ended, but I think what I ended up doing and consulting was not traditional industrial engineering work. I think traditional industrial engineering work would be more like maybe being a production manager or assembly line manager at a distribution center, you know, maybe even, maybe even air traffic control, you know, things that deal with scheduling and time and efficiency and process. That’s really a lot of what I used to do but I think that’s one of the reasons why Ernst and young and really at the time, the big six consulting firms really liked IE’s because it was kind of a people dynamic and a process. And those were kind of the big buzz words at the time, people process and technology. And so, you know, at tech, you had the technology and the IEP process and, you know, I think they, they were looking for people that could relate with other people too. So it seemed to be a good fit.

Matt Hyatt (00:07:14):

Yeah. So what was the, what was the transition from there to Gaskins and am I missing anything in the middle or was it, Hey, I’m leaving arts and young I’m going to work for, for Gaskins.

Brandon Hutchins (00:07:27):

It was tough. It was tough. I probably here’s, here’s the little

Matt Hyatt (00:07:30):

Cause Gaskins was as a small business, when you joined, right?

Brandon Hutchins (00:07:33):

Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:07:34):

You probably came from this very rigid, structured environment to something less than that.

Brandon Hutchins (00:07:38):

So quick backstory, because I feel like it’s, it’s important. So Gaskins Gaskins was founded by my stepdad, Johnny Gaskins. And so when I was growing up, Johnny, it was very important for him, for me to work. Even though I played a bunch of sports and was really involved in school and church, he was like, when you’re not playing a sport, you’re going to work. And so every summer and winter I was working on a field crew at Gaskins. And so to be honest, I hated it. I mean, I hated it. I just you know the, especially in the summertime with the, the bees and the sweat and, you know, I just, I, I, I knew early on that it would be better for me to use my brain than my brawn in my work. And I have tons of respect for folks that do, you know, have a trade and, and really work with their hand. You know, I just, that’s just not, wasn’t going to be my best for sure. So anyway, I just, in my mind, when I thought of a career for me, I felt Gaskins was the least place in the whole world that I wanted to go work. And really the only reason that I did.

Matt Hyatt (00:09:03):

What a cruel twist of fate.

Brandon Hutchins (00:09:05):

Yeah. You know, I guess as part of my life, and maybe this is, you know, just part of my story, my faith has been, you know, it’s the most important thing to me. And, and it’s really the reason why I came to Gaskins. I really felt like both me and my wife, Nancy, we both just felt led that I needed to talk to Johnny about potentially coming to Gaskins and I did not want to do it, but I felt like that’s what I was supposed to do. And I’ll save some of the details of kind of what actually happened. But Johnny actually was offered to sell the business in 99. And ultimately he decided not to, and he wanted to grow the business. And so he was like, why don’t you come on board and help us grow the business and help us grow the business. And he was a funny guy. He was like, he, he was a very shoot from the hip type of a person and highly relational. And he Matt, you know, me, I’m a very structured you know, linear thinker type of a person. So we’re pretty opposite. And he, his, his offer to me started with, you know, Brandon, I don’t even know what you do really at Ernst and young, but I just want you to come over here and just do to Gaskins what you do to all these other companies. And you know, as someone who needs clear expectation and needs clear direction, that was the direction that I got. It was kind of, like

Matt Hyatt (00:10:41):

So he didn’t give you the bulleted list?

Brandon Hutchins (00:10:41):

Yeah. I said, can you define my job a little more than that? And then he was like, no, you’ll figure it out. And so as someone who, whenever I do not have structure around me, I’m usually one to try to immediately create structure. So I would, I would always bring my job responsibilities to Johnny and say, Hey, this is okay if I do this. And he’s like, I don’t care. Yes, yes. Do it.

Matt Hyatt (00:11:11):

So you’re a pretty humble guy, but what was this a rescue situation of, Hey, Brandon, come in and turn things around or was it really just, you know what, I’ve got a plan now and it’s to, you know, to the moon baby, and I want you to come help me.

Brandon Hutchins (00:11:28):

It wasn’t, it wasn’t a rescue because, you know, Johnny was doing just fine. And the business was a nice business. They have 40, 40 to 50 people at that time. He started in 75. So that was about 25 year is 25 year old business. And they were doing fine, but there were things that I hadn’t been exposed to when I was working there through time that I knew needed to change that he wanted to change. I think he just wanted it to be better. And he wanted to, he knew that grow the business at the time, really focused on him. Like every all roads came back to Johnny and that was, he was kind of in an unhealthy place personally. And so I think he needed, he needed help taking the business to the next level,

Matt Hyatt (00:12:29):

Yeah.

Brandon Hutchins (00:12:29):

Or, or as we used to say, going from an entrepreneurial type of a business to a professional organization. And that’s what we did. We did a lot of that working together. But, but back to your last question, man, it was like oil and water. I mean, it was really hard because the environments were just completely different for sure.

Matt Hyatt (00:12:57):

Right. Well, I know a lot of businesses dare. I say, most businesses do hit certain plateaus and certainly for a smaller organization, one of the plateaus is okay, everything’s tied to the entrepreneur. And how do you disconnect from that? And how do you develop a leadership team that has not just responsibility, but authority to make decisions and things like that. And then of course there are the processes, you know, I can’t imagine the, probably a more stark difference between an organization like Ernst and young and pretty much any small business,

Brandon Hutchins (00:13:33):

Right.

Matt Hyatt (00:13:33):

You know, in terms of structure there’s just, it’s going to be night and day, I would think so. I’m curious. What, so what was your approach and what happened? What, what, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about, Hey, come on in 1999 and two years later, everything’s humming. Is that how it kind of worked or was there more more to it?

Brandon Hutchins (00:13:55):

Well, we,

Matt Hyatt (00:13:58):

And by the way. And when you joined was the plan I’m going to own this business someday?

Brandon Hutchins (00:14:04):

No, my plan, well, that might’ve been part of Johnny’s plan, but that was not part of my plan. You know, I really thought I’m going to get in and get out. I’m going to, I’m going to get in and I’m going to change a bunch of stuff. And I’m going to get back to the dream that I had, you know,

Matt Hyatt (00:14:28):

How’s that working for you?

Brandon Hutchins (00:14:28):

And here I am 21 years later after that, but you know, but it really hurt me the way I approached what I did. The results were good. We, we experienced a lot of growth. We went from like 3.4 or 5 million to 4.8 to 8 million the first year. And we went, wow. We went from, actually, I remember we had 56 employees to like 47. So we went down in employees and up in revenue

Matt Hyatt (00:15:01):

That helps about a….Usually.

Brandon Hutchins (00:15:02):

Yeah. Johnny was very happy that that was so good. He w he was happy, but to, I tell ya, I I think I pressed a lot of buttons and pulled levers in the right ways for the business, what the business needed, but it was personally very difficult for me because I wasn’t, I, I don’t at that time in my career, I would just say, I didn’t see people. Well, it was just more like moving chess pieces on the board, implementing strategy and really forcing my agenda more than really doing things with care. And, you know, I kinda viewed my job a little bit as Johnny’s linchpin, you know,

Matt Hyatt (00:15:50):

Really?

Brandon Hutchins (00:15:50):

You know, it’s like all the things that he kind of secretly wanted to do, basically, I was like, well, I’m going to go do them immediately. And I don’t even care what the repercussions are because they need to happen. And as you can imagine, I wasn’t the most popular person in the room. And if I would’ve known that I would be here 21 years later, I, I probably would have gone about things a little bit differently, but I think I would do things differently anyway, kind of knowing what I know now and really the change that has occurred in my life as a leader.

Matt Hyatt (00:16:31):

Right. Yeah. I mean, just saying, you know, the word linchpin and not taking people into account so much is sort of the polar opposite of the Brandon Hutchins. I know. So I’m sure we’ll get into a little bit of how that version of you is developed and, and gotten there. So I know from talking with you in the past and from my show notes here, that you spent about six years as employee, and what happened during that time and sort of changed your mindset. You know what, I, I we’re, I really want to own this. I want to run it and I want to own it. How did that occur?

Brandon Hutchins (00:17:13):

Well, the running, it was a different path than the owning it path, for sure. Yeah. The running it part. I think over time as I began to change as a leader, I really began to see, I mean, honestly, as, as I began to change personally, as it relates to people and the way I saw people in the way I wanted to care for people, it was interesting how I to enjoy my job a whole lot more and develop relationships, friendships, clients, employees, and it kind of, you know, it really turned from the thing that I at least wanted to do in my whole life to something that was so I was so grateful for. And I have just a tremendous amount of gratitude for the opportunities that I’ve had along the way. I guess when I became CEO, I was like 31 or 32.

Matt Hyatt (00:18:19):

Wow. Pretty young still. Yeah. And was Johnny still better at that?

Brandon Hutchins (00:18:25):

Yeah. Johnny was there and he, you know, I just, I feel, I, I feel so bad about the way I, I’ve just learned so many things about being the number one versus being the number two and probably as being the number two. I think you just have a propensity to look at number one and think of all the things that they should be doing better or why they’re not perfect and why the attributes that you have are better than the attributes. That number one has, you know, you begin to inflate your own virtue and deflate the virtue of the person above you. I actually, I think you can do that, not just on a one two, but anytime you look at a supervisor and you feel like you should be promoted and, you know, I just felt like Johnny was so gracious with me. He was so patient and gracious. I was so driven and I wanted more. And he, he just gave me enough rope to do what I needed to do, but also enough accountability to kind of keep me in check. And, you know, I think he just knew it was time when he began to see me start really loving people, I think was when he really started to consider, Hey, I think Brandon can lead this organization and it’s time. And the real, I know this is something that you want to talk about at some point, but there was a, there was a person Jeremy Kubitschek was a real influencer in our transition of the business. And

Matt Hyatt (00:20:15):

So Jeremy has been a guest on our podcast before, and many of our listeners are familiar with giant. So good. Yeah.

Brandon Hutchins (00:20:21):

Yeah. So Jeremy, I met Jeremy in 2003 at a, at a conference and we hit it off immediately and we circled back about a year later. And then we started working together. He started working with me and with Johnny and our leadership team and helped really Johnny to begin to transition the business. And there was really one day we were in the conference room and Jeremy did this and he said, I want you all each to take 15 minutes. And write down on a piece of paper, what do you actually want to do? And what do you think you’re good at? And we both wrote down the pieces of paper, slid it over to Jeremy. And he’s like, I’m just going to read these out loud. And he’s like, Johnny, you don’t even want to be the CEO. And you don’t even think you think Brandon would be, you know, it was like all these things. It’s like, why don’t, why don’t we just let Brandon be the CEO and.

Matt Hyatt (00:21:21):

Wow.

Brandon Hutchins (00:21:22):

And immediately.

Matt Hyatt (00:21:24):

No, that, that was Jeremy’s idea basically.

Brandon Hutchins (00:21:27):

Well, yeah. It’s like,

Matt Hyatt (00:21:29):

I mean, I guess it was Johnny’s idea, but he’s the one that brought it out of you.

Brandon Hutchins (00:21:33):

Well, on the two pieces of paper, it was so clear that Johnny wanted to be in more of a founder type role and more of a mentor type role on the technical stuff. And he was like, I don’t want to run the business. And Brandon that’s, this is what he wants to do. And he’s good at it, you know? And it was like this epiphany. And literally, I think maybe the day was February late, February of 2006. He, we had a town hall meeting March the third and he was like, okay, you’re going to be the CEO. We’re going to announce it today.

Matt Hyatt (00:22:09):

Woah.

Brandon Hutchins (00:22:09):

And I was like, what? Like, I don’t know about that. And I actually, it was very emotional. I keep this behind my desk, but Johnny he had this hammer that is, that his dad gave him. And he said, I don’t have this anything too special, but I just want you to see this as assemble of me passing the gavel to you. And so I keep it, I keep it here behind my desk.

Matt Hyatt (00:22:44):

Love it. It shows up pretty well

Brandon Hutchins (00:22:44):

Yeah. there’s a lot of backstory and I won’t bore you with a lot of backstory from 2006 to 10, but essentially he was diagnosed with ALS in 2007, the recession we started to be, we started to feel the effects of the recession of late 2007. And God-lee, if you want to hear more, I’ll tell you more. But through that period of time, it was, it was pretty dicey. And as we talked about ownership, as he was getting more sick, it was something that I was very interested in, but I wasn’t, you know, I, I wasn’t really sure about our future as a company or my future and my role and what was I going to do with the rest of my life. And so I was, I was really hesitant about going the ownership route, but anyway.

Matt Hyatt (00:23:45):

I would imagine, You know, and the really, I guess we would call this the construction industry once you started to see it. I don’t think there were a lot of people diving in and say, you know, I want a piece of this action,

Brandon Hutchins (00:24:02):

But yeah, it was it was scary. And actually Jeremy, once again, was an influencer in in that decision and, you know, I was, it was 2010 and we were talking and I was like, well, maybe, maybe giant. And we can talk about that later, but you know, is there going to be a path of recovery for Gaskins and Jeremy, he said to me, you know, he’s like, you’re too committed. You’re like, you, you will not leave. You will not leave this thing in the works. I know you too. Well, you know, he said, if, you know, stop thinking that you might just do something different. Cause you won’t, you’re going to see this thing through. So you might as well, you might as well buy it, own it, you know, for your efforts, if, if it does work out. And, and so that was really the push that I needed. And I ended up buying half of the business, which I could have never afforded, you know, years before, but we had, we, we were hurt very badly in the recession big time.

Matt Hyatt (00:25:17):

Right. So you ended up buying the business in 2010, by that time you’d been in there 10, 11 years, something like that. What a, what a cool story. I, you know, I think that there are lots of, lots of folks out there that sort of dream of being an entrepreneur someday and struggle to figure out how to, how to make it happen. And, you know, there are extenuating circumstances here. There are fortuitous circumstances here in a Johnny owning the business and, you know, being your stepdad and, but you made it happen and he made it happen amidst a crisis really in the industry. And it seems like it’s working out. Okay. it seems like it’s gonna work out fine.

Brandon Hutchins (00:26:04):

Well, multiple people, you know, when, as in the last five years are like, of course you would have. And I’m like, well, I’ll tell ya. It was probably the riskiest move I’d ever made in my life.

Matt Hyatt (00:26:19):

Right. You’re not a big risk taker, are you?

Brandon Hutchins (00:26:19):

Yeah you know, me well enough to know that I’m I’m pretty safe, I’m in the safe zone. And it was definitely the most money I’d ever, you know, when going into debt it was, it was in hindsight it was like, yeah, it’s greatest decision, you know, from a business standpoint that I had made, but at the time it was, it was tough.

Matt Hyatt (00:26:46):

Yeah. So tell, tell me, what does Gaskins look like today? What’s, what’s sort of the primary focus and how big is it? Where, where do you do work? Tell us a little bit about that. And then I think we’re going to move on from it.

Brandon Hutchins (00:26:59):

Okay. Gaskins is a surveying and engineering company in Marietta, Georgia. We do have four offices. We serve most of Georgia and some of surrounding States. And so when I say civil engineering, really I’m talking about like civil site work. So we might design residential neighborhoods or commercial retail, that kind of stuff. We do a lot of different surveying and for public private municipal industries. We, so I’ll just give you this stat. So we had gotten down to 18 employees and we’re probably about one and a half million in revenue. And the recession at that point of our top 20 customers that we had at the time 18 of those 20 either went out of business or stopped doing work altogether as amazing. And so what our industry looked like before the recession looked completely different growing out of the recession. And so, you know, now we have about a hundred people or offices we’re in Lawrenceville, we’re in Newnan and we’re in Canton. And two of those happen through acquisition and one was more of an organic growth situation, but yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:28:26):

Awesome. So we may, we may come back and touch on that topic just a little bit because there’s, you know, there that we could do a whole podcast on just, you know, how, how to grow an organization, how to scale and how to do it well, and there’s lots of lots to unpack in there potentially of, for example, how do you, how do you develop a leadership team to do that? Well, how do you have a geographically dispersed team? That’s not, you know, you’ve got four times the overhead that I do with my one location over here. And so how do you, how do you do that? You know, there there’s a lot that we get into there, but, but there’s a lot of other things I want to cover too. And I’d like to kind of go back to the giant part because that’s how you and I met, right. We were both active and helping with what Jeremy was doing and giant. So tell us a little bit about that. At some point you transitioned from being a customer of giant to really roll up your sleeves and becoming part of giant. Tell us about how that happened.

Brandon Hutchins (00:29:27):

Well, I was, I’ll just say that I was so impacted by Jeremy and my time kind of in those early years that as giant impact came, I was a part of buying into that and kind of the whole leadership company that was created there. And I think my exposure to the content with Jeremy and the content through giant impact, and then ultimately when he came together with Steve Cochran it, it was kind of embedded in me and it had created so much change in the way I thought about things and my life and my purpose. It was just like, why would I, I, I’ve got to give, I’ve got to give away. What’s been given to me. And so I, it, it really wasn’t even a question of what I’d be involved in giant worldwide is just like, how much can I, that reasonably makes sense? And so you and I, in those early days when giant worldwide was formed driving to, I think Jacksonville, is that what we drove to Jacksonville.

Matt Hyatt (00:30:46):

Yeah it was either Jacksonville or Gainesville.

Brandon Hutchins (00:30:46):

getting our Myers-Briggs training, kind of getting ready, which was awesome. I mean, I loved the, just kind of like more tools in the tool belt on growing myself and also people around me and my business and to help others. So that was that, that was a fun, that was a fun little journey.

Matt Hyatt (00:31:06):

It was so giant, worldwide. Yeah. You and I kind of came up together through that. And one of the cool things about giant worldwide is they’ve done a great job. I think of taping, taking leadership principles and concepts and turning them into a vocabulary and really simple illustrations or tools so that they’re memorable and easy to deploy and use in an organization. There you go. Exactly. There’s the toolkit right there. I know that I have, I have some of my favorite tools out of, out of that toolkit. I’m curious. What’s what are some of your favorites? What are the ones that are go-to for you?

Brandon Hutchins (00:31:50):

Well, some of the, probably some of the more foundational ones are the ones that I use all the time, and it’s hard to just name them and not describe them. But there’s one about knowing yourself to lead yourself, you know, there’s men that I just feel like that’s so applicable. There’s one called the influence model where I, it was really a part of Jeremy and I’s time together in the early two thousands when he developed it and I kinda was tweaking it and living it and implementing it. And so naturally that, that tool, you know, you probably made me cry if I think about all the, all the, all the impact that it’s had in my life and, and others, but, you know, we, I use that and, and hiring recruiting and hiring, yeah. Building trust.

Matt Hyatt (00:32:47):

Just a quick overview of what the influence model is.

Brandon Hutchins (00:32:53):

Yeah, sure. There, so essentially the influence model is a tool that’s used to help almost give a linear path on how to have influence with another person, how to build influence with another person, how to go beyond a transactional relationship, to basically a meaningful in-depth relationship with somebody else. Or if you, there is a relationship in your life and you don’t have the level of influence that you think you should have, or would like to have. It’s a, it’s kind of a diagnosis tool that I, you know, I’m like, why do I not have relationship? And it can help you with that. So the four concepts that I use the most for hiring and recruiting are building trust. Basically, you’ve got to check four boxes, character, chemistry, competence, and credibility. So when my team, when we’re looking at folks, we’re, we’re trying to check those boxes. And we use that language to communicate with each other and like hand this really smart candidate. They, we know that they know their stuff, but, but they can’t really translate it in a way that connects to what we need in our business, which is a credibility issue, right. Or man, they’re really smart, but there was just no connection whatsoever. It seemed like they, you know, they, they only cared about winning or it was all about money to them. And so that’s more of a chemistry character issue. So we use that pretty frequently in our language.

Matt Hyatt (00:34:40):

Yeah. I think those are great concepts to be thinking about because I, I know, I know from experience and I bet you do too, when you decide that you need to hire another person and add them to the team, usually it’s, well, I don’t need them. Now. We try to plan for those things and we’ll probably get better at it over time. But oftentimes when you’re trying to grow a business, I need that person three weeks ago, or I’ve opened a position and it takes three months to fill it by the time that it actually gets filled. Wow. We’re really kind of hurting for this position. So often there’s a lot of pressure to pick the first human that walks through the door that knows the stuff.

Brandon Hutchins (00:35:24):

And man it’s hard to say, no, it’s hard to say no, when you know, you have a need. Right.

Matt Hyatt (00:35:30):

Yeah, Exactly. So I like the idea of intentionally going through those four check boxes as you call them, just to make sure that it’s right, because we all know that. Well, I think we do, maybe, maybe we don’t all know, but, but you, and I know that as painful as it is to be without someone in a position it’s way worse to go ahead and get the wrong person in the position and then just deal with that.

Brandon Hutchins (00:36:00):

Absolutely.

Matt Hyatt (00:36:01):

just takes, it takes a Lot. So I like the intentionality. So I want to talk a little bit about that acquisition piece that you were discussing. This is, this is something that I certainly have a master at. I think some of our listeners probably would be interested to hear how, how does, how does that work? How, first of all, how do you find an acquisition target? How do you decide whether or not it’s a, it’s a good move for your business and the other person. And is your approach typically to bring the entrepreneur along with that acquisition? Or are you really looking for an asset type purchase? Can you tell us a little bit about how you, how you go about that?

Brandon Hutchins (00:36:47):

Well, I wish there was like a one path and a clear path for each of the acquisitions that I’ve done and I’ve done more than just for the new locations. I think the consistent thing in all the acquisitions have all been about just trying to find great people. And

Matt Hyatt (00:37:12):

So it’s more about the talent rather than necessarily the customer base,

Brandon Hutchins (00:37:17):

Right? Which in my business, you know, we’re a service-based business. And so you’re really only as good as your people because our people are, they’re the ones doing all the interfacing with the clients and producing the product and with the counties and municipalities. And so there, you know, so anyway, I, it has been a good mechanism to, to, to draw in great talent. And sometimes it’s been very intentional to try to go into another location as we’ve strategically said, Hey, we want to be in Lawrenceville. But, but the Lawrenceville was probably more of a, it was more of an organic growth situation. So I have been intentional to look for opportunities. The best connections have always been through just word of mouth and people just making people connections. And, and then after that, it just starts, with just getting to know people for me, this is my way is the chemist. The character chemistry piece is, you know, when comes to an acquisition character, chemistry leads by eons. You know, it’s like it is a big deal for a person who owns a business to give up ownership of their business and understand that is a big deal a big deal to have it and to carry the weight of responsibility. So I know when I’m talking to somebody who, who has been carrying that weight, you know, I’ve just tried to sit in their shoes and say, is my situation better than their current situation and how can I make it better, the perfect fit, you know? And so I, this is part of knowing myself is I really love business. I enjoy the business part, you know, the complexities, the, you know, the, just the internal guts of a business. And a lot of people in my industry who have small firms, they’re kind of the, the maybe more entrepreneurial. And so they don’t really love the business part. They just kind of accidentally got into that part. You know,

Matt Hyatt (00:39:48):

Right.

Brandon Hutchins (00:39:48):

they were just great at what they did good at the profession, but they’ve kind of hit a wall and can’t get to the next level. And so for me, I’ve kind of identified. So you know, more generally, it’s a identify who are you and what do you want? And from an acquisition standpoint, who is the best candidate for you to merge with? And for me, it’s merging with that entrepreneurial type person that needs help with their business.

Matt Hyatt (00:40:19):

Right.

Brandon Hutchins (00:40:19):

And I want people who are just great with serving others and doing a great job with their trade, whether it be engineering or surveying,

Matt Hyatt (00:40:28):

You know, I kind of feel like it just leans back a little bit on the influence model deal, because my experience has been that few entrepreneurs are willing to offer up, Hey, you know what, I’m really in over my head here. And I’m really struggling and I need help. Can you help me? You know, not many, not many people are willing to do that really at all.

Brandon Hutchins (00:40:49):

Which is the whole piece of self preservation, right. Influence model is, will people be willing to admit that they’re holding on to things that really are outside of their strengths zone and do they want to change, you know, do they want to be healthier and happier in their business situation?

Matt Hyatt (00:41:10):

Hmm. Yeah. I love it. Well, I think you must be quite good at it for four is a pretty good, pretty good number. You’re shaking your head.

Brandon Hutchins (00:41:20):

I mean, I would say mostly I’ll pray about it and you know, and I can’t tell you, this is probably important to know I’ve had so many conversations, so many, you know, every acquisition transaction that happens, you know, it’s maybe five to 10 to one, you know, it just it’s, you know, the first conversation is easy. Second conversation is easy and then you started getting to the details, right. And then, you know, and then that’s where the self-preservation part kicks in with a lot of folks and, and a lot of times money and real estate, you know, those, those are just typical roadblocks. And ultimately at the end of the day, the person has to be willing to let go, right? The control piece is the number one piece at the end of the day. And it may make sense in every logical way, but they say, you know what? I just can’t do it.

Matt Hyatt (00:42:27):

Yeah.

Brandon Hutchins (00:42:28):

I just can’t.

Matt Hyatt (00:42:31):

So I’m going to get a little bit personal here. Have they all gone swimmingly well, or have there been any missteps?

Brandon Hutchins (00:42:40):

Well, I mean, every, every time you merge cultures, even if you think you’re aligned, there’s always going to be, there’s always going to be tension and change, right. It’s, it’s really a change management exercise. It’s like, there’s the excitement from your organization of bringing somebody else on. And then there’s the, the acquiree that’s like, everything’s going to change for me because in our experience they’ve been smaller organizations blending into our bigger organization. And, you know, I think, I think they’ve all gone pretty well because I think they’ve all been focused on the person. You know, it’s like, I don’t want to get rid of you. I have no desire for you to be gone I want you, not only do I not want that, I want you to be part of our family. You know, I want to be, I want you to be part of our DNA. And I do think that there’s a real strong sense of belonging for each of the ones that we’ve done. And you know, I’d love to do more. They’re hard to do though, because there are always things that I just didn’t think about or I missed, or it’s like, dad-gum it, I forgot to think about their server capacity versus our server capacity. And we’re going to have to renovate the building, but I didn’t think about the three months it’s going to take, what are we going to do in the meantime before, you know, just the, the weeds, you know, getting into the weeds. There’s always stuff, you know, but, but I, I feel like that’s part of, that’s just part of business, right? It’s just solving problems. It’s solving problems everyday.

Matt Hyatt (00:44:32):

Well, you know, on that topic, I would imagine that some of the biggest challenges when you’re doing an acquisition of another firm is how, you know, you’re going after them in part, because you want access to the talent and you probably want to retain the customers too. And so how do you transition? Well, I make that a good experience and sort of a good news event for the employees and customers of those acquisition targets.

Brandon Hutchins (00:45:02):

The biggest thing to me is like really paying attention to the, the owner that’s coming in. If they’re happy, they’re going to have a positive message that they’re communicating to their clients. If they’re happy, they’re going to be like, Hey, this is better. And let me take that. I feel like that’s part of like the dating process is identifying, are we actually better together? Do we have a story to tell? And if you can check those boxes that when you actually do come together, it’s like, well, here’s the story. Like, all you gotta do is tell the story because it really is better. You know, it’s not, you know, we, haven’t done acquisitions where we’re, where it’s paid tons of money and the owner runs off in the sunset, you know, it’s, it’s a different structure. And so there needs to be a great story on why we’re better together. So that we can tell that story. And it’s a true story, you know, you’re just speaking from your heart and people can see authenticity. Right. You know?

Matt Hyatt (00:46:15):

Right. So tell me a little bit about how you view your role in the organization today. You’re you know, obviously you’re wearing the CEO hat, you’re leading the organization, but you’ve got a dispersed workforce at this point. I got to think there are some folks on your extended team that don’t get to see a lot of Face Time with Brandon Hutchins, but what’s, what’s your approach. And I, I also hear, and I think probably our listeners hear that there’s a strong faith element here too. And I, I kinda like to hear how you, how you interweave those two facets of your life.

Brandon Hutchins (00:46:56):

Yeah. Well, in terms of my role, I can tell you, you know, I’m in a phase right now where I need help, you know, I need, I need operational help in the business. I think, I think these, the last two growth growth areas for us, Lawrenceville and Newnan, I think under underestimated just the geography and how it was harder for me to have a presence, you know? And so it was kind of pulling at me more. And the reason it’s pulling at me is because I want to be with people. I want to be with the people I want to, I want to, I want them to know that they are known that they’re not a number that they, you know, you, and I’ve talked about this before. This idea of being a pastor at work is like, I literally, I want to know them and I want to know, how can I support you? How can I support and challenge you in a way to help you to get to where you want to be like that, that is what I want for every person. And man is really challenging right now to, to just do that and be that, and especially.

Matt Hyatt (00:48:20):

yeah. and that’s the pandemic

Brandon Hutchins (00:48:20):

Yeah. Just like being with people. It’s hard. I love it. That zoom is more acceptable, you know, that’s a good thing. And so, you know, that’s something that I probably should just be more intentional with is just setting up more kind of face, face to face meetings through zoom than I’m doing. But, but yeah, so my role, I I currently just feel like I’m so head down in dealing with, you know, a lot of the problem solving and just growing the business pieces. And I don’t feel like my heart wants to be more people focused and even external focused. And so I guess I’m just being vulnerable as I, I, I, I know that I want and need to, to be more in that zone than I am today. And I’m working on, I’m trying to, you know, I’m trying to grow that part of the business so that I can shift my role a little bit in that capacity. And what was the second question you asked?

Matt Hyatt (00:49:29):

Well, actually it, let’s, let’s kind of zoom in on that you know, pastor at work concept because the faith, the faith integration that’s right. So how I would like to know a hundred something employees while I, I actually don’t know how, but I have not noticed on your website, we are a faith-based organization at Gaskins. And so I would imagine that with a hundred something employees, not everyone, when they apply for a job at Gaskins is saying, Hey, I really hope my CEO is sort of a pastor minded person. That’s going to invest in me personally. So how do you tell me about how that works at Gaskins and sort of what your approach is and, and what do you hope to achieve with that approach?

Brandon Hutchins (00:50:19):

Right. Well, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say that we are overtly, you know, I don’t like that’s not something that I really care about posting on the website. I just want to live that, you know, I want to live, I just want to be that in the way I live life and do relationships and would love for people to say, man, he seems different than maybe the normal CEO. I mean, Hey, don’t get me wrong. We have that. We have to be profitable. We, those are the things that kind of make the, make the things spend. But, but I think just trying to love people, well, you know, that’s that, that’s what I want my focus to be everyday, and I’m not great, you know, I’m not great at it. There’s some things that we do that I’m glad we do. And I feel like we need to do so much more, you know, we have we have a team that is called our giving team. It’s like an independent team and I’ve asked them just to really make connections within the company. And if they hear about needs within people in the company, that they’re there to help, you know, financially if people have that kind of need or man, and the COVID stuff, we’ve had multiple people who have experienced kind of the more difficult version of COVID. And they’ve been out of work for awhile and, and they need help. And, you know, this group is, I, I just, I love their hearts for the way they’ve wanted to kind of rally around people. And so the giving team is kind of a cool thing.

Matt Hyatt (00:52:03):

Yeah, that’s really cool. So how do you, how do you do that, Brandon? Do you just set aside in your budget hey I’ve got X number of dollars available for the giving team and let them have at it?

Brandon Hutchins (00:52:13):

Yeah. You know, the funny thing is I felt like they used to do that and just kind of identify a number. And I just at this point I want to, I want to say yes to everything, you know, I like, I want them to have the, the mindset of just, Hey, how can we help people? Even if it’s, even if it’s not a ton, you know, for each person, it’s like, how can we help every person? Wow. And we’ve had a couple of deaths within the company through the years and, you know, just be able to rally around spouses of, you know, and do some different things. It’s I, I just think that’s important. The other piece that you might probably want to know, I do this class, one of my favorite books. Have you have you read leadership and self-deception

Matt Hyatt (00:53:07):

No, I haven’t.

Brandon Hutchins (00:53:10):

It’s a love, it’s a, it’s a short read. It’s.

Matt Hyatt (00:53:15):

Those are my favorite.

Brandon Hutchins (00:53:16):

Yeah. It’s, it’s an allegory book too. So I’m, I’m like the worst reader in America. So when you hear me say that I’ve read a book and read it multiple times,

Matt Hyatt (00:53:25):

right?

Brandon Hutchins (00:53:26):

Like that’s actually saying something because I don’t read a ton of time, but but anyway, this book is an allegory and, and it walks through the story about how this one person is coaching a new manager to understand the philosophy of how they do business and why they do it. And I read the book and I was like, man, I’ve loved. I love what he’s doing. And, and it caused me to say, I need to do that. Like whenever we have new employees at any level, we have this thing called the connections class. And we talk about what’s our history, our vision, our values, expectations for every employee, my share, my heart, my story, you know, and, and that, I really it’s a mutual responsibility. Like I can’t, I can’t see my field guys every day. It’s just not, not possible. They’re, you know, they’re gone, they’re out of this office most of the time, but I’m like, man, when you, when you’re even close to my office, just come say, Hey, like, you know, I’m just the CEO, you have a different title, but we’re both human beings. And I want to know you, you know, and you know, I’ve got indirect employee directories that I, that I try to, you know, study up on and, you know, it’s got spouses and kids and that’s just important to me. Other people like that’s dumb, but it’s just important to me, you know? And so weaving my faith into that’s just part of my faith is how can I love people? Well, well, number one, I need to know them. I need to know what’s going on with them. And, you know, I want to be able to walk with them and pray for them when they’re going through the adversities of life, because they’re absolutely plenty, you know? And the funny thing is when, so right now my dad is in the ER, he has COVID.

Matt Hyatt (00:55:35):

Oh I didn’t know that.

Brandon Hutchins (00:55:35):

and he’s, he’s in the ER right now. And it’s just amazing just to see the number of employees that have reached out to me and just said, Hey, I heard about your dad praying for him, you know?

Matt Hyatt (00:55:48):

Wow.

Brandon Hutchins (00:55:48):

You know, like it’s, you know, you can get emotional just thinking about that. People, they, they really want to care and they do care. And especially when they experience here on the other side. So yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:06):

Well, I did not know about your dad. I hope he’s recovering well.

Brandon Hutchins (00:56:09):

He’s getting better every day. He’s getting better every day. So hopefully he’ll go home tomorrow.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:16):

That’d be great. So tell me, you’ve got another business, at least at least one more that I even know about it. I think there might be more, how many businesses do you, are you involved in right now, Brandon?

Brandon Hutchins (00:56:30):

Right now?

Matt Hyatt (00:56:31):

Yeah

Brandon Hutchins (00:56:32):

A couple.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:34):

Yeah. Okay.

Brandon Hutchins (00:56:34):

There, there are several.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:36):

Yeah. So I know, I know about Integrity. Tell us about Integrity.

Brandon Hutchins (00:56:42):

Integrity is a construction management and general contracting business. And.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:51):

So for our listeners, what you see behind me is Integrity’s work. They,

Brandon Hutchins (00:56:56):

Yeah, the renovation on your building, that’s right.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:58):

That’s right.

Brandon Hutchins (00:57:00):

And that, it probably describes me some, I am Matt, you know me? Well, I am not a very innovative person. Like I do not, you know, I am not cutting edge with anything, but I feel like I’m always looking for that intersection of people’s desires and opportunity. And if I can help, if I can help make those two things come together, I love doing that. And I love business. So it’s kind of like with Integrity, there was an employee who had a lot of experience with construction management and there was a big need in our industry. There was a Gaskins employee that there was just a need, a lot of, a lot of that sector of people during the recession had, had really gone away. And there was a need and I was like, well, Hey, you know, if this is part of what you want to do, then let’s do it. So essentially we just started Integrity. And it, it has shifted a few times since that original foundation, that one guy ended up taking another business opportunity. But Matt Donald came in about four, four and a half years ago and it’s just done a great job. And it’s part of his heart’s desire to be community minded. And he really, he was the one that added the GC side of the business onto the construction management. And, you know, it’s been great. It’s again, a lot still challenges all the time and lots of problems to solve, but you know, having partners, you know, that’s another, that’s another whole topic, you know, trying to be a good partner to the other person and provide support and challenge and some mentoring and also a lot of freedom. It’s you know, that’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, but Matt’s doing a great job. I’m proud of what he’s doing at Integrity.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:15):

Yeah. I’ve gotten to know Matt a little bit and definitely a good guy and I can see how you guys get along I bet.

Brandon Hutchins (00:59:22):

And he’s a completely different voice than me, which I think is a part of, that’s a whole nother thing. But with him as a connector and me as a guardian we’re, we’re really are, we’re very different in our personalities. And I think what we bring to the table is very different as well.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:42):

Oh, that often really we’ve talked about this before. I think sometimes a lot of times people see those differences as problems and, and folks have a hard time getting along because they see the world differently. You talked about that with Johnny. I talked about that a little bit with Matt, but the reality is as many times that’s, what’s real strength when you can bring those two different worldviews together for a common good. Seems like you’ve sort of mastered that approach.

Brandon Hutchins (01:00:14):

Well, I mean, mastered is, you know, I’ve definitely matured more. And I think that begins with, you know, that was part of my giant journey as well. The first step was seeing people as people, right? Not as objects. I think that was the 2d part of my growth. And then the, the three dimensional part of my growth has been learning to value, all kinds of people who are different. You know, it’s just natural to think that the way you’re wired is the best way to be wired. And so you only want to, you only want to have people who are wired just like you and maturity comes. I feel like when you can begin to appreciate people who are different than you and bring different things to the table, you know, and I, I’m not perfect at that, but I’m trying to, I’m trying to get better at really recognizing man situationally. There are tons of people who are way better than me at certain things in situations, and I’m better than them in certain situations, just depending on just your voice and your wiring and nature, nurture choices, all that kind of stuff.

Matt Hyatt (01:01:30):

I remember way back when, before I got familiar with Myers-Briggs and got kind of plugged into the giant nomenclature of the five voices, I was kind of a DISC guy. I liked the the DISC assessment, but I just remember specifically talking with the test consultant where we bought the disc tests. They would say, Hey, you know, you’re probably going to want to have your team charted out on this DISC chart and you want it to look like a shotgun shot. You know, you, you want, you want some D you want some, I, you want S, you know, you want to, you don’t want to have everybody grouped in together. And I’ve found that that’s completely true that when you’ve got a diverse business with multiple voices at play boy, you can get a accomplished when you kind of bring all those strengths together. And yeah, there’s some friction from time to time because somebody acts differently or communicates differently than, than than we do. But ultimately that’s a strength. You also see that in just relationships, you know, we all have heard opposites attract, and I can’t tell you how many couples I know. And Maureen and I are a couple like this, where our personalities are very different and that could be seen as a negative, but in reality, bring, bring those two together and we can accomplish a lot together. You know, that, that opposites attract is actually a really positive thing.

Brandon Hutchins (01:03:02):

Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (01:03:03):

You and Nancy, you’re basically the same person. Right?

Brandon Hutchins (01:03:08):

It was embarrassing because one of the first books that came out was from giant was the five voices. And I actually didn’t really know Nancy’s voice at the time. And and I was speculating in the book. It says and it wasn’t actually what her voice ended up being. And I was like, yeah. Show you how much I know her, it turns out she’s a grade of which, which is kind of my nemesis voice. And it’s kind of hardest for me to kind of see and navigate and know, but, but you know, I think the creatives are awesome. And I, I look around there, there’s a, there’s such a low percentage of creatives in the world. And yet I know, and I’m friends with many creatives it’s it’s mind boggling. I don’t quite understand

Matt Hyatt (01:03:59):

We’re a lovable people

Brandon Hutchins (01:04:04):

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, well, maybe, maybe it’s my problem solving is maybe I’m just trying to fix them. Right.

Matt Hyatt (01:04:12):

There’s a lot of work to do. There are ample ample opportunity. So speaking of Nancy you’re, so you’re running several businesses, a couple, several is what you said you’re active in your church. I think I counted four kids and they’re all over the place, college, high school. And then a what middle school you don’t have? You don’t have anybody in elementary still, right?

Brandon Hutchins (01:04:40):

Elementary. Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (01:04:41):

Well, you do have elementary.

Brandon Hutchins (01:04:42):

12 ninth, fifth and sophomore in college.

Matt Hyatt (01:04:45):

Wow. Yeah. How do you balance that? I mean, that’s a lot, that’s just a lot. And, you know, and you were even talking about, you know, multiple locations in this business and trying to be present with a hundred people. How in the world do you balance all of that or do you?

Brandon Hutchins (01:05:04):

Well, I think in general with, you know, multiple businesses and home life and a concept that there was a couple that let our small group, this was, this was probably the early two thousands. And they, they are very intentional couple and have lots of influence in the community. And, you know, I remember Cindy talking to me about overlapping and how important overlapping has been to the way they do all that they do. And I would say that’s something that has stuck with me and I try to do that within. So my, my business relationships and friendships many times have a lot of overlap. And so I, I try to be intentional about you know, maybe checking boxes is the wrong word, but you know what I’m saying? I’m trying to connect and be intentional with people and it might, it might influence multiple situations. And then I’d say with my kids, they’re really great. And they’re all different, which is hilarious they’re. You know, if you’re, if you’re a parent of multiple kids, it’s funny because they’re not necessarily going to be just like you and they’re going to be different than you. And so all of this leadership training has helped me a lot to see my kids for who they are like as individuals. And I try to see them individually and be with them individually with four kids, you know, they want to be known, you know, I think that’s just a desires I want to be known. And so I might try to take, take one to breakfast or take to lunch. We try to do some special trips that are just one-on-one. And we try to do some that are family too. So I try to Nancy and I try to go on a date every week with us. One of the things early in our marriage, we just felt like was important and we see experiences as important as well. And so we, we just try to be intentional. That’s really that seems like such a generic answer, but that’s, that’s probably, my answer is just being intentional. There’s so much wasted time. Like I waste so much time and there’s just so much wasted time that if you are intentional about the way you use your time and I’ll brag on you, Matt, you’re like your schedule, I’ve seen your schedule, your fella coded schedule. I love it. I mean, you’re very intentional with how you use your time And, You know, I, I try to be, and, and I think when you are intentional, it does help you to be able to balance things I’ve been working more recently that has to do with probably capacity of kind of what I was saying before about my role. And I really don’t like that because I really want to be more present. I want to be more present mentally and physically with my family and, and with my friends and, you know, and with the people here at work, you know, so,

Matt Hyatt (01:08:39):

Yeah, well, that’s a lot. Tell me you as you look ahead, what’s, what’s, what’s next for you? What’s what does the future look like? We’re all, I think we’re all sort of, okay, we’re going to get through this pandemic finally. And, you know, we’re all going to go take a trip somewhere and maybe sit on a beach and have a cocktail or something like that. But, but beyond that, what’s, what’s sort of your your plan for the next several years.

Brandon Hutchins (01:09:06):

So I’m 46. And so I’ve begun to maybe look at chunks of my life, you know, maybe fifties, the next milestone. And, you know I think my latest thought is just trying not to get too far ahead of myself. And I really I’m excited about what we’re doing at Gaskins and, and Integrity. And I know that giant will always be a part of my, you know, my heart and my life. And so, you know, I want to do more of that as I can, and I want to be giving away. What’s been given to me. And so leading small groups, it really just feels like probably more of the same. But I will say in particular, I just really loved business. And so our mutual friend, Chad, you know, Meryl who.

Matt Hyatt (01:10:01):

He’s been on the show also.

Brandon Hutchins (01:10:01):

I’ve got some connection with them and partner with him on some things. And it’s been really fun to see, to see businesses kind of, he and I look at some different stuff together and I feel like I’m always kind of in this state of learning, you know, when you, when you get to see other businesses and other CEOs and the way they do things, that’s a learning opportunity, right? It’s like, man, you know, I need to, I need to really consider that. That’s a great idea. And so the more I get exposed to more businesses, the more ideas it gives me about, you know, my own. And so that’s not a real clear plan for my future. It’s probably just the more of the same. And, and if I was being really honest with you, Matt, I would just say, I just want to be wherever the Lord wants me to be. And I’m, and I’m open to that because I just know that when, when I’m trying to get my own way, I’m probably missing out on probably the best things that are in store for me. And so I’m trying not to think too much about it, even though, man, I can’t wait to be empty nesting like you.

Matt Hyatt (01:11:23):

Yeah, that’s pretty fun. I, I’m not, I’m not gonna lie. It’s pretty fun. It’s nice. You know what, It goes by, it goes by super quick though. And I know, you know that, but I think people really learn. It goes, you know, where that phrase comes from time flies you know, when they’re, when they’re parents, but you know, Maureen and I are relatively new empty-nesters over the past year or so, and look back and say, gosh, you know, in some ways in the middle of parenting is same. Like this is our life, right? And then when you’re an empty-nester and your kids are off on their own and doing their own thing, it’s like, wow, that was really a flash in the pan. You know, it was 20 years basically. And if you are lucky enough to live to 80, it’s only 25% of your life. It goes by very, very quickly.

Brandon Hutchins (01:12:14):

Yeah. I know for me, it’s going to be more like 30 years because of the spread spread spreading years.

Matt Hyatt (01:12:23):

We kind of knocked ours out back to back. So we go through that pretty quick. Well, that’s awesome. Brandon and good job. Let’s move on to the lightning round. So this is just a few questions that we try and ask every guest of the rocket business podcast and, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I’m going to be very interested to hear your answer to this. Tell us about one person who has made a profound impact on your journey.

Brandon Hutchins (01:12:46):

All right. I’m going to pick two just because I’ve talked so much about Jeremy, Jeremy for sure has been a catalyst for a lot of positive change in my own life. So Jeremy has been very influential in my life. There’s a guy named David Eldridge. Who’s my pastor. And you know, he’s my best friend too. We planted a church together in 2006.

Matt Hyatt (01:13:16):

In your spare time.

Brandon Hutchins (01:13:16):

and and we, we have lunch together every Wednesday and I would just say his, his, so it’s been like 20 years. We’ve gone to lunch every Wednesday. And he, I would just say he has been such an encourager and just a model for me just in living life and bouncing ideas off of and sharing burdens and problems. And, you know, it’s interesting, you know, he knows more about Gaskins than anybody. And he’s not even in Gaskins. And so anyway, I just, he has been very influential just by being there sharing time and then just living his life with integrity and character. So.

Matt Hyatt (01:14:09):

Mentors are so important. And it sounds like you’ve got two really great ones.

Brandon Hutchins (01:14:15):

Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (01:14:17):

Nice. What’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned in your professional career

Brandon Hutchins (01:14:23):

Easily. The, the people that like seeing people as people and then valuing seeing them and then learning how to value people that are different from you.

Matt Hyatt (01:14:35):

Right.

Brandon Hutchins (01:14:35):

Probably both of those lumped together, the people part for sure. But I’m naturally, I’m naturally more of a competence type person, you know, naturally. So me learning that other side changed everything for my business and life.

Matt Hyatt (01:14:55):

I love it. So you said you’re not readings, maybe not your favorite thing. Are you a podcast guy? What, what sort of has your attention right now and how do you learn new things?

Brandon Hutchins (01:15:08):

Well, I love talking to other CEOs for sure. Like I love that’s that’s that’s my best tutorial and I I’m, I’m bluff. I’ve, I’ve read a lot of books. I don’t listen to podcasts, but I don’t. Yeah. I I don’t read a lot of new books. How about that? It’s kind of like if they get, if they get tested and people are like, Ooh, I love this book. Hey, the advantage is a great book and I hear three people say that, then I’m like, okay, well then I’ll read that book.

Matt Hyatt (01:15:47):

So you got to have the public vet it for you, right?

Brandon Hutchins (01:15:50):

That’s right. That’s right. That’s kind of the story of my life. You might be you’re, you’re more cutting edge than I am.

Matt Hyatt (01:15:56):

I don’t know.

Brandon Hutchins (01:15:56):

So I’m going to wait. And so books like Great By Choice, Integrity Leadership, and Self-Deception which I mentioned. There’s one called the pursuit of God that I just read. That’s. Wow. That was pretty awesome.

Matt Hyatt (01:16:17):

Fantastic. So if people want to learn more about you or Gaskins or Integrity, what’s the best way for them to reach out and find more information?

Brandon Hutchins (01:16:27):

Probably just email me. It’s [email protected]. Our phone number 770-424-7168. You know probably call me on my cell, but I’ll let, I’ll let Matt filter that and then

Matt Hyatt (01:16:46):

There you go. Nice job. All right. On that note, I think it’s time to wrap things up, Brandon from myself and our audience. Thank you for joining us today and to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Should you have any suggestions on future topics that you’d you like to hear more about, please email us at podcastsatrocketit.com and finally, a quick plug for Rocket IT. We help businesses leverage technology to create seamless networks that encourage productivity and profitability. To learn how a personalized roadmap can bring efficiency to your business and clarity to your team. Visit Rocket IT.com/roadmap-help or click the link in this episode’s description.

On this episode of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, we have the pleasure of speaking with one of the banking industry’s most admirable leaders, Neil Stevens.

Having served as Oconee State Bank’s President and CEO for the last four years, Neil and his team have carefully crafted an organization that generates remarkable experiences for the communities it serves. And now, as many small businesses continue to navigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Neil’s team has shifted to provide support through innovation and new initiatives.

Oconee State Bank Website

[email protected]

Mailing Address: 25 North Main street, Watkinsville, GA, 30677

Andy Stanley Podcast

Matt Hyatt (00:00):

Hello, and welcome to the 21st installment of the Rocket IT Business Podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt. And today we have the pleasure of speaking with one of the banking. Industry’s most admirable leaders, Neil Stevens.

Intro (00:12):

[Music Plays]

Matt Hyatt (00:27):

Served as a Oconee State Bank’s president and CEO for the last four years, Neil and his team have carefully crafted an organization that generates remarkable experiences for the communities it serves. And now as many small businesses continue to navigate the negative effects of the COVID pandemic, Neil’s team has shifted to provide support through innovation and new initiatives. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s first welcome Neil to the show. Neil, I’m glad to have you here.

Neil Stevens (00:53):

Thank you, Matt, for having me. It’s an honor to be here.

Matt Hyatt (00:58):

Yeah, absolutely. So you are broadcasting from the thriving metropolis of Watkinsville.

Neil Stevens (01:05):

Yes, sir. Absolutely

Matt Hyatt (01:08):

Our friendly neighbors to the East. So glad you’re here. Hey, I want to dive right in you and I have been friends for a while now. We have known each other pretty good long time. I feel like it’s been 10 years or so.

Neil Stevens (01:19):

Yeah. It goes back to that first round table, that innovation round table that we used to be a part of. Yes, yes.

Matt Hyatt (01:25):

Yeah. Well, I would love to just let our audience get to know you just a little bit. And I want to kind of roll back a little bit the entire time. I’ve known you as a banking professional and leader, but I understand that that’s not maybe where you started. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are?

Neil Stevens (01:46):

Sure, sure. So my father was a firefighter and he fought fires for 38 years, retired as a captain on the Macon County fire department. And so, I grew up around sirens and spending birthday parties at the fire station spending the night there with him. And so we had a really good friend who was the owner of the local ambulance service in Macon and it was called Mid-Georgia ambulance service. And I guess it was probably around 1983 or so. I was I was a junior in high school and he asked me to come dispatch. And so I was a dispatcher for the service. And then when I started at Mercer, I went to Mercer working on a business degree. And while I was at Mercer, I went to paramedic school. And then for those years at Mercer, I worked full time at the ambulance service, but also was a full-time student. So I loved my time as a paramedic. That was really fun and very exciting. So that was sort of the first real job I had.

Matt Hyatt (02:45):

Yeah. Well, man, I’ll tell you what your father sounds like an amazing guy. 38 years as a firefighter.

Neil Stevens (02:51):

Yeah. Yeah. He passed away about four years ago. But what an incredible man for sure. No question.

Matt Hyatt (02:58):

I’m amazed to hear about that long of a career. That’s a good long time. Well, I wonder as you’re kind of going through school, you said you’re studying business, but you’re working full time as a paramedic at the same time. That’s a big load all by itself, right. Trying to juggle those two things. And I admire you for doing that. I wish more of our college students would kind of embark on that path of working and going to school at the same time, but that, you know, that’s a big commitment and and it’s not an easy thing to do, but I am curious, was that the intended trajectory? You know, I’m a paramedic today, but man banking world watch out I’m on my way.

Neil Stevens (03:46):

So, you know, I get that question a lot. So, you know, I thought I would maybe study medicine or get into nursing or something of that nature. And honestly studying business at Mercer and working at the ambulance service is what intrigued me was the business side of the ambulance business. And so that was my hope was, but the service was too small to really have a career opportunity there in that role. I mean, the owner wore most of those hats. So I was interested in hospital administration. And so I interviewed with several hospitals, but at the time this was back in 89 or 90, the economy wasn’t that great and hospitals just were not hiring. And so it was just a very difficult time. And so I went to a career fair and met a lady there with CNS Bank.

Neil Stevens (04:40):

And the next day she called me back and offered me a position on their management training program for CNS national bank, which was based in Atlanta. And it was in the middle Georgia market. And my brother, he’s been a big influence on my life. My middle brother, he has been in banking for a number of years and I called him and I said, Mark, what do you think about the opportunity here with CNS? And he said, you know, he said, banking is a great career. He said, I know you may have other aspirations, but he said, just go do it a couple of years and you can figure out what you want to do. And he said, you know, then you can go from there. So that was I guess 31 years ago. And so here I am still in the banking business and never made it the hospital administration, but that’s always intrigued me as well.

Matt Hyatt (05:30):

Well, you know, that’s a fun story. I, I love hearing a little bit about your brother and the influence they had on you. That’s pretty awesome. And good to know, you know, if that banking thing doesn’t work out.

Neil Stevens (05:43):

Exactly. I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff since then, and I’m sure technology has improved drastically, but

Matt Hyatt (05:51):

So I, in my notes here, I think it would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there was also a moment of fame see that you were on a TV show. Is that right?

Neil Stevens (06:04):

Yeah. I don’t know that this is the way you want to become famous. But while I was at the ambulance service, I I guess I was about probably three or four months from graduating from Mercer, but we were going to a call one day and we were we hydroplaned and we flipped our ambulance. We were in it and our ambulance flipped in a troubleshooter for Georgia Power happened to see it. He was going to work and he happened to see it. And he ran over and literally pulled my partner out of safety before the ambulance was fully engulfed in flames fire. So anyway, Rescue 911, our younger listeners would never know the show. Now our older listeners would remember that show. It was really the first, I call it the first reality TV show because it would come on and re-enact the story exactly the way it happened? Well, they heard about these events and they came to Macon, Georgia, and they reenacted the entire event just as we described and they were spot on. And so those who want to see it again, it’s not anything to be proud of flipping an ambulance, but those who want to see it are welcome to go to Google and Google Rescue 911, Rescuers Rescued. That’s the name of the episode and you will see it as a good story because what, Norris Thomas was the guy who pulled us out, what he did and how we saved our lives. And this it’s a very inspirational story from that perspective. But you know, I’d rather been me, you know, going in to save someone from a burning house than me being the one, flipping an ambulance and having the rescue.

Matt Hyatt (07:46):

Right. Did we get to see a young looking Neil Stevens in that, or

Neil Stevens (07:50):

A little heavier Neil Stevens. Younger, certainly, but yeah, I did a lot of exercise in high school, but in college I sort of quit and I kept eating the same amount. And so I’m probably about 215 in that video.

Matt Hyatt (08:06):

Wow. Well, you know, it’s funny, you mentioned that I actually, I think I commented the other day. You seem to be the picture of health these days, every time I see you, you look fantastic.

Neil Stevens (08:17):

I don’t know about that, but I think exercise is one way to clear my mind. And so it’s just, just been a hobby for a number of years.

Matt Hyatt (08:25):

Is that the secret of it? It’s hard. It’s really tough as you know, to lead an organization, maybe balance family life and personalized with that, and also try and stay fit. Is that the secret, just lots of working out?

Neil Stevens (08:43):

I think it’s intentionality and then you have to put focus and priority on the things, whether it’s family time. I think to me, you know, staying fit provides energy. I don’t do it to live longer. I’m a goal oriented person. So I get to set some goals. I feel a lot better. I have a lot more energy. I’ve got high blood pressure that runs in my family. So this keeps my blood pressure in check, you know, all sorts of things of that nature. And so, and it also is a great outlet and it also kind of provides a competitive spirit. We’ve got about six guys, seven, six or seven guys in the morning that work out together and this kind of takes you back to the high school football days and that kind of thing. But I think with anything in life, you’re really, you know, spot on there when you’ve got a lot going on. It’s really easy to get out of balance. And I think a big, a big key to that is being intentional, whether it’s with your family, whether it’s with your health, you know, obviously, you know, you’ve got to spend time on your work, you know, developing good friends and such all those things are very important.

Matt Hyatt (09:54):

I totally agree. Well, it seems to be working for you. I like it. Well, I’d love to hear more about your story is sort of the path to CEO of a bank. And it sounds like at least midway through your college career, maybe that wasn’t even on the radar just yet CEO somewhere potentially, but of an out of the banking world. So you went to work with CNS. We went through their management training program, which sounds like an amazing opportunity for a young person. Right. And I think probably still fairly uncommon in the late eighties, early nineties here, you know, these days, it feels like you hear about leadership programs and they don’t really call them management development programs anymore, but you hear about leadership development programs online, but a great opportunity. I think particularly when you were coming up in, into your career, eighties and nineties, what was the past from there? You finished the program and I said, okay, great. Here’s here’s your new a banker CEO? Or was it a little different than that?

Neil Stevens (11:00):

Yeah, you know, my brother, obviously my parents were big influencers in my life, but there was a individual I met at CNS on that program. And you’re right. That program, we’ve tried to replicate that somewhat here, but those programs are hard to find anymore, but it was a, it was about a year long program and you went through different areas of the bank and how was actually placed for awhile in Dublin, Georgia. And part of that program was a mentor there who is the city president. And he’s since, you know, a number of years ago passed away, but his name was Tom Falk and he was a big advocate of mine, I don’t know, really, you know, why he took a liking to me and took me under his wing. I guess we all have those people in our life. And I have no idea what I did, but he got me a lot of visibility and exposure.

Neil Stevens (11:53):

And when I finished that program, I ended up in Atlanta as a commercial banker. And that’s really where I began to cut my teeth. And, you know, I didn’t know exactly what path I wanted to take. There’s so many different paths we can take in banking. A lot of specialty areas, there’s big banks or small banks, there’s, you know, specialty banks. So really it was not until a number of years later that I determined that, you know, I loved helping people. I love being a part of their decisions of helping them finance a business or, you know, whatever it may be to helping them solve their financial problems. And then I learned that I had felt like I was gifted in the area of leadership and vision casting and inspiration and those types of things. And I found that to be a passion of mine.

Neil Stevens (12:41):

And I had people through assessments that I took and a lot of, you know, people giving me feedback saying you have this skillset. And I found that to be a real passion of mine. And that’s one of the things just to pause for a second. That’s one of the things I really encourage young people today is to really understand your skills, because you want to understand where your strengths lie and then what you’re really passionate about and try to go and marry those two things together, and then work for people who are willing to invest in you and who really care about you and your career growth. And when you can put those three things together, that’s awesome. And so I’ve had that over the years. And so it’s also about patience and timing and the opportunity arose, you know, with that former bank to to lead that institution.

Neil Stevens (13:32):

And that was a great opportunity. And then when this opportunity lined up, I think it was just the past and the experience and my desire to try to make a difference is what opened up the opportunity for me. It was reading the other day, Simon Sinek, great author. And speaker said that when anyone looks at an opportunity and focuses on just the title, it can be a recipe for disaster. And so I would encourage anybody who’s aspiring to do whatever it is. Don’t do it because of the title or the whatever may come along with that title, do it because you really love the responsibility and you love the actual job because when you get to that point, the title and the rest of it takes care of itself. But otherwise it’s a recipe for disaster.

Matt Hyatt (14:26):

Right. That’s great advice. I love what you said also about the, sort of the best path for the young professionals out there. There are so many young folks that I’ve talked with over the years college students, particularly that are in their third or fourth year of college, and they still don’t have any idea what it is that they want to do. And you know, that they might not have an idea even of the industry yet. And as you pointed out that might take care of itself, you know, you, you graduated from college. It sounds like, look, you know, looking towards the medical field and then an opportunity came along in a different field and he grabbed it and went with it. So I like that a lot, but I especially liked the idea of going to work for an organization. That’ll make an investment in you as a young, aspiring professional, because that’s so critical and key, especially early in the career, so that you can sort of figure out who you are and what you want to do.

Matt Hyatt (15:30):

You know, I didn’t have it figured out at age 22, exactly what things Look like. I had an idea of sort of that I wanted to certainly want it to be an entrepreneur, but I didn’t yet know the field and it wasn’t until various people came into my lives and opportunities opened up that the path became clear. And I just think that’s so important to go in with an open mind, but looking for those folks that are going to make that investment of time, or potentially even professional training and development, I think that’s, that’s really good advice.

Neil Stevens (16:03):

If there is one piece of advice, like you said, I could give any young person today is don’t chase the money because there are a lot of companies out there. I mean, I know a lot of, and nothing wrong with this. I’m not saying anything’s wrong with it, but a lot of kids will graduate from UGA or what other, other business school and the big firms, you know, the big accounting firms consulting firms will hire them, pay them lots of money, put them to work for, you know, 90 hours a week and then burn through to them. Whereas if you can find someone, even if it’s at a less amount of money, if you can find both that’s even the best, but at the last amount of money who will invest in you, the money will take care of itself. Once you discover your passions and talents and have someone who really invested in you in Tom Falk back at CNS did that for me and my brother, you know, was a big advocate. And the encouragement they gave me was, was really why I’m in banking today.

Matt Hyatt (17:05):

I love it. How fortunate that Tom Faulk came into your life. I’ve got a mentor of mine as well. Gordon fuller, just a guy that took me under his wing for some reason, I don’t know why, but he took an interest in me and and mentored me and taught me a lot of things. And, you know, in that case, he not only was mentoring me at the office, but also in my personal life, you know, things like getting me into the gym, getting me into church, bringing me home to his family and spending time at the dinner table with his family. You know, those, those are important things for a young person. So great. Great to have mentors in your life for sure. Well, tell us a little bit about County, state bank. I’d love to hear sort of the background and and the trajectory of Oconee State Bank right now.

Neil Stevens (17:55):

Yeah. So we just celebrated this, this year earlier this year, our 60th year, this next February, it’ll be 61 years. And the bank was started by a group of business leaders who at the time you think about Athens, which is only about six or seven miles from Watkinsville for that being, it was back then, it was like a long way to get to Athens, to do your banking. And so Watkinsville was a small community. Didn’t have a bank and a group of shareholders and business people got together, had a vision cast, had that vision and started it. And so thank goodness for them. Thank goodness for their bravery, for their courage. And the bank would not be what it is today without the, the people who came before everyone here to bill what it is today. And but we are a full service financial institution.

Neil Stevens (18:50):

Our asset size today is about 500 million and growing. We have a very great future. That’s a lot of vision and our future in terms of where we want to go. And, you know, we want to ensure that we don’t forget our past, but at the same time, we have to keep our eye on being relevant and not changing. We want to stay rooted and the foundational values that the bank has always held to, but at the same time, we have to be relevant with what today’s banking needs and whether it’s mobile banking and technology, to being the best at customer service, to updating our facilities, to looking at new growth markets, to continue to draft shareholder value over time, to continue to grow all those things are critically important. And if we take our eye off that ball, you know, I think it’s it can be a decline and we don’t want to stay stagnant

Matt Hyatt (19:53):

Yeah. So for those of our listeners that are not maybe as familiar with the banking industry, I know banks many times, but you know, you mentioned 500 million in assets, a lot of non-banking entrepreneurs and leaders might not be able to equate that to size of bank. So in terms of maybe number of employees or number of locations, or what is, what is that like for Oconee State Bank?

Neil Stevens (20:22):

Yeah, so 500 million is still a very small, small bank. We have our eyes on becoming a billion and beyond but there’s a lot of what I guess would be termed medium-sized banks that are 30 billion. So we’re, we’re a small bank, but yet we’re still, I think the 35th largest asset size bank in the state of Georgia out of 150 banks or so that are in the state. But we’ve got about 90 employees. And today, honestly, with mobile technology and less branch network, I mean, you have fewer employees then you would have had, you know, a number of years back at our size, but you know, we’re still a small business and, you know, but want to continue to grow. But we like that because that gives us the ability to be nimble, you know, do things very quickly. But at the same time, we feel like that that growth trajectory is still very important. And our intention here is to remain independent. A lot of the smaller banks today are looking to, you know, they’re, they’re actively seeking to sell. That’s not, that’s not our, that’s not our intention. Our intention is to continue to grow now what we have to do, and that growth path is bringing as much value to our shareholders as we could, if we did sell, but we’re confident we have the team, you know, employee base to make that happen. And that’s our intention. So we hope to be here for another 60 years plus.

Matt Hyatt (22:04):

That’s great. So I’d love to unpack, you said a lot there, and I think some really good stuff in there that I’d like to unpack just a little bit. One of the things that you mentioned is how today we may not need as many employees as we might have needed 20 years ago. And certainly the same is true for, for Rocket IT. We’ve seen that as well. And so sometimes when people, you introduce someone or you meet someone at an event, a lot of times, that’s one of the opening questions. So, can you tell me how many employees do you have? You know, they want to know about that. And in the answer is maybe does not reveal that much about the size or capability of the organization, as much as it used to. We’re able to do a lot more today with every pod of 10 employees or so than we could 15 years ago.

Matt Hyatt (22:54):

And I’m sure that’s true in other industries too. One of the things that I like about Oconee State Bank though, is this approach that you seem to have. It seems to be a very relationship based organization. And so you’ve already pointed out sort of the roots of the organization where, Hey, you know, we’re a community bank that served a very specific community in a very specific communities need in and around Watkinsville. And over time. My guess is, is that the bankers in your organization, leaders in your organization develop relationships. One at a time with most of the business owners and many of the community members in that area. And so you’ve sort of had this depth, right? Rather than breadth. A lot of times you see the really big banks, the ones with the names we all see in the news all the time.

Matt Hyatt (23:54):

They’re not wired for depth at all. They’re wired for breadth, right? They want as many transactions as possible as many people as possible. So it’s a very different approach. And I’d like to hear a little bit more about that, because I know now not only do you serve Watkinsville, but you also have a terrific location and Athens, you’ve got a terrific team right here in Gwinnett serving our area of Metro Atlanta. Tell us a little bit about that. How do you preserve that? Focus on depth and relationships as you begin to multiply the locations and spread out in different areas?

Neil Stevens (24:30):

Yeah. That becomes a challenge as you grow larger is to keep what I would call what you’re describing. There is the culture of an organization. You know, that that depth that you’re talking about is preserving the culture of an organization so that we can adequately, you know, serve our customers in a way that, you know, meets their needs. We feel like that part of that is goes back to being intentional and our vision and mission. You know, one of the things that Simon Sinek, another one of my favorite author says is, you know, know your why. And our why is our vision statement is that we want to be essential to the lives, businesses and communities that we serve. Well, how do we become essential? That is our why. And the way we do that is by what we call creating remarkable experiences.

Neil Stevens (25:27):

So we feel like, I think that depth comes by always keeping our customers the heroes of the story, not ever let it become about us. We don’t want to be remarkable so that we can say, look how great we are. We want to be remarkable because we want our customers going out and remarking about us because we have made a difference in their lives. So that they’re the hero of the story. And I think as you expand, it’s very difficult to keep that. I mean, a company that we all know that has done a tremendous job of that, as it expanded is Chick-fil-A. And so, but they have a very, very intentional process. And so 90% of what we do as an organization and named the other bank, you could insert any bank name in there, 90%. It’s exactly the same. You know, our money is just as green.

Neil Stevens (26:27):

We have ATM’s they have ATM’s, we have mobile banking, they have mobile banking. I mean, 90% of what we do is the same. And that’s what we consider the first mile. And the first mile is expected. I mean, if you don’t go the first mile, that’s a low par, if you go the first mile, that’s expected, really the 10% that will make us different is, and radically different is that second mile. And it’s the creation of those experiences in such a way that differentiates us. And I think what you’re sharing about relationships is that’s, the secret is found in those deep relationships where our bankers truthfully and genuinely care about the customer, want to make them the hero of the story. And we have three little words that you create remarkable experiences. You, you engage and in a way that’s enthusiastic, you personalize in a way that’s very purposeful. And then thirdly, you surprise them with sizzle. And if you can, if you can do that on a consistent basis, and that’s hard to do, but if you can figure out how to do that, that’s the 10% that makes us different and keep our breadth, you know, our depth where it needs to be so that we don’t just look at breadth and be three miles wide, and only an inch deep. We want to be three miles deep, like you were talking about earlier. So I think that’s the secret.

Matt Hyatt (27:56):

I love it. You know, it reminds me there was a family camp that took my family to a few years ago. And I remember, you know, we’re, we’re all kind of excited about it. My kids were small and we knew that there were going to be various activities. We had other friends that were going to the same family camp. There were a lot of things that we didn’t know, you know, such as what the sleeping arrangement was going to be in terms of you are going to be in that tent or the cabin or, or whatever. But there were a lot of knowns going into it. And I just remember having an even better than expected time. And I remember they had the saying that they were talking about plus ones, and it’s kind of like that 10% that you’re talking about. Like, here’s the expectation. Here’s what everyone expects out of their bank, that their money’s going to be there, that I’m going to be able to go online, or these days on my mobile device that there’s going to be a team that I can talk to for support, you know, that’s, those are all givens, but when you can give them that little surprise or the plus one, or the 10%, that can make a big difference especially over a long period of time.

Neil Stevens (29:11):

Yeah. Thank you.

Matt Hyatt (29:14):

I know you’re expanding and we talked about it a little bit the Gwinnett locations.

Neil Stevens (29:21):

I haven’t been over three years now. A couple of years, maybe since we converted that.

Matt Hyatt (29:25):

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how you manage that kind of expansion. What are some of the mechanics, Neil that you personally have to keep an eye on as you’ve got, you know, you’ve got your sort of your home base there and Watkinsville. I know that even that’s changing, we’ll talk about that in a minute with your new location headquarters, how do you manage so many things at once? What’s the secret there?

Neil Stevens (29:54):

Well, I think you have to I think it has to be a, what I would call thinking long. In other words what we’re going to be doing two or three years from now has we have to be casting vision and talking about that today. I think you also have to be nimble. I mean, none of us knew that COVID was going to hit. So we’ve had to a favorite word around here has been pivot. We’ve had to pivot a number of times during this pandemic. You know, I had a banking consultant. One time told me, he said recently said, don’t waste a good pandemic. And it’s a, you know, even though this is awful, it’s terrible for people in society, nonetheless, what can we learn from it? But so I think we have to be nimble, but at the same time, we have to think long.

Neil Stevens (30:44):

We have to think, okay, the next three years, what do we want to accomplish? Because it’s, it’s going to, it’s a journey to get there. And if you wait until you wake up one day and say, Oh, we need to be doing this well, then, you know, it’s probably another year or further out before you can accomplish that vision. So it’s always about casting vision thinking long and communicating and doing it in a strategic way. So our board, I mean, every board meeting, we will have strategic discussions. Our boards actively engaged in those discussions. Our management team, our senior leadership team. We spend time talking about major decisions. We involve our staff, you know, as best we can, all of our team members to get their thoughts. And buy-in some of the best ideas in our bank have come from team members, you know, who have come up with an idea that says, wow, you know, that’s a terrific idea.

Neil Stevens (31:37):

And so I think it’s about planning, being strategic thinking long. And when you have a clear vision and mission and clear values, you don’t become distracted by every little shiny object out there, because then you can begin chasing things and you get nowhere. You have a lot of sideways energy, and we want to keep our energy focused on going forward. So aligning our team on where we’re going and making sure everyone’s on board thinking long thinking strategically, avoiding those distractions by keeping our true North, our vision mission values at the center. I think that’s the secret to making it happen and then realizing that there’s no perfect world. I mean, the best football play design in the world sometimes falls apart. You know, when you get on the field and something goes wrong. So you have to be have to have a mindset that, okay, if we need to pivot we’ll pivot,

Matt Hyatt (32:36):

I love that you’ve mentioned it actually. So I don’t know if you realize that or not, but you’ve mentioned your mission values, your purpose, you know, that Y you’ve we’ve mentioned earlier, you’ve been now CEO and at the home of the Oconee State Bank for four plus years, I think, but it was, so that means it was 56 years old when you stepped in where the purpose and mission and vision and values all clear when you stepped in or was there work to be done to figure those things out?

Neil Stevens (33:10):

I think they were clear. I think there’s been great vision casting in the past. The bank would not have, you know, been where it is today. I think what it needed was maybe some refocus to just think about it. I mean, when I joined, we had just recently come through the biggest recession of our, of our lifetime and banking. I mean, there were several years there that the bank and bank management and I wasn’t here at the time, but they were just fighting to keep the doors open. Right. So, I mean, that was the mission: not close down. Every time someone showed up in the parking lot, people were, you know, employees were looking out the window thinking is this the day we’re going to be closed. And so we had some incredible people and leadership positions on the board. It’s also some great staff you know executive team members who led the bank through the recession and a great way.

Neil Stevens (34:06):

And so I think after that, all that was over and the dust settled, it was time to, to come in and sort of have a fresh look refocus on, okay, where do we go from here, cast vision? And we had some board turnover and some various things of that nature. And I believe now we’ve got the board and the executive team that can appreciate the past. And, but also make our vision more clear and you know, different and align everybody in a way to achieve, you know, where we’re headed today. And that’s not easy to do. I mean, that’s a task

Matt Hyatt (34:48):

I love, I love it. It reminds me so much of, you know, trying to grow my business over the years. My favorite place to think about is, you know, down the road 10 years, that’s just, I’m kind of wired that way, sort of future focused and oriented towards what’s going to what life is going to be like for, for the team or whatever, 10 years down the road. That’s kind of where, where I’m usually pointed. But every once in a while we get blindsided, you know, the pandemic as a good example, the great recession is great example. You know, the we’ve had certainly in the it industry over our past 26 years, numerous times when things have been shifted from one winter, you know, cloud computing as, as an example of things where there are major shifts that all of a sudden is okay, I need to put my head down a little bit and I got to go figure out what’s going to happen this afternoon and tomorrow.

Matt Hyatt (35:46):

And I can’t be worried too much about 10 years from now. And so every once in a while, that’s what’s necessary, right. That’s, what’s necessary for us to, okay, I’ll roll up my sleeves and we’re going to fight for today because that’s, what’s important right now. And then somehow you make it through all of that. And you know, our shirts are tattered and our face is dirty, but we’re up or knuckles are bleeding, ready to go again. And that’s when I think you’re right. It’s time to say, okay, you know what? We made it good job. Let’s focus on the future. And a lot of times that does mean kind of getting back to our roots okay, what is important to us? How are we going to interact with our community and what are we going to be focused on next? And you’re right. Sometimes those things might shift a little bit, but the core, I think is often the same, right? You know, the values, at least you correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing values, don’t change a lot. They’re not wild shifts and values over a period of time. There are some times recentering and making sure we’re all pointed in the same direction. Anyway, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but I love where your head is and kind of how, how your approach has been there.

Neil Stevens (37:00):

Yeah. Well, I think of values. I think about, you know, you think about the values of yeah, I know there’s a lot of political unrest, but you think about the values of our country, our constitution there hasn’t been, you know, that’s still solid. That’s still there, but yet, you know, we don’t do things the way we did and 1803. I mean, we have a lot of new technology, obviously, a lot of things of that nature think about churches. I mean, today, you know, and George Washington’s error churches, we do church a lot differently yet the fundamental values of scripture and such have never have not changed, they’re still rooted. And so that’s how we look at the bank and this thinking long and visionary pieces is very important, but it’s a blessing and a curse because I think the blessing obviously is to be able to kind of see the future and know where you’re going.

Neil Stevens (37:57):

And I’m thinking always thinking ahead, you know, but the danger there is you can not really cherish the now and because life’s uncertain, right. So we don’t know what’s really going to happen tomorrow. And so I think it was an as a balance there. And thankfully for me, I feel like there’s a team of executive leaders here who together, we all balance each other out and they’re able to call me out, maybe when I’m thinking too far ahead or thinking of something crazy and I’m able to call them out when I’m thinking, you know, you’re, you’re too caught in the weeds on something and that kind of thing. But, that’s the secret is to be able to put people around you who can breathe truth into your life and be transparent.

Matt Hyatt (38:41):

That is important for sure. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about you. So I know you’ve got two kids, adult kids, right. I know that when you’re a leading an organization, especially a growing changing organization and a dynamic field, I have some experience in this area. It can be pretty consuming. Right. And so how, how does a leader like Neil Stephens balance the family life? I know you’re on several boards and several activities outside of a Connie state bank and leave the bank at the same time. What’s the secret to managing all of those things at once and doing that well,

Neil Stevens (39:28):

Well, I think it goes back to something I mentioned earlier and that’s intentionality. I really do believe that, you know, if you get so caught up in your work, that it consumes you, there is a cost, there’s a, there’s a price to that. It’s, you’re going to pay for that. And some other area of your life at the same time, if you’re all about leisure and you know, you don’t spend the time at work, you need, there’s a price that you pay for that as well. And so what I’ve tried to do and, there are really the three things we talk about at Oconee State Bank is faith, family, and then work. So if at 3:00 PM you need to be at a soccer match at, you know, Augusta to watch your kid go be, go do that.

Neil Stevens (40:14):

Don’t miss that opportunity. Simultaneous to that. I think of, you know, the next night you may have to work at 10:00 PM to to get the work done and get the work caught up. So it’s about balance. And I liked the word integration, even more work work-life integration and that every single myself and along with every single team member, we bring home, we bring work home. You can’t help, but bring work home regardless of your position, what’s going on at work. And we take home to work. Things that are happening in our personal life has to come to work. And so I don’t know how you really separate the two, but I do believe that you have to put it on the calendar and schedule that time. I can remember when my kids were younger there, I was a baseball coach for my oldest son.

Neil Stevens (41:05):

And I would go to coach all of his practices, but I may be up, you know, late at night working when I got back from that in order to, to sacrifice that time, my youngest, son’s a tremendous musician and I haven’t missed any of his, you know, performances. Anytime I can go hear him play or sing or do whatever. I’ll sacrifice time to go do that with my wife, a guy told me a long time ago at first citizens bank where I used to work. He said, Stevens. He said, you’ve done a good job here. And he said, but I want you to look around this room. And I looked around the room, we were at a management retreat and he said, there’s not a single person here that’s going to be feeding you pudding when you’re 90 years old and in a nursing home, he said, that’s going to be your family. He said, you don’t ever forget that. And so I think we’ve got to put things in perspective, scheduled time, scheduled, date nights, scheduled times with the kids, but at the same time, manage our time in a way that we get our work done adequately as well.

Matt Hyatt (42:08):

Well, I’ll tell you, I have never heard that before the work life integration versus work-life balance. I liked that a lot. I may I’ve spent some time thinking about that of myself, but I totally agree with you about the intentionality part also. No great things happen with intentionality. They might happen by accident, but that’s pretty rare. I told somebody the other day that it’s amazing what you can accomplish in a decade, right? And you don’t arrive there on accident after a decade. It takes, it takes intentionality to hit your target after 10 years. So I, I love that very much. Life goes by so fast.

Neil Stevens (42:55):

It goes by so fast. And my wife, I mean, she is everything in the world to me and we have a great relationship, but it’s like any other relationship you gotta spend time, you’ve got to talk. You got to talk things through, you got to spend time with each other, by the way, one thing I probably should correct is it’s our, our sons. Sometimes I say my sons and she’s always scratching at me. It’s our sons. She is the mother of our two kids. But just for the record here, but life flies I’m I was looking at a picture the other day of our kids, young, you know, in a pumpkin patch back, I can’t remember what Halloween, but it was years ago. And it’s like, wow, I can remember that photograph. And it seems like just maybe two or three years, and it’s been a lot longer than that. So don’t, don’t say, you know, work’s important. We got to achieve our goals. We got to bring shareholder value. We got to breathe life into our teams, but let’s not forget the ones that are closest to us and sacrifice that. So that’s so important.

Matt Hyatt (43:58):

I totally agree. Well, well said, so tell us, we were talking a little bit about being blindsided and yes, you’re right. Summer of 2019, I don’t think any of us would have guessed what was in store for 2020. How, how has, you know, the banking industries in many ways, sort of the center of this with, you know, want to make sure we don’t take my words out of context here. Healthcare is huge, and we’ve got a lot of folks working very hard, but with the government mandates to help out our citizens and businesses with stimulus and so forth, suddenly the banks have been thrust into the middle of that also. And I’d like to hear a little bit about how Oconee State Bank has helped help your customers stay afloat and navigate these very challenging waters with with abandonment.

Neil Stevens (45:02):

Oh, I tell you, thankfully, our team and I give, I mean, if I started naming people, that’d be, it’d be, you know, all 80 people. I mean, some worked harder than others from the standpoint of hours and that kind of thing. But I want to tell you, we had a tremendous amount of people working Easter all Easter weekend, trying to get the PPP in place, but the reason we were able to help so many people is that we, we reacted quickly. We did not wait. It’s back to that vision thing. I mean, it was a quick decision on that, but it’s like, okay, we’ve got to, we’ve got to begin to move on this. So I think the day that the portal open that we could, you know, make long as we were ready and we began getting applications loaded in that portal.

Neil Stevens (45:49):

And it made a tremendous difference. I mean, I got, I can’t tell you how many emails, phone calls testimonials. We had a series of testimonials of people that we were able to help. And it was a perfect opportunity to live out our vision and mission of being essential and creating remarkable for others. But we couldn’t have done that without a team of people who, you know, sacrifice their personal time and had the mindset of keeping the others person first and not worrying about their own schedule. And so we closed about 55 million, I think, in a PPP loans, which generated some nice fees for us, but more so than that, I mean, it was the ability and we have customers today that we would have never gotten that we’re happy at other institutions, but we were able to gain that customer base as a result of this. And they’re still with us. And, and it’s the opportunity of seizing those opportunities. But at the same time, it’s such a thrill. Our people had such a thrill from helping someone else. And so what was awful and terrible for everyone, it’s like, it was the opportunity to try to make a difference.

Matt Hyatt (47:05):

You know what, there’s, there’s a saying success is when preparation meets opportunity, right. And having your team sort of already primed to know that their calling is to make a remarkable difference in other people’s lives. When the opportunity comes along to actually do it, you’re ready. Like you’re not only ready because you’ve got the processes in place, the people’s mindsets right there, right. For those kinds of opportunities. And that’s not something you can just create overnight. That’s something that, you know, you’ve you and your fellow leadership team members over there have had to curate or cultivate in your organization job well done. I mean, it sounds, it sounds like it’s worked out exactly the way that it,

Neil Stevens (47:51):

Einstein had a quote, one time, of course, he was the mathematician of all time. You know, he didn’t have to teach him math. And he’s, he made a statement, a very profound statement, and it said not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts. And so it’s, it’s really more about, you know, the profits will take care of themselves, but let’s begin to focus on what matters in people’s lives. And that’s what made me so proud of this team. It was just incredible watching them get joy from serving others and making a difference. And when you can create that in an organization, the rest of everything else takes care of itself.

Matt Hyatt (48:36):

I love it. Well, let’s, let’s jump into a slightly different topic for just a moment I want to touch on it is just the technology, the digital aspect of banking. I mean, that’s something that has just completely changed even, well, actually, that’s the pandemic. We’ve seen it even accelerate more, you know, I bank with Oconee State Bank and we’ve got a great relationship and there’s there have been improvements that I’ve seen fall into place. So tell us a little bit about kind of how that’s how you see that going forward. What kinds of things do you have to do as a, as a community bank to stay competitive on the, on the digital front? How do you navigate that?

Neil Stevens (49:26):

Well, we’ll never want to lose sight of what we’ve mentioned earlier, and that’s the relationship aspect. I mean, individuals, customers are our best customers and any customer of our bank. They want to know they can call someone in need. However, because of Amazon, because of what’s happening out there. And with technology in general, as a result of the pandemic, all those things American banker, as a publication, that’s a widely read publication within banking. And there’s not a week that goes by that. I don’t read an article in American banker about how the pandemic is accelerating the need for banks to be really good at technology. And so I think what customers want and you think about me and you, I mean, we, if we order something you want convenience, you want ease of use you want it to be right. You want it to be quick.

Neil Stevens (50:25):

And so we’re right now into what we’re calling our three year digital transformation roadmap. We’ve committed a actually we’ve created a segment of our board. That’s the digital transformation committee for our board. And we’re sharing things with them on a regular basis, but we have our, our it group, our head of it. And everyone working with some consultants to really create, because a lot of it is where technology is going. It’s just not where it is today. It’s where it’s going. And so it’s like making that pass to the receiver. You’re not throwing the ball where the receiver is, you’re throwing the ball to where the receiver is going. And so we want to make sure that we’re doing that effectively. And so this roadmap will help kickstart that, but we’ve made a lot of, a lot of improvements, a lot of changes, but we have to stay relevant and keep up there. So that’s a, that’s a big one on our plate and it’s even made it into our strategic plan and multiple places.

Matt Hyatt (51:26):

I love that, you know I think you’ve done a good job at it, just from my, my perspective as a user of your services. I know that there are certain things that I’m able to do in the app that I use for my Oconee State Bank accounts, and also on the website that are not easily available, if at all, from the bigger banks that I’ve worked with. So good job. And it sounds, sounds like you’re doing a great job on that. Well, Neil, we’re going to move on to what we call our lightning round. And so this is just a number of questions that we try and ask every guest as happens, that we’ve sort of touched on a couple of them. You you know, I would usually ask folks, Hey, what’s a person that’s made a profound impact on your journey. And you told us about John Faught. Are there others?

Neil Stevens (52:19):

Yeah, well, of course, I guess I’m a parents and my brother, but outside of family and John Faught was a big influence, but I would tell you, Randy Pope was a pastor at Perimeter Church. He retired just recently. He’s still involved with the church. He’s not retired. He’s no longer pastoring, right. And he’s never going to stop, but he is a tremendous leader, tremendous believer. He, we were there at that church for 25 years and he made a profound impact on me through his leadership. And so I’d have to say he’s at the outside of the family and my wife and, and, and everybody that’s around me. Randy Pope has been a big influence.

Matt Hyatt (52:58):

How about that. What’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned in your professional career

Neil Stevens (53:05):

To me it’s, and it’s sometimes hard to do this for leaders, but I think having a sense of humility and being willing to ask for help when you need it and not being like you have all the answers. And then when they give you the help share the credit or give the credit away, I think that is so critically important enough. And I’ve learned over the years, I’ve not always been that way. And I’ve learned over the years that, you know, it takes a lot of people to create success and keep a sense of humility about things, regardless of how big, how well things are going or how poor things are going.

Matt Hyatt (53:46):

You know what I think a lot of folks kind of fall into that trap of, hey, I’m leading this organization or I’m building this business or, or whatever it might be even parenting of. Okay, I gotta figure this out on my own. And I’m just gonna kind of try and use my head to figure my way through it when the truth is that there are probably lots and lots and lots of other people that have gone through the same things and figured out some of that hard stuff. So leaning on others, looking for mentors asking good questions. And I love the part about giving credit where credit is due. That’s important stuff. Nice job. Are you a podcast guy or a reader? What what’s your favorite podcast?

Neil Stevens (54:29):

By the way, you’ve built an incredible company yourself. I just gave you that shout out. I mean, you’re one of those leaders who I admire and you’ve done it the right way. I knew that back at that first round table years ago, this guy’s got something going on, but you know, the Andy Stanley leadership podcast has been a good one and he’s a great communicator. And he’s had some tremendous leaders on his podcast and I’ve talked about some great principles. I’ve played a lot of those podcasts for our team actually, and we’ve all listened to them from a podcast standpoint, not really widely a podcast listener, but that’s one that I have listened to quite regularly.

Matt Hyatt (55:10):

He is probably one of the most gifted communicators I can think of Andy Stanley he’s he’s. He does a great job. Yep. So, if people want to learn more about you or Oconee State Bank, what’s the best way for them to reach out?

Neil Stevens (55:22):

Well, I’m located here in Watkinsville, Georgia at 35 North Main Street and the email address is [email protected]. And so feel free to reach out anything I can do to help that we can do to help love, to try to be of service.

Matt Hyatt (55:38):

Wonderful. Thanks so much, Neil, on that note, I believe it’s time to wrap things up, Neil from myself and our audience. Thank you so much for joining us today. So our listeners, thank you for tuning in to the Rocket IT Business Podcast. So do you have any suggestions on future topics that you’d like to hear more about email us at [email protected]. Finally, a quick plug for Rocket IT, we work with businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities in the areas of it, support information, security and strategic planning to learn more about Rocket IT and its services simply visit rocketit.com. Thank you, Neil.

With a constant drive to innovate and tackle new challenges, CablesandKits CEO, Craig Haynie has become a master of building businesses; helping his online business grow and overcome various challenges since its launch in 2001. And now, in the wake of the COVID pandemic, Craig has once again found new ways to build on the impressive capabilities of his team and online platform.

Craig Haynie | [email protected]

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Podcast with Chad Merrill and FCCI

Matt Hyatt (00:00:00):

Greetings and welcome to episode 20 of the Rocket IT Business Podcast. My name is Matt Hyatt, and I’ll be your host today, as we get to know entrepreneur extraordinary and my close friend, Craig Haynie

Intro (00:00:25):

[Music Plays]

Matt Hyatt (00:00:25):

With a constant drive to innovate and tackle new challenges. Craig has become a master at building businesses, helping his online business grow and overcome various challenges since its launch in 2001. And now in the wake of the COVID pandemic, Craig has once again, found new ways to build on the impressive capabilities of his team and online platform. Craig, welcome to the show. Glad you’re here.

Craig Haynie (00:00:48):

Thanks for having me. This is pretty cool.

Matt Hyatt (00:00:50):

Awesome. So let’s dive right in. Tell us, tell us a little bit about Cables and Kits. That’s that’s the business that you were running when when I first met you probably 10, 15 years ago. And tell us a little bit about that business and the background.

Craig Haynie (00:01:04):

Sure. So I have a technology background from, from the early days I started a dial up internet service provider back in 1999 and was a part of a few others before that took a high-tech job in Northern Virginia back right before the dot-com crash. When the dot-com crash happened, I found myself jobless, and obviously you know, being an entrepreneur minded and wired person I was looking for for something to do. And so I fell backwards into the business of buying and selling pre-owned Cisco networking equipment, buying it used and, you know, dusting it off and, and getting it going and selling it. And I did that in the early days. And since then it obviously matured and we, and other companies like us have built kind of an association that we’re all a part of. And you know, now, about 2019 to 20 years later, we’re you know, a significant and well-recognized part of of it.

Craig Haynie (00:02:02):

And so that’s how it began. About three years in after selling pre-owned Cisco, I just on a whim looked into e-commerce. It was, it wasn’t brand new. But if you think about what e-commerce was around in 2003, 2004, I mean, you had eBay and some early things, but you didn’t, it wasn’t certainly as significant as it is today. So I was intrigued by that downloaded and installed an open source shopping cart platform and started tinkering with it and literally said, well, you know, what can I throw together on this play website that I’m doing? And I had a box of rack mount kits and console cables, and I was like, I don’t know, Cables and Kits. And I went and registered the domain, threw it together and was tinkering about three months later after not logging into the admin section of the site for quite a while. I logged in and there were three orders there. And I said, where in the world did these orders come? So, because I had not advertised or anything, it was just it was a play toy. And so we contacted those, or I contacted those people and apologized for the delay and ship them the product that they had bought for free, because it was just stuff in a box. And I said, there’s something here. So I started focusing on it, working on it. And that was one of the first, well, not the first, but one of the the major times in this era where I worked, you know, 16, 18 hour days till three and four o’clock in the morning, you know, just pounding away at figuring out how to develop in PHP and adding products to the website, sourcing them. And so I created a bonafide e-commerce website that primarily focused on Cisco accessories, rack, Mount kits, configuration cables, power cords, replacement parts, and the Cisco hardware.

Craig Haynie (00:03:54):

Wasn’t a part of that until much later. So that just took off. I mean, we, we over a 13 year period, we grew, you know, an average of a million dollars a year in revenue for 13 years in a row. And just, it was like a rollercoaster ride. So that’s, that’s kinda how it came to be somewhere in there. We added Cisco hardware back in and onto the website. We were one of the first to sell pre-owned Cisco via e-commerce. And for those that don’t know, a lot of the times with pre-owned Cisco, you can buy it new, or you can buy the exact same products, reset to factory specs for 50% less than what you would pay for new. There’s a few little limitations that you have to understand, but for the most part, for the average medium or even enterprise business, it’s a great option.

Craig Haynie (00:04:41):

So when we added that, it was really received well, business started taking off in that as well. And then, since then, I would say that we’ve matured to a place now where we would consider ourselves to be more passionate and more capable around sourcing and building products in China or other parts of Asia, or in some cases in the U.S. Where we can drive down the cost of a highly commoditized product, like ethernet, fiber, optic, cabling, power, cabling, racking. And so we’re, we’re more now around the manufactured side of things. We still have a huge business in pre-owned Cisco, and we will continue to focus on that. But now, instead of selling random things, we have a very intentional purpose around network infrastructure as a whole. So in a big, long couple of breaths, that’s who we are and more.

Matt Hyatt (00:05:34):

Well, so really amazing. You don’t hear too many products type businesses that can grow a million dollars a year over a long period of time, pretty consistently. And and I know you do have a really great business there, and we’re going to dive into a couple of those things pretty quick here, but I do want, I want to go back just a little bit. You said you fell backwards into the business. How does one do that for our listeners who may not have had the pleasure of falling backwards into a multi-million dollar business? How did that happen? Exactly. And what were the circumstances around it?

Craig Haynie (00:06:12):

Sure. So first I’ll start with the lesson. I think that the lesson in what I’m about to say is you always have to keep your eyes open for what could be in whatever situation you find yourself in the middle of. And I know that you wanted to talk about safety supplies later on, and that’s a really good example of the same thing. And so we’ll get to that. But, so what happened was I had owned a dial-up internet service provider that failed, and I had some hardware that was left over from that internet provider, a Cisco switch, as well as a couple of modem banks. So back in the day with dial-up you had a device that had 96 modems built into it on chip sets, and then you had T-1s or PRI lines coming into that thing. And you could, you could have 96 concurrent dial-up sessions. So,

Matt Hyatt (00:07:07):

Gosh, I love it when you talk nerdy, some good stuff. You’re bringing a tear to my eye, just remembering the days, you know, mid nineties type technologies.

Craig Haynie (00:07:19):

Here’s a funny side story is I had to call a send one day for something, and you get the auto-attendant, you know, thank you for calling us in technology, whatever, whatever. Well, I press something and press something else. And then I hear, thank you for calling us in technologies. You know, how can I help you? And I’m like, I thought it was the auto attendant. She said, hello? I said, are you the lady that does the auto attendant? She said, yeah. And I thought it was the funniest thing, because I had called so many times and had never spoken to her and to actually get this person on the phone was just mind blowing. But anyway, yeah, so I had these modem banks. I had this router, or that you want a router and a switch. And it was a couple of years after the failure of the dot-com or the dial-up.

Craig Haynie (00:08:05):

And I went to sell this hardware for cash. I was working a job and I went to sell this hardware, found a guy in California that offered to buy it. And he just kept dilly dally and dilly-dally and dilly-dallying well, I was working at a computer component distributor at the time. And I had a customer that was building some servers for a customer of his, who was starting a dial up internet service provider. And I said, hey, tell your customer to call me. I have these devices he’s going to need. And the guy called me and I sold him the devices and drove him down there, delivered them, got a check, and I was happy. The very next day, the guy that I had been talking to in California called and said, hey, I’m ready. My customer needs them. I’m ready. And I felt bad because I had committed to sell them to him, but I didn’t feel bad because he had drug around and you know, it is what it is.

Craig Haynie (00:09:04):

But I did feel bad. I turned to the, to the, the guy that worked to my right. And I said, hey, I know where to buy another one of these at. I think I had found it on eBay. And I said, I know where to buy another one of these things. Should I buy it and sell it to him so that he has what he needs? And he’s like, no, to heck with the guy. And I thought, you know what, no I’m going to do what I thought was the right thing. Even though it was probably a little bit above and beyond. And so I went and bought this thing and I said, okay, I’ve got you one. He said, can you ship it directly to my customer in North Carolina? So he’s in California, customers, North Carolina turned to the guy to my right, at my job and he says no way, you know, cause the guy was going to overnight me after the fact. But I did it anyway. So I sent the thing and the check didn’t come. And the next day the check didn’t come and I’m calling and calling and the check didn’t come. So finally I got in my car and drove to the address that I shipped it to. And I walked in from from Atlanta. It was like a six hour trip to wherever it was. It was outside of Charlotte. And so I drove there and walked in the front door and I said, I need to speak to this lady. And they walked me to her office and there was the equipment sitting on her credenza. And I said, you know, before I could open my mouth, she said the guy’s been emailing me 15 times a day asking for the serial numbers off the device so that he can run it through his ERP. And then, you know, create an invoice, create a PO yada, yada yada. And I said, well, I’ll read them off to you. So she sent them all back. So then she said, hi, do you want to have a cup of coffee? Sure. So we walked down the sidewalk to a coffee shop, had a cup of coffee. And she said, she assumed that I was her vendor’s vendor. Well, I suppose in a sense I was, but not in the way that she thought, but she said, you know, I’d like to give you, I appreciate your, you know, your passion, your persistence. She said, I’d like to give you all my business for these.

Craig Haynie (00:11:12):

Can you get me 10 of them? And I said, and I actually, I knew where to get 10 of them. And I said, yes, I said, but you know, I haven’t been in business very long, like 10 seconds. So I don’t have a lot of working capital. I’ll prepay you with wire transfers. Okay. So before I got home, I had $60,000 sitting in my account, $14,000 of which was profit. And so while I was at her office, she said, you’re on the list, right? And I’m like, what’s the list. It was an email list server of about 300 other companies that were buying and selling pre-owned networking. So I’m on the list. I’ve got $14,000 in profit sitting in my account. I quit my job on the way home. And I sat there behind my computer and I literally watched, it was like the matrix, all the numbers falling.

Craig Haynie (00:12:07):

It was email after email, after email, want to buy, want to buy want to sell, want to buy. There were so many people that wanted to buy things because they had sold them to their customers. They didn’t have time to even read the emails, to see if somebody had what they needed. There were so many people that were finding hardware from failed dot-coms that they didn’t have time to look for buyers. So both of them were just posting, want to buys and want to sales. And neither one of them were looking at the other email. So, I mean, and that was a dramatization, but I sat there and literally would look at a want to buy. I would scroll down a few days find a want to sell, haggle a deal with them and with the other people and that’s what our industry refers to as a tween, I would tween the deal.

Craig Haynie (00:12:54):

And so then I started looking on eBay and finding hardware. And then I started finding these IT administrators that had stacks of stuff in their server rooms that were, that was unused and started building a network of sources. So I was finding this hardware and then selling it to these other brokers who had relationships with end-user customers looking to save money on their it. And then as I said, earlier, things progressed where I started Cables and Kits, the website. And then I added the pre-owned hardware to the site. And ultimately I flipped it around where I was selling more hardware to the end-user customers that I was buying. And so I started becoming a customer of these other dealers in the market. And so to this day, we’re one of the largest consumers of that market of other brokers.

Craig Haynie (00:13:46):

We buy more from them than probably any other single than any other single customer does. And we just move a massive volume. That’s kind of how it happened. And so the point is, like I said earlier, is, you know, being in a situation and making the most of that situation, looking for that, for that opportunity and looking for that thing where you can, you can turn it into something. And so when I was sitting there having coffee and I knew that she was unhappy with her previous vendor, I knew that she had a demand. I knew where the supply was at and she was willing to make me her vendor. How do you turn that down?

Matt Hyatt (00:14:22):

I have to know. So obviously, to pull something like that off you graduated top of your class in high school, went on to get an MBA, had five to 10 years of experience in e-commerce software development. Right. I mean, how does the path of how all that work?

Craig Haynie (00:14:47):

Yeah. Well, I would love to say that, but then on the hand, I love not saying that I barely escaped ninth grade.

Craig Haynie (00:14:58):

I was raised by a single mom in a trailer park, very poor, power getting cut off, you know. Often my grandfather driving down from, from middle Georgia down to South Georgia, where I’m from, you know, on occasion topping off the power bill, and bringing sacks of food down. In school I had ratty clothes. I got made fun of, I got bullied and didn’t do well in school. I realized later that I’ve not been diagnosed per se, but I’m sure I have some sort of learning disability, probably dyslexia or something. When I read something, I have to read the same sentence two or three times to comprehend it, versus when I hear it, I comprehend it immediately. And so something there that I didn’t understand at the time, so I wasn’t good at school. You know, bullied, beat up, not beat up, just bullied.

Craig Haynie (00:16:01):

And and so, you know, in ninth grade I had just absolutely had enough of all of it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was being tired of my entire life. Not, not just school and not just bullying and not just not doing well, but just the whole thing. And so I quit and my mom technically put me in homeschool, which meant absolutely nothing. And nothing happened there. I went and got a job at McDonald’s at 15 years old and worked full time, 40 hours a week from seven to three of the day shift. I was the only young person on day shift there. And I did that job for, for a little while and then ultimately got a different job. And then I think I went to Walmart for a little while. And then I ended up landing in this dial up internet service provider as a tech support guy also because of one of those stories where an opportunity presented itself.

Craig Haynie (00:16:54):

And I just grabbed a hold of it real quick. I’ll make this quick. I used to go to the skating rink all the time and the DJ, I would stay in there and hang out and talk to him while, you know, just while skating. And he was a computer guy, real smart. And I had an uncle that had an Apple Mac LC2, a Macintosh LC2. And this friend at the skating rink said, you know a lot about Macs, right? And I was like, well, yeah. And I mean, I knew how to use it. He said, well, I just got a job at the very first dial-up internet service provider in town. I’m going to get you a job to be our Mac guy for tech support. I’m like, okay, thinking nothing’s going to come of this. Well I get a phone call a few weeks later from the owner saying, I’ve heard everything I need to hear. You’re hired. When can you start? And I’m like, oh wow. I started and the first few weeks I’m like doing my best to figure out what I was supposed to even know, but I figured it out and you know, got pretty good at it and was you know, it was very helpful. And then I went on to another internet provider that I was partners in quasi partners in, and that’s a whole nother story for another day. And then I left there and started my own dial-up internet provider then went to a work for a tech company in Virginia, and then started at Lantech, which then became Cables and Kits. So that, yeah, that’s my history and my story. So yeah, there’s no education there at all. I think I was just born as an entrepreneur. I think a lot of people are wired that way and I’m one of those people. And, and so everything that I’ve learned, I’ve just learned kind of on the job.

Matt Hyatt (00:18:31):

I love it. I love it. You and I have a lot of parallels. I was a terrible student, also dropped out of college. I long considered myself, sort of unemployable, but I love that story. So one of the things that I think our listeners will pick up on is sometimes you have sort of a unique view of things and and sort of looking at the world a little differently than your average bear. There’s a word for it. I’ve heard Craigism. What is a Craigism? What is that?

Craig Haynie (00:19:08):

Well, you know, I, my mind just jumped ahead. Three chapters. There’s a core value of ours right now. That is why, why, why does your mind blank when this happens? There’s a core value of ours right now called build processes that don’t fail. And what I like to do is when I’m interacting with something, I really want to do it in a way, wire it up in a way where it’s going to last and it’s, it’s not going to just fall apart or fade off into the background as the years have went on. I’ve come to understand that about myself years and years and years ago, I didn’t understand that about myself, but I didn’t have these compulsion’s or I did have these drives and these desires to do things in a certain way. So early on when I would encounter a situation that seemed like it might’ve been difficult to solve, or there was a lesson in it, I would in just mid sentence, I would say something. And I would say, Whoa, wait a minute. That phrase really encapsulates how I feel about this. And I would write it on a whiteboard and I wrote about 12 or 15 of them on this whiteboard. And then somebody started calling them Craigisms, because they’re, you know, things that Craig says. And so we, you know, we still call them Craigisms and there’s, I don’t know, 18 to 20 of them now. So I was in the middle of a conversation with someone one time, and they were talking about having a problem with a coworker and you could see the fire in their eyes, and they really wanted to march them to the door. And, you know, and ultimately what we learned in this conversation with one another was that this behavior in this coworker was usual. And it had been going on for several weeks, but, you know, the several years before it was, were different. And I said, I think the first thing you need to do is seek to understand why they are acting differently now than they did previously. And the words seek to understand ended up on the whiteboard as a Craigism.

Craig Haynie (00:21:24):

And so now what we, what we do is we say, if you’re in a situation that seems abnormal or seems out of place, seek to understand, seek to understand what variables are causing it, what variables have changed, why that person is acting the way they’re acting.

Craig Haynie (00:21:41):

And so it, it’s something that we can quickly call up the middle of the meeting. Well, duh, seek to understand and keep moving, because everybody knows what that means. You know, another one is create capacity. You know, I forget exactly what the origin of that was, but we were in a situation where we where we did something, and there was an opportunity to do it way number one, or way number two. Number one would have taken two hours to do, while number two would have taken two hours and 20 minutes to do, but if we’d have done it way number two, then it would have laid a foundation or a groundwork and given the ability to build on that or create some additional capacity down the road. And so, the idea of that Craigism is when you’re faced with a decision about how to go about doing something, or when you’re making a hiring decision, or when you’re making a technology decision, I can talk forever about those, try to do it in a way that creates capacity for growth or creates capacity for additional efficiencies. As you have time to put toward them. One last thing on this one, it’s not always about capturing the capacity and really, truly that particular phrase is not about that. It’s about creating the ability for the capacity. So that later, when you get a moment, you have somewhere to put the capacity or you have some way to build it. So that’s one. Operational Excellence. Oh, here’s one to solve the problem and deal with the interface efficiencies. So what that would mean is when you’re in the midst of a situation or a problem, you don’t always have to stop and figure out and unwind, why did this happen? How are we going to prevent it in the future? Especially if it’s customer facing, just deal with the problem, right? That moment, make a note, put it on a to-do list and then come back around at an appropriate time and deal with the inefficiency, how you’re dealing with that particular issue. And I’ve got an example, but I won’t go into it because it’s probably too long. But so that’s just a few examples of them. And there’s like I said, 18 to 20 of them, you know? And one last one, a thousand little things, we were talking one day and I forget how it came up, but we were talking about what creates success. And they’re like, what’s this one thing that we need to do. I said, there’s no one thing. You may make one good decision that takes you in a particular direction, but it’s a thousand little things. It’s a thousand little decisions and small things that all end up aggregating together to create a large outcome.

Craig Haynie (00:24:31):

And so when that particular Craigism might come up when somebody is facing a problem, that to me is obviously a lot of small problems rolled up into one and they’re trying to put one big label on it. I said, it’s not, you don’t have one problem. You’ve got a thousand little problems and you need to take and start chipping away at those little problems until you can see a few bigger problems. But if you’ve got a cluttered space, sometimes you may have to just empty the room, right? Maybe part of the problem is not being able to see the room. And so you can’t start thinking about shelving when you, when you have all this clutter that stands in the way of even seeing what space you have to work with. So that’s an example of that one. I get passionate about these things I could see.

Matt Hyatt (00:25:22):

I love it. So, you know, Ray Daleo has his book principles, when’s the Craigism book coming out.

Craig Haynie (00:25:30):

Well, you know, there, there’s a lot of different ideals and you know, list of things. I can’t find a fancy word for it, that, we have something called benign things. We have something called the plan for success. We have the Craigisms, we have our core values. Obviously we have all these other, these other elements that, that have been our realization of, of how to modify in words, the way that we go about things, or the reason that we go about things or the guiding principles to how we do things. And I have thought over the last couple of years that, you know, no rush, but there might come a time when it would make sense to take some of that and put it into a book. Yeah, I love it, but not my, not my number one focus.

Craig Haynie (00:26:19):

I enjoy the process of continuing to refine it. And I love it when you can see things start working together, like you’ll have the Craigisms and then you might have the plan for success. And through those, you start seeing how they start inner intertwining and weaving together. And you’re like, wow, I think there’s something here now, maybe before it was just a list of things, but then you start seeing how they, they become informative or they become guiding. And when they become informative or guiding, then I think that’s when you start seeing the opportunity for maybe helping others in writing them out and publishing them.

Matt Hyatt (00:26:51):

Yeah, well about those opportunities. So one of the things that I’ve admired about you for a long time is, and we talked about it just a little bit just now is just when an opportunity comes along, I think you have a terrific ability to spot it, latch onto it, and then put a tremendous amount of energy into leveraging that opportunity you and I have talked about real estate, a number of times now you’ve done some really cool stuff in real estate over the years. Tell us a little bit about how that works and maybe what’s the most reasonable. You mentioned safety products recently, so that might be a good one to jump into a little bit. Tell us, tell us an example of how that’s worked out for you.

Craig Haynie (00:27:38):

Sure. Well, you know, I love it when I’m listening to something like this, I love it when the person will not only talk about the good, but we’ll talk about the bad. And so I’ll start with the bad. When COVID hit at the beginning of the year, actually slightly before COVID hit, our revenue was down a little bit, not significantly, but you could feel it. And we had COVID happen. And when that happened, we actually had a couple of weeks that were really stellar because people working from home, you know, we sold an insane amounts of ethernet, cabling, and power cubes for phones and you know power cords and different things. But then that really fell off pretty quickly, just a small example, which we still carry this day is when that, when that work from home movement happened, I jumped into high gear and I was, you know, having things made in factories and airing them over.

Craig Haynie (00:28:37):

I remember there was one box that was so big and so heavy that it was $5,000 in shipping to get it. Oh my goodness. I mean, because the rates with ups, FedEx and DHL went through the roof when COVID happened, because the amount of stuff that was being aired over, they were filling the planes and kind of supply and demand. They had to drop down the the demand by raising prices, right? It was crazy, but we launched webcams. I tested so many webcams from so many factories that I’ve literally thought about starting a whole website, just for web cams, because there is so much there that I know in a short amount of time. I mean, there’s so many factors and facets to a webcam. You wouldn’t believe it. And so we’ve launched a, you know, we’ve launched a web cam. That was a kind of a quick commodity kind of, this will get you going. But since then, we’ve been working on, you know, continuing to evaluate new models and look for better quality. And we’ll try to build a small product line in that, but that was driven by the immediate and sudden, and significant demand because everybody started working from home and you couldn’t buy a logic tech camera. I mean, they were back ordered. A lot of them are still back ordered. So we’re, we’re selling cameras like candy. So that’s a really good example. But then as soon as the work from home movement kind of slowed way down revenue, I mean, we were, I don’t know, 40% down. It was, it was pretty crazy.

Craig Haynie (00:30:21):

And so, you know, one thing I’ll say is, is that, that the PPP loan that they came out with, they jumped all over that thing. And I was like, we were a poster child for, you know, for who needed that thing. It was timely and fantastic. And we’re very grateful grateful for it. Now we’ll just be extra grateful if they actually follow through on the forgiveness part.

Craig Haynie (00:30:48):

So, so anyway, and I can, I could rail against myself for making that comment. Cause I don’t like the entitlement side of the country that we live in, but that’s another story altogether. So once we once we kind of got past that part of things, we started having customers ask for face masks. And I don’t even know why. I don’t know why. Maybe because they know that we’ve been resourceful in the past, but we started having people say, where can we get face masks? Where can we get hand sanitizer, Cables and Kits.

Craig Haynie (00:31:23):

So I jumped all over it. And I’ll tell you this little interesting fact here, I was using FedEx, DHL, UPS, and I was bringing stuff over from overseas, but there’s a vendor stateside here that I ended up getting connected with. And we sold some of his product as well. He was doing the same thing, but in much larger volumes, he had some hospital relationships already in place from a previous business that he had. And so he was able to leverage those relationships. It was the same thing. They were asking him, hey, can you help? And so he jumped in and did the same thing. He couldn’t get enough transport to get stuff here. And he ended up chartering entire 747s out of Hong Kong. I think he said it was something like $900,000 per flight. And he was packing those things full of face masks, hand, sanitizer, and other things.

Craig Haynie (00:32:20):

And so we were doing the same thing, but on a much smaller scale, not chartering entire planes, but we were doing pallets and stuff. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in air freight you know, to get stuff here. So we jumped on and, you know, I had to go through multiple factories, get a bunch of samples, test, look at test reports. You know, you have to dive in and learn the entirety of that particular product. Just like with webcams, you got to look at all these focal lenses and, you know, lens ties versus this versus focusing, you got to learn all that stuff. And so with masks, same thing, diving in learning all the difference between what is a KN95 and what are the different registrations of that versus an N95.

Craig Haynie (00:33:01):

And, you know, what are all these different things mean? So you talked earlier about being able to put in a mince energy into something. And I definitely did that, but what I will say is for the first time in my life, I put in so much energy and so many hours into that, you know, I picture myself the superhero. If I’m the superhero in this story, you know, putting in the immense energy, the picture of the superhero that he finally gets hit so hard that he’s like, you think he’s down and out. And then finally kind of climbs back up. That happened to me, you know, in probably June or July timeframe, I was working at least 16 hours a day, usually maybe 18 hours a day. I was working till three and four o’clock in the morning, every night, getting back up the next morning.

Craig Haynie (00:33:55):

And there were three different times in about a two month period that I actually worked until 6:00 AM went to bed. Couldn’t go to sleep, got back up, took a shower and just kept going the whole next day. And, man, it just about killed me. It took me months to realize that I was so worn down that ultimately I had to, I just took a couple of months off and a great team and I can do that. But I just said, you know, I’ve got to go and lay in a chronic chamber, or something, you know, and kind of get myself back. But yeah, so I poured myself into it and my team certainly poured themselves into it. I mean our operations staff, Holy cow, you should’ve seen them. They were like a little Tasmanian devils back there, you know, stuff flooding in the back doors every five seconds. And you know, being able to deal with that. And they did just a fantastic job, our product, people getting all this stuff spun up on the website. I mean really the whole staff.

Matt Hyatt (00:34:52):

I’m going to pause you there for just a second Craig, because I want to make sure we don’t miss some of what you said there, but I want to know two things first. I want to know, where does that drive and that energy come from you think, because this, this is not your first rodeo, you know, you’ve already told us a couple of stories and I know there are others from our personal relationship of, of things where you have just torn into something and just put out a crazy amount of energy into it. Where does that come from? Why are you wired that way? Or do you think it’s just natural or do you think it’s something from your background or what, what do you think makes that happen?

Craig Haynie (00:35:33):

I don’t know. I mean, I have thought about that a couple of times before. I Think that a good psychologist might be able to charge a good rate. I’m sure that there was an element of growing up in the trailer park. You know, my mom wouldn’t work and, you know, that told you the story about the lights getting cut off. And, you know, I went to work at McDonald’s, you know, when I was 15. And I think, I think coming from nothing and feeling helpless, maybe as a teenager and as you know, just my whole childhood was a complete disaster, but there could be a part of it that that’s just trying, you know, that’s always been just, I will overcome, I will not go back there. I will, I will achieve, I will do whatever it’s. And the interesting thing is it’s never been about the money. Never.

Matt Hyatt (00:36:23):

So yeah, I don’t sense that that’s, you know, I certainly understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think there’s eminent danger of Craig Haney going broke, or, you know, having to move back into the proverbial trailer park.

Craig Haynie (00:36:39):

Although, you know, I’ve willingly chose to loan one, but that’s another story that wasn’t too long ago.

Matt Hyatt (00:36:47):

Well, you know, and we might touch on that, but all right. So maybe that’s what it is. I admire it because I don’t know that I’ve got that in me, especially if there’s, you know, advanced, old age of 50 plus of, I don’t know that I have the desire or the stamina to pull all nighters anymore. Now, certainly if I were fearful of, okay, where’s my next meal gonna come from? Or, you know what I need to do to protect Rocket IT or something. I could see that. Yeah. But for, for you, you know, from my position, looking at you, it seems like there’s just something inside you that clicks. And you’re like, man, I am going to conquer this thing no matter what, and I love it and I’m interested in it and excited by it. And I’m just going to dive in. Does that seem to ring true at all?

Craig Haynie (00:37:39):

Jim Collins talked about level five leaders one time. And let me just start off by saying that I can only, I can only wish that I was a level five leader and you know, there’s, there’s probably elements. I think there’s some elements that I’ll look at myself and say, I have those. And there’s other elements that he describes that I’ll say, you know, I don’t know if I have those, but there’s one of them in particular that he talked about that I definitely identified with. And that is, he says that the difference between a level four leader and a level five leader, is that a level five leader engages in causes that are bigger than themselves. It’s not about the money. It’s not about what they want necessarily. It’s about the thing itself. Now I’m going to dumb that way down.

Matt Hyatt (00:38:24):

Thank you, Craig. I know you’re doing that for me. My audience they’ll be patient, but for me, explain that like I’m seven.

Craig Haynie (00:38:31):

I don’t mean dumb it down for you. I mean, dumb down the level of five, but yeah, that’s fine.

Craig Haynie (00:38:36):

So, you know, one of the Craigisms is good as not good enough. And what that means is, is that, you know, just because we get something, some project to an acceptable level, if we are aware of a better level that we can take it to, that is where it should be taken to it. Shouldn’t just be taken to, eh, that’ll get the job done. So, you know, when I start on something, so I’ve never said this, I’ve never even thought about this. This is maybe helpful to me. You know, I’ll send you the psychologist check later. So when, when I start on something, I, first of all, I think I’m more cautious than I give myself credit for in choosing what to start on, what to embark, what to do once I’ve chosen to do something.

Craig Haynie (00:39:28):

I can’t think of a single time in my entire adult life. Maybe even child, child life that I have not seen it through. And so when I, you know, right now I’m, I’m building a home theater in my basement and you know, and a friend came over last night. And we started tearing the walls down between two rooms and tearing sheet rock off the wall and tearing the ceiling tile grids down. And I remember having a brief moment of panic, like right when we first started, am I truly ready for this? And I am. And I knew I was, but it was just brief book. And the reason I have that moment of panic is there is no scenario where that room will sit there. Unfinished will not happen. And so I think that for me, it’s a strong drive and desire to see something through.

Craig Haynie (00:40:25):

Now. Sometimes I do bite off more than I can chew as far as quantity of things and I’m going to have to sequence them. And there are scenarios there where maybe I don’t see something all the way through because I have to park it and I have to learn, you know, that was too many things at once. But if it’s something big, especially like, you know, I bought and rehabbed and sold an apartment complex and I, you know, bought a bunch of single family houses and renovated them and rented them up and ultimately sold them. And that’s probably what you were alluding to earlier. You know, when I set into that stuff, you don’t buy a house or buy a flipping apartment complex and like just kind of dilly dally. You do it.

Craig Haynie (00:41:06):

So I think, I think that’s the biggest reason is when I embark on something, it’s bigger than me. It’s the thing itself deserves to be done. And so even if I lose interest in it doesn’t matter. Like it has to be finished because it’s like the sad, you know, some movie reference I can’t recall, which is a shame cause I’m King of that, but it’s like a little sad, you know, a little sad whatever that needs to be. You can’t leave a sad puppet, you gotta see it through. So if things are bigger than me, when I embark on them and they take on their own life and I become kind of asserted to the task and it must be finished. So yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:41:49):

Now what I’d like to ask you more about it, but I’ve promised you two questions and so we’ll, maybe we’ll come back to it. But the other thing that you said is that when you were going down this path of, okay, team we’re importing pallets and pallets of PPP amidst an unprecedented global pandemic, and we’re going to start selling it. And you said your team was pulling long hours, too. They were working really hard. They were dealing with huge shipments of literally a foreign material. But what I really mean by that is a material that they’re just not used to dealing in. How do you find and keep a team that’s willing to invest that kind of effort in your organization? Is that something that’s been easy for you to craft? Because that sounds like you’ve got a bunch of folks that are very committed, not just to your organization and your mission, but candidly to Craig Haney to, Hey, pull off this crazy thing that you’ve sort of dreamt up and we’re going to make it happen. How does that happen, Craig? How did you find and keep people like that?

Craig Haynie (00:43:09):

Well, you know, we talked earlier about me being blunt, or I forget what word you used, but you know.

Matt Hyatt (00:43:18):

I’m sure it was the kindest possible word.

Craig Haynie (00:43:20):

So here it is inaction there’s for anybody that has not been to the website, despair.com, you got to go check it out. And on that website, there is a section called demotivational posters. And essentially if you’ve ever seen the picture of the mountains in an office and it says achieve, and it’s got some cute phrase on it, these are like the opposite of that. So it’ll have you know, just the one that I’m going to use as an example is it’s got a picture of a couple of people on it. If I remember correctly and it says morale on it. And the cute saying is we find that the solution to morale problems is firing all the unhappy people. And so they’re at all these, the motivational posters that are like that.

Craig Haynie (00:44:10):

I mean, they’re really funny, but the truth of the matter is that’s kind of the stance that we take is we’re not, I mean, we are here to serve the people that work for us, and to help them be better as people, but if they choose to not grow or they choose to not, you know, see the better side of things, or if they choose to not put in the effort or put in the work or be part of the team, then they just, they just can’t work here. And so what we’ve done over time is we’ve said this person’s just not right for our team. We have chosen what we want for our team. It’s our decision, you know, who we hire and who we don’t, who we let go. And so we constantly are making sure that we are as best we can nurturing the people that we have creating a good environment, and then getting rid of the bad apples that you just have to just flat out.

Craig Haynie (00:45:05):

And so, with that being said, how do we tackle big challenges? Like, you know, the sudden move into PPE stuff is it’s that you’ve got a whole team of people that are all like-minded, they’re all high energy. They’re all one team, one dream there, they’re all rah, rah, let’s go. And you don’t have a lot of people that are dragging around. Our warehouse manager is definitely the King of this too. We had a temp agency that sent us somebody one time, and this person was there for two hours. And all of a sudden you find them on their cell phone. He went over and said, Hey, that’s not going to work. That’s not how things are going to go here. Two hours later, he looks over there, on their phone again.

Craig Haynie (00:45:49):

He walked over and he said, come with me. And they followed him. And he literally walked him to the front door, opened the door and said, you can go now and said, I’ll let the agency know, have a nice day and shut the door. And I was like, I wouldn’t even do that. You know, but it was like, look, I don’t have time for this. You know, we made it very clear what the expectation was. We’re a high performance team. If you’re not high performance, that’s okay, go live your best life. It’s just not going to be here. You have a Disney, I’ve met a Disney executive one time and they have a phrase that I love. They said, you know, they may just have to go find their magic elsewhere. And, and I think that that is that is really how we look at it. So that’s a big part of it. And then the other part of it, I think, is as best as possible, it’s important for the team to understand why are we doing this? And what are we trying to achieve? As long as everybody understands the big picture, it doesn’t have to be in great detail. It’s just look, our revenue is down. Customers are asking for this, the world needs this, we’re doing it. And they’re like, okay, makes sense. Let’s go. And that was, that was basically all that had to be said.

Matt Hyatt (00:46:59):

Fantastic. I love that stuff. You know, I’m sure you have a sort of an underlying purpose for cables and gets we do at Rocket IT. Ours is to help people thrive. And I do have to work with our leadership team sometimes. And occasionally we’ll have a team member that truly, if our best possible intent for that person is to help them be successful, to help them thrive it’s to them so that they can go find an environment that’s a better fit for them. You know, firing people is way down the list of favorite things to do. It’s sort of the opposite end of that, that list. But the reality is in some cases, it’s the right thing to do for the person that you’re letting go and it takes courage. And I love the way that you think about that. It’s pretty cool.

Craig Haynie (00:47:55):

You know, I just saw the movie 300 for the first time, the other day. I don’t know if you’ve seen that movie. It, you know, drawer Butler, and it’s about, you know, you know, it’s a war movie from ages ago and he he wasn’t prevented, or he wasn’t permitted to go to war. He was the King of Sparta. Okay. And he wasn’t permitted to go to war because of the rules or the laws that they had in this particular situation. So he decided to go on a stroll and he took 300 bodyguards with him. And basically they set off and, you know, charge this thing, they came up on this other group of people that had come to help them. And they made fun of him for only having 300 people. And he, and he started saying, Hey, you what’s your profession.

Craig Haynie (00:48:50):

Well, I’m a blacksmith. What’s your profession. You know, I’m a Potter, you know, what’s your profession. And, and then he turned around and he said, what are your profession? And I couldn’t understand what they said, but they set it all in unison, very loud playing to their shields when they did. And the point was, I’ve got 300 people that are ninjas at what they do. They’re committed, you’re committed. It’s their life. It’s what they do. You’ve got however many thousands of people that are here and they’re present, but you may or may not get the same level of output out of them. You’re not going to get the same level of output out of them. So, you know, the container store has the same philosophy, fewer better, more motivated people paid more money will get more work done than a larger number of lesser paid, lesser, skilled, lesser, passionate people. And so we take that same approach is how do you, how do you weed out the people that may not be, it’s not that they’re bad people. It’s not that they’re unskilled. It’s not that they have no passion. They just don’t, they’re just, they’re not one of the 300. And so how do you build actually a hundred to where you say we can conquer because we are, and he didn’t conquer in fact, but that’s another story. Well, they’re alert.

Matt Hyatt (00:50:11):

We have to see that movie now. Yeah, right?

Craig Haynie (00:50:14):

Yeah. There’s a few, yeah. There’s a few blah-blah-blah in the middle of might be interesting to view yada, yada, yada. Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:50:21):

I love it. So tell me, we were talking about the book earlier and I, you do, I actually email, you have an email list, right. And so you send out, or the motivational emails that you send out to your customers is that, is that how that works?

Craig Haynie (00:50:39):

Yeah. So we have what we call the CEO, what is it called? The CEO daily, I think is the name of it. And it’s, it’s a it’s an email that we send out every single business day. I think the current subscription number is somewhere between 30 and 40,000. We have 200,000 customers from over time. We have 60 or 70,000 on our active mailing list. And then we have this mailing list is a subset of that. And it’s, you know, 30 to 40,000 or somewhere in there. I don’t know the exact, it’s a lot. And so so the reason that it started was when, when we first started doing the safety supplies, we would get a lot of emails every day from customers asking the same questions over and over. And we were answering the same questions over and over. And I said, you know what I’m going to do.

Craig Haynie (00:51:32):

I want to send an email out every day to every customer and give them an update on this product is almost here. This product has just shown up, you know, because the very first emails that we sent was really, Hey, we got 10,000 KN95 masks that are coming on Wednesday. And then the next day it would be all they’re delayed by day. They’re gonna be here on Thursday and people wanted that level of it. So it was a way to just broadcast the implement to the, to the list. And then what happened was we, I didn’t want it to be just that. So we started adding and building onto it and you know, me being myself, I mean, I’m writing funny stuff in there and I’m right. Telling jokes and just being me and people really liked that. Although every marketing expert that we talked to was like, this is an awful idea.

Craig Haynie (00:52:25):

And I was like, well, I don’t care. You know what? I own the business and I’ll do what I want to do. And and I’m going to try it. And if we try it and it, and it doesn’t work, then we’ll quit it. But you know, you try it. So we had four months, we had 20 to 30 responses a day. This email is the highlight of my morning. It’s the only email that I read. I mean, it was pretty amazing stuff. And we had a few, a few people that even said this changed my life. You know, I was really going through a hard time and something that you wrote really inspired me and, you know, it was pretty cool. So over time, what we’ve done is we’ve said, okay, let’s, let’s bring other writers in. So, you know, my wife who is part of the business, she writes probably most of them now because I took off, you know, the last part of the year.

Craig Haynie (00:53:20):

So I’m, you know, taking off means taking off while I’m on this call, I’m not don’t work there anymore. So she writes, some of them are e-commerce director, right? Some of them some other leaders and folks inside the company are writing some of them. And then down at the bottom, we’ve got kind of a section in there around I don’t know what we call it, but it’s advice, wisdom, you know, tips and tricks, whatever. And so we’ve, we’ve got got the office. Gary writes a lot of that content and then some other people will contribute to it as well. And it’s kind of, you know, the five ways to achieve X or the three things to think about when building culture and those sorts of things. So that’s a well received as well. So we don’t know what the future of that email is. I mean, people really love it. And I think we probably should continue it, but it definitely has a lot of work to write every day. And so we’ll see where it goes, but people seem to like it, and we obviously put some product, you know, links in there. And we talk about product highlights, trying to generate some revenue from the email as well, which I don’t, I don’t think is, is shameful. I mean, it’s not e-commerce company.

Matt Hyatt (00:54:34):

So I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask, if somebody wants to sign up for this, is there a way to do that? Or do you have to be a customer?

Craig Haynie (00:54:42):

You can go to Cables and Kits. I’m trying to think of where on the site it is.

Matt Hyatt (00:54:50):

Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ll put it on our show notes, we’ll look into it. And then we’ll just put it in our show notes later, so if people are interested.

Craig Haynie (00:54:56):

You can at a minimum, you can email [email protected] and say, please add me to the list, and then we can, we can get you on.

Matt Hyatt (00:55:03):

Perfect. Yeah, love it. So we’ve spent quite a bit of time together this morning, and there’s still lots that I’d love to unpack. I feel like we’re destined for more than one podcast, but I do have one more thing that I’d like to kind of talk about right now that you’ve touched on a couple of times. You have been at cables and kits since, gosh, you’re coming up on 20 years. Congratulations. That’s a good, long time before we started the show you shared with me that you decided to take a little time off earlier this year care to update us and tell us a little bit about what you’re doing.

Craig Haynie (00:55:41):

Yeah, sure. So, as I said, I, you know, I had worked myself into the ground and ultimately, and I’ve got a few digestive health issues that I’m trying to beat into submission, and a lot of that stuff together. I just said, you know what, let me take some some time off. And so I did, and one month turned into two, and I think I’m probably going to take off into January or February to be honest in part, because we went through a transition in the business where we elevated a leader from sales director to president of the business unit of Cables and Kits, which means possible for marketing, for product development management and for sales, which includes e-commerce. I mean, he’s responsible for all of the selling and product activities inside the business and the corporate side of things.

Craig Haynie (00:56:31):

My wife is responsible for that currently. And so, that’s new to her. She’s been doing that for about three or four months now. We worked together for 10 years in the early part of the business. And then we took time out for her to help us build a family, and which is great. So her being back involved has been fantastic. And Chris being involved at the leadership level of Cables and Kits has been fantastic. And I realized that not only did I needed to take, not only did I need to take time off for myself, I needed to take time off to let them get their own footing. And so I, you know, I’ve had these little moments of feeling irresponsible or feeling guilty for not being fully engaged, but then I realized that I need it.

Craig Haynie (00:57:15):

They need it, the business needs it, everybody needs it. So, that being said, I have done every to-do project around the house, including creating 50 more and knocking them out. We’ve gone on a couple of camping trips as a family, which has been good. And I’m currently focusing on, as I said earlier, building a home theater, which I’m very excited about. I did not realize how much I loved the immersive sound and video until I went to a friend’s house who has one, and I was like, I have to have this. So I’ve been working on that. I’ve been doing some land development. I’ve got I had 82 acres of property that, that we used to live on. We mentioned earlier briefly that I lived in a double-wide for a brief period. I bought some land 10 years ago.

Craig Haynie (00:58:09):

We wanted to live on it. And so five years later, we bought a double-wide and put there with the plans of building a house a year later, and we never built the house. So five years later, we were content. We love the place. I think living on the land was, was great, but we decided, you know what, let’s go buy a house that we love and then sell the land. So that’s what we did. We bought a house and moved into it. That was a year and a half ago. And then over the last year and a half, I’ve been working on dividing and selling that property in doing that. We’re almost completely sold out now, which is great. But in doing that, I realized that I had built a team of surveyors and grading contractors, and knowing who at the County to talk to.

Craig Haynie (00:58:51):

And, I now have knowledge to do it. I have the ability to do it, and I really enjoyed it. So now I’m looking for other land to develop. So I’m doing that. And then I’m looking at, you know, I’ve got a carwash that I own in middle Georgia that we still run, and I’m looking for some, some other stuff like that, maybe up here, like I may buy another car wash or a laundromat or something. I just like peddling with stuff, you know, time off for you. Isn’t really time off.

Craig Haynie (00:59:24):

That’s the thing is I got to figure out how do I actually take time off? I don’t. Well, I have to tell you, one thing I have been doing, which is at least to start is since I have the home theater underway, I’ve got my equipment set up in there temporarily while we’re doing things. And I’ll got one chair in the room and I’ll go in there at night after the kids go to bed and I’ll watch a movie, every, almost every single night, I’ll watch a movie. And that’s something that I have never in my life done. So I’m enjoying that.

Matt Hyatt (00:59:53):

The kids are enjoying having you home. I mean, they are pulling a lot of midnight hours there for a while.

Craig Haynie (01:00:00):

Right. Yep. Doing more with the family. I mean, playing more games. And like I said, we’re going to go out on a couple of camping trips. And so, yeah. I mean, it’s been neat. I’ll tell you this. I’ve, I’ve come to realize in this last couple of months that we don’t have to work as long and hard as we think we do. You know, and I don’t, I don’t have that all figured out yet, but, but I am coming to realize that, you know, you can work smarter, not harder. You can work smarter, not longer. You can choose where to put your energy. Like I said earlier, once I put my energy into something, I usually see that through. But choosing where to put your energy is important, you know, simple things like not going into my inbox, but, but like once a day, it’s amazing how quickly you can delete all the stuff that doesn’t matter versus constantly watching it coming in and just letting the mind go all these directions.

Craig Haynie (01:00:53):

So that’s kind of a smarter, not harder kind of philosophy. And so it’s definitely been a transition time for me over those last couple of months. And I’m interested to see where it’s going to land, but yeah, so our vision, by the way, you didn’t ask this question, but the vision of, of Cables and Kits, or at Lantech as our corporate entity is after we get our legs underneath us, with all these leadership changes, we want to go out and find and buy another e-commerce company or to refresh our, our vision for our company is to take the model that we’ve created of operations and of how we do things and expand on that. So I’m resting because I know that I’m about to get really busy once we get ready to start doing that, I’ll probably be all over the place looking for acquisitions.

Matt Hyatt (01:01:37):

Fantastic. All right. Well, great, Craig, we’re going to move on to our lightning round. This is just a series of simple questions. We try and ask every one of our guests. And so we’ll start off with a softball here. Tell us what’s who’s one person that’s had a profound impact on your journey.

Craig Haynie (01:01:57):

A guy named Dave Ray friend and mentor. Dave came into my life at a time when I knew that I wanted to make an impact through business for the kingdom of God in some sort of way, but had no idea how to go about doing that. And he had a lot of, a lot of experience

Craig Haynie (01:02:21):

Throughout his life of living out ministry through business. And he invited my wife and I to to a conference with him and his wife. And we went to this conference. It was called FCCI fellowship of companies for Christ international and, and the, the that particular, that particular conference, the theme of that year, it was like the 25th anniversary. And the theme was back to basics. And the whole thing was about how and why, and, and all of that. You, you, you run your, your business as a, as a ministry and as kind of in a way to glorify the Lord. And it was absolutely amazing because it was just what I needed. And then he actually came to work with me and walked beside me and helped me for a number of years in the business to implement a lot of the concepts and also to help me just practically in the business.

Craig Haynie (01:03:17):

Absolutely. He told me later that, that they had no plans to go to that conference that they went, because rather than just telling me about it, you wanted to walk with me. And that was probably one of the most significant things that anybody’s ever said and done is to take that much of an interest in another person. And so I try to live the same way now to say, you know, who is it that I can walk with? Who is it that I can invest time with, that I can have a very long lunch or a very long dinner, or, you know, kind of get involved in the nitty gritty of their life. And, and not only just throw advice at them, but actually say, let’s sit down and try to map this out. What do you need to do in order to achieve your goals or your vision or your plan that you have for your personal life? So that would be my answer, Dave, and you know, very much appreciate him. And he’s definitely a major influence in a lot of people’s lives. And I was just very very blessed to be one.

Matt Hyatt (01:04:15):

That’s awesome. We had Chad Merrill, who is the current president of FCCI as one of our guests, just a few weeks ago. So for those interested in learning more about, FCCI definitely check out that podcast. It was number 18. If I remember correctly, be listen to that one myself. Yeah, there you go. So what’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned in your professional career? Is there one?

Craig Haynie (01:04:42):

Most important lesson? Well, this one is probably somewhat specific to me, but I think it’s, it’s probably more universal really is the fact of the matter is an entrepreneur can almost always do something faster and maybe better than other people, even those, or even those that work for them. That is, you know, it may not be, it may not be a popular thing to say, but it’s just the truth. Entrepreneurs are skilled in ways that most people are not. And that’s just the way life is. That being said, you will not get anywhere, trying to make everyone around you be as fast or as effective as you could be. Now, here’s the important part. If focusing on that one thing was all you were doing because the matter of the fact is, is yeah. If I push somebody out of the way and spent three weeks on the one thing, then maybe I could do it faster and better maybe, but I can’t be in all places at once nor can I actually do that because I’ve got other things going on in my life. So the important thing for everybody to recognize is that you, you have to look at is kind of like the tortoise and the Hare is I might be really quick, but I’m not going to be very long lasting, or I’m going to get very distracted.

Craig Haynie (01:06:14):

It’s kind to bring it back to the, to the analogy. And so there’s a huge amount of value in a person, a leader, an individual that has staying power, even if they can’t be the fastest, like the hair could be, even if they’re the torness in that scenario, they will beat me every time if I let them. And that’s that’s the lesson is if you’ve got to hire a lot of people that are really sharp and really good and really capable of driving things forward. And even if the reality is that they’re 80%, as quick as you are, they will be a hundred percent effective where you might be 50% effective because they’re actually going to stay at it. And you won’t. And so you know, there is no, there is no prize to be awarded to an entrepreneur that is all mouth and all brain and all, whatever, and they can be lightening fast, but they can’t accomplish anything.

Craig Haynie (01:07:14):

There’s a saying, and I forget who it comes from Jim Collins, or one of those people, vision without execution is hallucination. So I may be super fast, but if I can’t actually execute, it’s absolutely pointless. So the point is, or one of the points is that it’s not just me, and it’s not just the other individuals, it’s us together, each playing our role in our part that will achieve a goal. And we have to each recognize our skills and our differences. And no one’s skill is more important than the other one. I might have a great skill at being a visionary or being rapid in my thinking or whatever, but if I don’t have the ability to execute and see it through then it’s, it’s worthless. And if somebody has the ability to execute and see something through, but has no vision of where to go, then it’s worthless. So you put multiple people together that have complimentary skills, and then you can get someplace. So what I’ve had to learn is give people space, give them the space

Craig Haynie (01:08:16):

To execute and to achieve what it is that you’ve asked them to do. And don’t mettle if they ask for advice, or if you have a cadence for getting advice, that’s fun, but don’t hover and say, well, you could do that faster. Well, you could do it this way. You could do it that way because that’s not going to get you anywhere. So that, hopefully that makes sense. But that’s, that’s a big lesson that I’ve learned.

Matt Hyatt (01:08:36):

Yeah. I think you’ve packed in about nine important lessons there. Boom. Good job.

Craig Haynie (01:08:41):

Yeah.

Matt Hyatt (01:08:45):

So are you are you a podcast guy? I know you said you know, reading might be a struggle sometimes. I don’t know if there’s a certain book you love or you like to watch. I learn a lot on YouTube. What’s sort of your favorite go-to for picking up new skills or getting motivated or inspired.

Craig Haynie (01:09:04):

I have a hard time staying at something like a podcast or like reading. So there’s not one thing that I would say that I particularly do. I do read books, although I do read them much slower than the average person would it, it might take me months to finish a book. Not doesn’t take me mullets if I’m stay at it, but I’ll read third time. Yeah. I’ll read a third of it. And then I kind of get onto something else and then I’ll come back to it a month later and I’ll start again. And there, there’s one thing that I really like to do is if I can find something that is jam packed with a lot of really good information, I will listen to it or go back to it over and over again. And there’s one thing that is probably would be shocking to a lot of people.

Craig Haynie (01:09:55):

There’s a talk that Jim Collins did and not everybody has access to it. It was given at a conference , I think, corrugated, cardboard makers or sellers or something. I’m not even sure what it was, but I managed to get a copy of this thing and it was on a CD and it was broken up into like a billion tracks, ripped it all down to MP3s, put it on something. So I could get it on my phone. It was probably an hour and a half long, anyways, he essentially goes through the concepts of built to last and also good to great. I’ve listened to that podcast at least 100 times. Yeah. I just listened to it over and over and over and over and over, you know, I may go three or four months without listening to it.

Craig Haynie (01:10:53):

And then I may listen to it nonstop five or six times in a row, and then, you know, say so. And every time I listened to it, I just understand more and more and more, and it expands my thinking. And I start taking these experiences that I’ve had since I listened to it last. And they come to light more and I started understanding how they connect in with the framework that he talks about. So to me, I think it’s less about just skimming a lot of stuff, and it’s about picking something and really drilling down into it and understanding it. And that’s what I’ve done with that particular thing.

Matt Hyatt (01:11:29):

I’d say that’s thematic for you? I mean, talking about these different businesses and the, you know, the rabbit holes that you’ve run down that have, you know, turned into really big things in your life.

Matt Hyatt (01:11:42):

If people want to learn more about you or Cables and Kits, what’s the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Craig Haynie (01:11:49):

Well, you could email [email protected]. That’ll get you into a box than other people monitor. You can email me directly [email protected] and that’ll get you into my personal inbox. And of course, you know, you can, you can call up the company. You can speak with one of our handy-dandy salespeople. If you have an interest in the products that we sell or or if you want to get connected with someone in the company, reach out to me and I’ll get you connected.

Matt Hyatt (01:12:16):

Awesome. Craig, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I’ve enjoyed this very much. We’re going to have to talk again because I think there’s a lot more to unpack here and we’ll do that in a separate episode. So Craig, from myself and our audience, thank you for joining us today. To our listeners, thank you for tuning into the Rocket IT business podcast. If you have any suggestions for future topics that you’d like to hear more about, please email us [email protected]. And finally, a quick plug for Rocket IT. We work with businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities in the area of IT support, information security and strategic planning. To learn more about Rocket IT and its services, please visit Rocket IT.com. Thank you.

In this episode of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, show host, Matt Hyatt has the pleasure of speaking with friend and US Congressman, Rob Woodall.

Over the last nine years, Congressman Woodall has served five consecutive terms as the U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District. In addition to his efforts on the congressional floor, Congressman Woodall serves on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the House Committee on Rules, and the House Budget Committee.

Congressman Rob Woodall | Email | (202) 225-4272

Ratification

Congressman Rob Woodall’s Website

Matt Hyatt (00:00:00):

Hello, and welcome to episode 19 of Rocket IT business podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with my friend and favorite Congressman, Rob Woodall

Intro (00:00:25):

[Music Plays]

Matt Hyatt (00:00:26):

Congressman Woodall has served five consecutive terms as the US representative for Georgia’s seventh congressional district. Additionally, Congressman Woodall serves on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the House committee on Rules, and the House Budget Committee. Congressman Woodall, it’s a pleasure to finally have you on the show,

Rob Woodall (00:00:44):

I’m glad to be here. You know, usually when I’m with you, Matt, you’re always working hard or accepting an award of some kind. I feel like this is just social hour today. And so you may be working, but just know I’m, I’m feeling the social connection and I’m grateful.

Matt Hyatt (00:00:58):

Well, thank you. I am so glad you’re on the show. And like I said, we’ve, we’ve been friends for a while now. We’ve known each other for a good long time. And it’s sort of bittersweet for me right now because you’re winding down in the last days of your role as as my Congressman. And so how are you feeling?

Rob Woodall (00:01:20):

It is I guess let’s say like owning a boat. The day you buy it is the second best day of your life and the day you sell it is the first best best day. You know, this is an amazing job. And we live in an amazing community with amazing leaders. And, and so to, to have had this honor is is, well, I can’t put it into, into words. I just, I could not be, I could not be luckier but I’ve been doing it for for 10 years now. And it’s absolutely true that, that that different times require different different people. I think the time when when I came in with president Obama and divided government was was a good time for the, for the passions that I brought to the table. And I think we’re going to have an opportunity to see a brand new list of the leaders from across the country who were gonna, who were going to take that mantle and run with it. You and I will. We’ll both be yelling at the television at the same time as, as thanks.

Matt Hyatt (00:02:27):

Well, hopefully hopefully there’s as much excitement or good things to come. There’s that frustration things that would be nice. Wouldn’t it? Well, Rob, I’d love to just dig in just a little bit for those that don’t know you, can you tell us a little bit about your background? Where’d you grow up and how in the world did you find your path towards Washington DC?

Rob Woodall (00:02:51):

It is a story I tell to young people regularly when they say, Rob, how do I become a, a United States Congressman? And the answer is I’d have no idea. I can’t tell you about the, about that. I lucked into it. I grew up over in Dekalb County grew up in Avondale and went over to Marist for, for high school. And so it’s always been home. And in fact, I started studying this congressional district at Furman University as part of a political science project. When John Linder was running for this seat and lost in the, in 1990, when I was in law school, I was working in Washington for a law firm during the summers. And the truth is when you’re a young person and you want to make a difference and you have a chance to make a difference. It’s hard to go back and sit in the classroom.

Rob Woodall (00:03:49):

To the great frustration of my parents, I think at the time who thought I was going to drop out of law school and never go back, I actually left law school after two years to go to work for John Linder answering the telephone. I was able to finish up law school at night and graduate from the university of Georgia later. But the opportunity to feel like you’re making a difference, I think is something that’s in every single one of us. I see it in the work that you do on behalf of your customers and on behalf of your employees. And, and when you, when you find an opportunity to do that, you just can’t let it slip through your fingers. You’ve got to maximize it, and then go on. So it’s been it’s been a long journey, but but I very emotionally and spiritual

Matt Hyatt (00:04:32):

Really productive one. Well, you know, that’s really interesting. You so you were doing essentially a class project that involves John Linder. And is that how you got to know him?

Rob Woodall (00:04:44):

To be fair. What I found in my class project is he was a crazy, crazy conservative who had absolutely no chance of winning whatsoever and was running at that time. As, as you may recall, against Ben Jones, who played on the Dukes of Hazard, that was the, that was the matchup, but at the, at the time, and, and he did lose that race, but what it taught me looking back on that is all I knew about my elected officials was what the Atlanta journal constitution told me about them. And so I thought John Linder was a nut. I thought Newt Gingrich was a nut. I thought that folks who just had different ideas from the editorial board were actually a good versus evil kind of dynamic. And, and we still see that persisting today, even with all the, the media choices that we have, it is a constant reminder to me that I may think that I know something, but I really may not know something. And I need to surround myself with folks who have that experience and get some different perspectives and try to figure out what’s true.

Matt Hyatt (00:06:01):

That’s so good. I totally agree with you. And, and, and I’ve had that experience once upon a time. I was a guy that listened to the radio on the way in and out to work and get home and tick on the TV and watch the news in the evening. And quite honestly, that’s not a way to lead a life free of anger because you hear all these things on the news. And then once I started spending more time in Washington DC, and we’ll, we’ll get to that in a few minutes and getting to know some of the people that were representing me and my community, I just found that the reality was pretty different than than the expectation based on what I had heard and seen on the news. So it’s interesting that you, you sort of encountered the same thing. See, I grew up with my parents watching Walter Cronkite. You remember Walter Cronkite and, you know, I was peripherally involved. It wasn’t that I, you know, I was a kid sitting there watching Walter Cronkite, but it was running on the TV. And I kind of grew up believing that the media in my house mostly represented by Walter Cronkite was fair and balanced and and was just reporting the facts and not inserting their own opinions and biases into the news.

Matt Hyatt (00:07:29):

That’s kind of the impression that I had. And then that, that became very different as I grew up. And so I don’t know if the world changed or I’ve, my eyes were opened, or what’s happened, but boy, you sure see a lot of difference between what’s reported in media and reality.

Rob Woodall (00:07:44):

I will never forget Matt, a news episode. You may remember there were conversations going on and in, in, in Florida around politics and on one student campus, taser had to be brought out, and a student was tased and there was a local Fox news reporter on the scene and national Fox news was interviewing him. And they said, this was, was this just a terrible abuse of power there by the officer who tased him. And the reporter said, well, I can’t speak to that, but let me tell you what happened. And they said, well, wasn’t it just an awful thing to have to be a part of, and went on and on. And finally the reporter said, listen, I’m not the editorial board writer, I’m the reporter. So I have no opinions that I’d like to share with you, but if you want to know anything about what happened, I’m happy to tell you. Here’s a young person who was on national television for the first time in their life.

Rob Woodall (00:08:47):

They could have taken that opportunity to make it all about them and, and, and what they believe. And instead, and true journalistic ethics said, let me, let me just tell you what the facts are, and you can draw your own conclusions from there. I don’t know what we do, Matt, when, when facts become relative, Alan bloom wrote about value relativism decades ago. And we’re challenged by truth relativism today. And I do worry about what that means for young people growing up, and what our news consumption patterns are going to be.

Matt Hyatt (00:09:28):

And, you know, what’s interesting is with social media these days, I think that’s added to that trouble, because you can sort of pick your team that you want to follow and you know, spend time with and interact with on social media. And you may be giving you a very narrow view of the world through that lens, right? Yeah.

Rob Woodall (00:09:52):

The confirmation bias is available to us all day long every day. I can find someone to tell me how smart I am and somebody would tell me what an idiot I am. Absolutely. At a moment’s notice.

Matt Hyatt (00:10:04):

Yes. So you were working for John Linder and when I met you for the first time you were chief of staff. So tell us about that gap. Was, was that something that happened over a short period of time, a long period of time? How did it occur?

Rob Woodall (00:10:23):

They, I was on staff helping to write letters and conduct mail in November of 1994. So Matt, I was listening to the radio as the results were coming in, and suddenly John Linder’s best friend, Newt Gingrich became the first Republican speaker of the house and in 40 years. And I knew even though I’d only been on the job about a month and a half, that I was going to walk into the office the next day, as a young law student with a month and a half of experience, and someone was going to ask me to be their chief of staff. And let me put all of my talents to use. I walk back into the office the next day, no one did invite me to be their chief of staff. And it wasn’t for another six years that John asked me to be his chief of staff, but I had an opportunity to work in every single notch on the ladder.

Rob Woodall (00:11:16):

And, I think that every new member of Congress who’s not served before experiences, that you don’t know what all the rungs of the ladder are until you’ve sat on them for a while. The challenges answering the telephone call after call after call with folks who have real pain and real anxiety in their lives takes an amazing emotional toll. My interns always say they didn’t realize how many people called their Congressman and what they called their Congressman about until they got a chance to do it. So I went from legislative correspondent writing mail, to legislative assistant, helping to craft policy, to legislative director, helping to form policy, to chief of staff in in 1999. And I believe it, if I had served as member of Congress, somewhere in there, I would have been an even better chief of staff. Because once again, having not stood on this rug before, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I wish I had a chance now to go back and serve John Linder again, because I’d be so much better at it now that I know precisely.

Matt Hyatt (00:12:33):

Well, I know how that works. We often have folks come through Rocket IT, and certainly there is an intentional effort to build people up. And part of that is putting them in different roles and letting them wear different hats for a season. And sometimes they’ll even switch departments and go from service to sales and vice versa. But that experience definitely builds a better, more equipped well-rounded professional. Right?

Rob Woodall (00:13:04):

Well, I’ve got folks on my staff Matt. I’ve been on a committee called the modernization of Congress. It’s a bipartisan committee trying to change the way Congress works. And we’ve spent a lot of time talking about staff retention and how it is. We help to build young people up and keep them in the system because you’re not going to get rich on Capitol Hill, not financially anyway. And so a lot of the conversation revolved around money, but as you know, from the folks that you hire money is falling on the list of priorities. It’s that work-life balance. It’s what am I getting out of this? What am I able to contribute? So I have, even though the average tenure on Capitol Hill is about 18 months. I have folks who’ve been with me for more than 20 years.

Rob Woodall (00:13:49):

In fact, I have many people who have been with me for more than 20 years, because we have a reputation of promoting from within. And because we live in a community where we really do get a chance to make a difference for people. And I just, I see the difference that you make, and I see the community recognize you for making that difference. I know that’s not why you do it. You do it for the joy of being a contributor. But I, I look at the young people who are struggling out there today, trying to find their sense of purpose. And I think, how much I wish for them, that they could fall into that opportunity where they could feel relevant, where they could feel like they matter. And once you find that the rest of it all falls into place.

Matt Hyatt (00:14:37):

That’s so true. Tell me, did you have any mentors or folks that you looked up to during that season?

Rob Woodall (00:14:46):

The staff members, one of them still is here in Washington, DC. I still consider a good friend of mine. His name is Henry Plaster, and he’d worked in the Bush administration and, and he’d worked all over Washington, DC. He was a young single guy when I met him. Now he’s a wonderful father and a husband, and on his way to being a grandfather because times change, but he embodied the joy of showing up to work every day. You know, there’s a negativity around the water cooler that you can find in some environments. Oh, it’s just so bad. Oh, work is so hard. Oh, we had to come in so early. Oh, we have to stay so, so late. Not that people mean anything by it, but it just becomes that conversation.

Rob Woodall (00:15:38):

What Henry brought into the office was how lucky are we that we get to come into this office every day of the week. That made a difference to me early on. And you combine that with John Linder, who I did not know before I went to work for him, here’s a guy who didn’t need the job. He was independently wealthy. He could have done anything he wanted to do. And so he did the job every day, not as someone fighting to hang on to their piece of the pie, but as someone who already had plenty of pie and could then help everybody else to grow their pie during that time. And if you didn’t like the way he did it, then you were welcome to vote him out of office, but he wasn’t going to put his finger up to the political winds. I didn’t really understand that there were politicians like that before I got here. And I would tell you that that shaped the style I have tried to emulate more than I ever knew.

Matt Hyatt (00:16:37):

I love that. I do think people have the impression that there are folks in Washington that are there purely because they’re hanging on to some piece of power trying to kind of grapple their way up the food chain, but you’re right. I’ve met a number of folks, and I certainly count you among them, folks that I think are truly trying to contribute and add value. And so I certainly appreciate you and your help there. I don’t think you told me. So at some point there is an opportunity to fill a congressional seat and you raised your hand and said that I’ll put my name in the hat. How, how did that happen? And was that when you were going through law school and learning about Washington DC and John Linder that had, had it entered your mind that early, or was that something that came in later?

Rob Woodall (00:17:38):

No, and I will tell you that being the Congressman is not the best job I’ve had. Being legislative director is the best job. None of the campaigning, none of the fundraising, all of the making a difference for people. It, it was not on my mind. The truth is Matt. When John announced he was going to retire in February, late February of an election year, I didn’t see it coming. In fact, we’d had conversations that led me to believe he was in it for the long for the long haul. And the filing deadline was early April. So there just wasn’t much time. There were eight people who were looking at getting into the race. And I was looking to see who I thought I could help to be successful. And the truth is much like the politics we’ve seen over the last six months, everybody was talking about how they were going to go to Washington and solve this big problem and solve that big problem and how easy it would be and why haven’t those other guys done it right before?

Rob Woodall (00:18:41):

And just send me there and everything will be fine. No one was talking about the casework aspect of the job. You know, I can’t get president Obama to agree with me on something every day of the week, but I can help somebody in their fight with the IRS can help somebody with their visa problems or their passport problems. I can make a difference for a mom or a dad with their veterans benefits every day I get to do something and success. It isn’t how do I tell 300 million people how to live their life with a new federal law success, it is how do I serve the people who sent me here? And my thought was, Matt, if I get in the race, it’s only going to be about 10 weeks long. I’ve got that kind of time on my life. I can, I can make this case about given my experience, how I know the job is supposed to be done and how you can do it better than you’re talking about it.

Rob Woodall (00:19:40):

And I didn’t need to win. I just needed to change the debate to talk about the values that I thought were important. That way whoever did win would, would lead differently because of, because I was there, it just turned out that I did win. We ended up in a runoff in that big primary and ended up winning that runoff. And then of course, I already had a team in place, men and women that I had hired folks I’d worked with for years, we were able to hit the ground running, not miss a single beat to trying to figure out how to get things done. And still, as I think back on those days, I think about the surprise that we pulled it off. Derek Corbett was running my campaign. He’s my chief of staff. Now he said, Rob, I always knew we were going to win it.

Rob Woodall (00:20:30):

It was just no question in my mind, but I was surprised that it was exactly right. And right now I’ve got to take the cases that I can’t close, The people I haven’t been able to succeed for yet. And I’ve got to turn them over to a brand new team, and it’s going to be a really hard emotional thing for me to do and hard for them. We’ve all invested all of this energy in getting to this level. And now we’re going to have to reset the bar. I didn’t have to give anybody that bad news in 2010 and 2011. And I still look back on that as being one of my, one of my happiest times that folks who were counting on the seventh district office to succeed for them, if they hadn’t succeeded by January 2nd, 2011. No worries. Because on January 3rd, the new office was going to come in and we were going to keep keep pushing at the same same pace together.

Matt Hyatt (00:21:32):

You know, what’s funny is I think you’re absolutely right. I think most folks are sitting back home and when they think of their Congressman or they think of Congress, they do think of a big group of people getting together and trying to hash it out on various issues and, and come to a decision. And I don’t think many people really recognize that a significant part of the job is what, what you call case work working with your constituents to help move the needle for them in their personal lives. That’s how, how big of a part of the job is that? I don’t think people know that.

Rob Woodall (00:22:08):

The truth is most members divide their office up into halves. It is in DC, working on public policy. The other half is working on casework. It depends on what your district looks like. If you live outside of Fort Hood department of defense, casework, VA case work may comprise much of your load. I will tell you, Naomi Pillsbury does leads that work for me. It’s the immigration work in our area. Folks who are getting married and their grandmother can’t get a visa to come to the wedding. Folks who have traveled overseas and they’ve had a problem with their paperwork, and now they can’t get back. Folks who need need passports because of the diversity in our community. Naomi and her team are the finest immigration case workers. I would tell you in the land folks, call from all around the country to get her advice on how to, to make things happen, because that’s where we’ve had to develop the expertise.

Rob Woodall (00:23:07):

So, because I’m a fair tax guy and believe that the IRS by its nature has so much power, that people run a foul of it very easily. We get a lot of IRS casework folks who said I did the best that I could. It turns out I did it wrong. And now I’m looking at bonds and I’m looking at penalties. How do I navigate this this effort? And we’re able to help with that. And again, it depends on the era. We were doing mortgage casework for folks, Matt, we don’t have any power over Wells Fargo or Bank of America. But when folks say, golly, I’m in the great recession, and I can’t get anybody to return my phone calls and I want to pay, I want to do it right, but I don’t know how to get in touch with folks. Even when it’s not a federal government agency, we’re able to help connect people to solve problems. Problems are bad, but to have worrying about problems is worse. And we’re able to partner with people and take away that worry. Maybe we can’t get them what they want, but they know they’re not in it alone. They know the person that was elected to represent them actually is their partner in trying to solve those.

Matt Hyatt (00:24:22):

Hmm. Tell me, once you’ve been elected and we have a brand new minted Congressman. What was the biggest surprise, Rob?

Rob Woodall (00:24:38):

You don’t know what you don’t know until you know it, man. And even as close to the political action as I was the men and women who worked on the floor of the Capitol, those members of Congress were still characatures for the most part from Fox news and MSNBC. I knew the GA members. I knew a couple of Alabama and South Carolina members, but Nancy Pelosi for example, was just this head that showed up on the, on the television. When I was watching the news. If you ask any freshman member of Congress, that’s getting elected this year, and they, so many folks got elected on the edges this year howling at the, at their respective political moons, ask any of those folks in six months, Matt, what their biggest surprise is. And what they’re going to tell you is they had no idea how good and decent and hardworking the other team was because all they knew was the political vitriol that the running joke on Capitol Hill.

Rob Woodall (00:25:51):

Folks will ask me back home, Rob, how do you work with some of those folks in that, they’re just such bad people. And my answer is no they’re not bad people. They’re absolutely wonderful people with really bad ideas. Now their ideas are just awful, terrible, terrible ideas, but wonderful people. That’s how that’s how partnership is created. And I would have guessed after a decade, as chief of staff, that I would have known more personalities that I wouldn’t have been duped by the media as much as as the rest of the country might have been. But I got behind those doors walking out onto the house floor. I realized that I still had misconceptions. And some of those folks I thought were the most awful to have to watch and listen to television, have turned out to be some of my closest friends, because they really are wonderful human beings, wonderful moms and dads and wonderful public servants, just representing a very different constituency than the constituency that I reference.

Matt Hyatt (00:26:57):

That’s so refreshing to hear from someone who’s worked in Washington DC, and, you know, in the halls of Congress to talk that way about focused on, you know, it doesn’t matter which side of the line you might fall on, but we can gain an appreciation and respect for the people on the other side of the aisle. That’s a really pretty wonderful thing. So I’m so glad you see it that way. Tell me, so you mentioned, I think you called it the congressional modernization committee. That’s not the only committee or a task force you participated on. I actually have a list here because I think I could remember them all the house committee on transportation and infrastructure, the house committee on rules and the house budget committee. Tell me about those and tell me , how does one get asked to participate on a committee like that?

Rob Woodall (00:28:02):

It’s a lot like choosing a dorm room in college. You got to look around, see what building you want to be in. Then you’ve got to get yourself on the list. And, and some things are a little bit harder. The waiting list is a little bit longer. I had the pleasure of working on the rules committee for Congressman Linder. So when I got here, I knew the rules committee was a place that I could contribute on day one. And at the time the rules committee was an exclusive committee you weren’t allowed to serve on, but one committee. So I bought picked rules right off the bat and, and have been there ever since.

Rob Woodall (00:28:43):

And they’ve allowed a rules committee members to expand and serve in other places. And, and the budget committee and the transportation committee were added a state delegations Matt to get together and work on these issues. Johnny Isaacson was our transportation committee member. When he was here in the house, when he left and went to the Senate, we didn’t have a transportation committee member. That’s obviously something that’s critically important, not just to the seventh district, but to the entire state of Georgia. So the entire state of Georgia, the delegation got together to support me to help me get a seat on the transportation committee in the same way that we all got together to help Buddy Carter get on the energy and commerce committee to help Tom Graves get on the appropriations committee as a delegation. We want to be the best we can be for the state of Georgia.

Rob Woodall (00:29:38):

And as I hear about more, as I’m sure you hear from your employees, it’s about that commute, getting in and out of downtown Atlanta, getting across from, from Gwinnett to Cobb, being able to focus on transportation because we’re experiencing those problems. And because we’re responding to them both at a County level and a state level in a very productive way has has gives me an out-sized voice on, on the committee. And, and I think that’s also something that folks don’t generally think about. It’s not that anybody thinks Rob Woodall is so brilliant though. I hope one or two people do, but it’s that they think, man, that district Rob Woodall represents is amazing. If it’s an immigration issue, Rob understands it and experiences it in ways nobody else does because his constituents educate him about it. As a state, we were increasing transportation taxes and taking ownership of those issues before. So many other States did that gives me more credibility to talk about funding of infrastructure when we’re not waiting on somebody else to solve our problems, we’re taking proactive steps are ourselves. So many of those committee assignments, you see our results, not just a member interest, but of expertise in the district and of what a state may need to fill out its portfolio. So that there’s somebody in every influential place on the Hill.

Matt Hyatt (00:31:06):

Do those committee roles change during your tenure? So, or is it typical that once you’re in you’re in and kind of stay there?

Rob Woodall (00:31:16):

Two answers to that, if you don’t like where you get started, or you want to get to a more exclusive place, then you may trade your committees out and move on up the, up the ladder. The rules committee, for example, didn’t historically take freshmen. It took more senior members. And I was lucky to be able to get in as a freshmen, but you can’t do it all, Matt. You have to develop some expertise. If you’re going to contribute here, they’re just too many hardworking people to think you can, you can do it all. And so I think the prudent members isolate their areas of interest as soon as they can. And that gives them the ability to develop the connections, the experience, the framework to make the most difference in the shortest amount of, and shortest amount of time. So you see a lot of folks on committees for years.

Matt Hyatt (00:32:17):

Well, I have definitely heard that the rules committee typically choose a more senior representative. So that’s a huge Testament to you. I think that that they will want to do on that committee and invited you to participate as a freshman Congressman. And you’ve been at it for a long time. I bet you’re really good at it by now.

Rob Woodall (00:32:47):

Well, I’m headed down to the floor, right? About two hours to do another another rule that, you know, you just get skin deep on the rules committee. You’re just not trying to write the legislation. You’re trying to perfect the legislation. And so we’re able to put our fingers in absolutely everything because every bill comes across the floor. Sometimes I think constituents get left out because they didn’t realize a bill was starting to move. And so they weren’t able to get their ideas into the base text, being on the rules committee, you can be the last one at the table, but if you have a good idea, I can still get that idea made into an order as an amendment and we can improve the bill as it as it moves to the floor. So it is the probably the least understood committee on Capitol Hill. But if you don’t mind being misunderstood, then it’s a wonderful place to affect public policy. And the laws of the land are better because seventh district constituents have had a chance to do that.

Matt Hyatt (00:33:53):

Well, speaking of the laws of land, I have seen you multiple times over the time that I’ve known you hold a copy of the U.S. constitution out of your pocket. Is that something you carry with you all the time or have I just been lucky to see you happen to refer to it?

Rob Woodall (00:34:12):

I spill too much food on my suits, Matt, to tell you that every time I get one back from the cleaners, I remember to put that constitution in there, but it is just so surprising. I think, to so many Americans that the rule book is really that short, right? And that you can really put it in a pamphlet in your breast pocket. And these are the rules that have led the greatest democracy the world has ever known. Our Republic is only as good as we are as citizens. And I have partnered with Democrats and Republicans on trying to press that civics education forward. If you feel powerless, you will become powerless. And those who feel powerful will become more powerful because your voice is being left out of the left out of the debate.

Rob Woodall (00:35:10):

It’s probably not as easy as I make it out to be as I was looking for some books to stack the computer on this morning, Matt, this is the copy of the constitution that I keep in the office. So it’s a little bit bigger than the breast pocket edition because it has all of the court cases and the machinations that have gone on over the years. But yes, to be able to remind people that they sit on the board directors of the most powerful country on earth. And that gives them amazing opportunities, but also substantial responsibilities is is something I take great pleasure in and pride in. So as often as I can can swap suits out of the cleaners, I will put out a copy of the constitution there so I can have it when the debate comes up, because it’s the Supreme law of the land, whatever issue we’re debating. If we can reference it in the constitution, that’s going to end the debate. Hey, Rob, why do people get to stand in the street and say all these awful things about each other? Well, let me turn here to amendment one. And I’ll help you to see why that is. We can change it if we want to, but this is often our most vexing problems have their roots in substantial freedoms that our framers believed were necessary for our Republic to survive.

Matt Hyatt (00:36:35):

You mentioned changing it. And you mentioned the first amendment. Tell me about that. So I think there are two schools of thought here. I think some folks look at the U.S. Constitution as something that was written by our founding fathers and it’s fairly static. And then there are others that think of it as more of a living document that should be changed and updated from time to time. What’s your thinking on that and what, from your perspective, is the right answer?

Rob Woodall (00:37:07):

Well, if you ever have any doubts you can look at our our neighbor, the largest democracy on the planet, our friends in India, and they rarely have a year that doesn’t have a change to their constitution. In fact, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of changes to their constitution. And it’s only been around for about 60 years. We’ve gone the other path in America. We’ve made very few changes. In fact more than a third of the changes that were made were made in the bill of rights, that was ratified, almost contemporaneously with the constitution. I had breakfast with justice Scalia shortly before he died. And he was talking about his role on the Supreme court. We were talking about the right to privacy. As you know, if you open up that constitution, you will not find the right to privacy anywhere in there.

Rob Woodall (00:38:02):

There was no right to privacy. The Supreme court interpreted the constitution. They interpreted the fourth amendment and freedom from search and seizure. They interpreted passage after passage to say, Oh, well, there must be a right to privacy. We will enshrine this right through the courts. Justice Scalia would not have supported interpreting the constitution. In that way. He would have said the constitution is fairly clear, but having had the courts do that almost a hundred years ago, he would say, but we are not advantaged by yanking that pendulum back and forth that having some certainty and predictability is what the framers really wanted out of that constitution. So if we make a mistake, if we find a right that doesn’t really exist and it survives time, perhaps we ought to just leave it alone and come back and change it with a constitutional amendment.

Rob Woodall (00:39:04):

If we want to, freedom of speech is a good one. Matt, you were welcome to say something awful about a man’s wife in 1787, you had the freedom of speech. He also had the freedom to challenge you to a duel, right? You can say whatever awful thing you want about a fellow member of Congress. But in in 1830s, we had members of Congress killing each other in duels over those things that were said legally in the state of Maryland. And so did our founding fathers ever imagine the kind of hate speech that would be protected by the constitution today? Absolutely not. They had no idea. They would have thought a swift punch in the nose would have solved those, those issues, right?

Rob Woodall (00:39:56):

We have developed those ideas today. And I think that’s only right that our framers couldn’t have imagined social media. They couldn’t have imagined computers. They didn’t imagine being able to travel around the world at a moment’s notice. And so do the words of the constitution mean what the words say? Of course they do. Did our framers give us opportunities to make changes? And did they expect us to make changes? Of course they did our challenges is to make those changes the right way through an article five convention or a constitutional amendment process originate again, Congress rather than having our courts make those decisions in ways that are difficult to recognize as they are happening and difficult to change going forward.

Matt Hyatt (00:40:49):

There you go. I’d love to switch gears a little bit. Something that I never would have imagined growing up is that I would personally visit one of my elected officials in Washington, DC yet that’s how I’ve met a number of our elected officials. And in my case, we happen to have a very active chamber of commerce here in Gwinnett County. And I belong to that chamber and then active in the chamber. And as a result, I’ve gone to DC almost every year, except for this one for the past 10 or 12. And so is that the typical Avenue that constituents get to meet their elected officials is through a chamber fly in, or there are other ways to come back that are valuable and easy for all of us to reach.

Rob Woodall (00:41:50):

Well, it would not be fair to say that everybody has a chamber like the Gwinnett chamber. The Gwinnett chamber is not typical. The Gwinnett chamber is exceptional and the involvement is reciprocal, right? I am the great beneficiary of the, of the active chamber in Gwinnett County because people with real world experience, real world problems, folks who have proffered real world solutions are sharing their expertise with me that I get to bring to the, to the floor. So I could not recommend that everybody across the country join their local chamber of commerce. If they wanted to be influential, I would recommend that everybody get to know their member of Congress on a first name basis. If they want to be influential, lawyer member works for them. It’s not that hard to get an appointment. You just don’t know. It’s not that hard to get an appointment.

Rob Woodall (00:42:44):

And the folks ought to come and build that relationship if they believe they have something to offer. But what the chamber in Gwinnett has done in terms of building partnerships year after year after year, has again, made a difference in the laws of the land that gets that get passed. But if I was gonna make one recommendation to somebody beyond get to know your member on a first name basis, because if you know somebody, if you actually have a real relationship, it changes everything. If you don’t have a real relationship, send them a handwritten letter, nobody sends handwritten letters really, and I’m going to get thousands of emails every day. Many of them generated by a machine folks, check the box, send letter to congressmen. And they feel like they have done their part to contribute, but you can’t tell the difference in a mass email campaign of who really cares or who was duped by the way, the question was asked or who just did it because their daughter asked them to, and they went ahead and checked.

Rob Woodall (00:43:56):

That handwritten note, Matt says that you care enough to do things that nobody else does. And that’s how to get through the static out there. I will look at every handwritten note that comes through with the understanding that it took a substantial amount of effort to do this. So whether this person is angry or sad or frustrated or encouraging, they are feeling that at a depth that I’m certain of in ways that I can’t be certain of the type a word. I don’t mean to say that to the computer guru here, that digital communication is differently powerful. But if you ever wanna make sure you get on the Congress person’s radar screen, put pen to paper, and I promise you it’ll show up on their desk.

Matt Hyatt (00:44:50):

That was great advice. We’ve heard it all our lives, sometimes tongue in cheek. If you’ve got a big problem, somebody says, write your congressmen, but I love the underscoring of no, actually right to your Congressman. I think that’s terrific. Speaking of Gwinnett, we are blessed I think, to be one of the fastest growing communities in the US. I think we’ve been on the top 100 list for a good long time. I remember that being cited. The number of times over the past 10 or 12 years, that I’ve been active in our community. What, what are the opportunities and challenges that come out of a fast growing rapidly changing community like this one?

Rob Woodall (00:45:44):

Well, when you’re the first to encounter an opportunity or challenge, you don’t have anybody to learn from in that in that way. And so when I met time and time, again, at least in the metropolitan Atlanta region has encountered challenges first. And I’m just so proud of the way we’ve taken those on. We haven’t pushed any of those to the side, the the community and Gwinnett insists on taking those, those problems head on, but whether it is having the largest school system in the Southeastern United States, educating that diverse population of children is not an easy job. And yet we’re recognized nationally year after year for doing it so well. It’s a testimony to Alvin Willbanks as our superintendent and to all of our principals and all of our teachers. And truthfully all of our parents as folks move into our area because of our spectacular fuel system.

Rob Woodall (00:46:42):

But it as I hear it when I traveled to smaller counties across the state Matt, they look at how Gwinnett did it, and if it turned out great, they want to emulate that. And if it turned out not so great, they’re going to take a different path. We are trailblazers. And I tell all of my colleagues that my district looks today, the way America is going to look in about 15 years, whether that’s educational attainment level, whether it’s diversity and in business mix or racial mix you go right down the list. We’re just ahead of the game. In our part of the world, it gives us a great opportunity to lead, but it also means we’re kind of out there on our own sometimes trying to figure out the best path forward.

Matt Hyatt (00:47:26):

So tell me. I think most of my kids have had an opportunity to see you come visit their school. I know my son, Zach got to meet you once. He was still a boy. Is that a big part of the job spending time, running around to different schools and meeting with the younger folks

Rob Woodall (00:47:50):

Is it a big part of the job? The answer would be no. Do I try to make it a bigger part of the job that ought to be? The answer is absolutely, yes. If you’ve got to spend your time during the day with angry people who have given up or optimistic people who believe that the best is yet to come, you’re going to choose that optimism. And if I can start my day with children, my day is going to be better because children love the president of the United States. Whoever the president of the United States is they love the white house. They love Capitol Hill. They love America, and we want it. They believe you ask how many kids want to grow up to be president United States. You ask parents that question, nobody raises their hand, but you asked children that question, you’ll get a dozen hands in every classroom. I wanted the level of trust in our elected representatives to be higher when I left than when I got here. And I decided early on that, one of the ways I could do that was to get involved with young people. The young people historically have been the least likely to vote the least likely to participate, but in terms of a population, they are large enough now to move absolutely every the 18 to 24 year olds to move every issue on the docket. My walls in DC are adorned with thank you notes from children and artwork that they have made and pictures that we have taken and storybooks that we’ve read. Jesus knew that it was not a waste of time to spend time with the children, that is where the magic happens.

Rob Woodall (00:49:30):

And I learn just as much about the children’s parents in the questions that they ask. They don’t hold back. They’re completely transparent that it is not just an emotional boost for me to spend, spend time with great young people. It’s also instructive to me to, if it’s a worry that the children have internalized, you know, it’s a worry that the parents have been talking about around the family dinner table. So it might be a little unexpected, but it’s a very transparent look into the fears and the excitement that the moms and dads are sharing all across the district.

Matt Hyatt (00:50:13):

I’ve read that some of the things that your office has been involved in are robotics challenges, application development challenges. Are those designed to get kids involved in what’s happening in DC? Or is it more a, this is sort of the future for a lot of folks. And so we’re trying to develop young people towards those things.

Rob Woodall (00:50:40):

It is the latter. Okay. If you want a career in DC, there are certainly lots of ones to pick, but the truth is if I can get you to be an engineer instead of a lawyer I think I think we’ve succeeded in that, you know, the top 1% of all the engineers that graduate in China outnumber all of the engineers that graduate in America. And, and so I just can’t, I can’t chart a pathway for American leadership on the globe that doesn’t include having every single young person maximize their abilities. However they can in the same way that folks don’t know they can contact their Congressman, that they don’t know. They can just be the Congressman if they want to be the Congressman folks, don’t always know that that high tech career is available to them.

Rob Woodall (00:51:35):

They don’t always know that mathematical expertise is within their reach. We have such an amazing school system that offers so many opportunities. The teachers care so much. I just want to do whatever I can in a small way to buttress those efforts. And if it means highlighting the robotics team that was in high school when I began this process and is now in most of the elementary schools across the district, then these are good problems to to have, but again, you and I don’t live in a typical community. We live in an exceptional community. And many of these programs at the federal level are designed perhaps to give a child the only look they’re going to get the only inspiration they’re going to get in our community. It’s not the case. There’s so much opportunity, but in many other communities, it may be the only opportunity they have to be recognized as an app developer, for example, and members across the country want to want to participate in and play a positive role.

Matt Hyatt (00:52:48):

That’s an interesting perspective. It’s so easy for us to get so caught up in our own little bubble and believe that that’s just the way it is everywhere. And that’s not always the case. Well, I’m so glad that those clubs exist. I think they’re critically important. And I love that there are opportunities may be created in areas that wouldn’t otherwise have them. Well, speaking of which our producer, Chris wanted me to ask you about, I don’t know if he’s pursuing a different career. He wants me to ask about students that are pursuing a degree at a Naval, Army or air force Academy. Chris, will get a kick out of that. You know, he sees that he was running our marketing campaign here. So maybe he’s considering a different career. I don’t know, is that typical of congressmen to help students and that sort of thing?

Rob Woodall (00:53:39):

Yeah, it absolutely is Matt. And I’m glad Chris asked, because I put that in the category of things that folks don’t understand. If you’d ask me when I was 16, 17 years old, if the Naval Academy was available to me, I could get a Congressman to nominate me to go to the air force Academy. I said, no, that’s for that’s for rich people who know their Congressman that’s for these partisan people who, who go to all the conventions that’s not available just to, to me, that’s for that’s for other people, special people nonsense. What I have learned Matt over the years, in fact, last weekend is when we did our interviews for this year, we had 50 young people from across the district, come in and say, pick me, pick me to lead. We have over the years sent hundreds of names forward to the academies and have a long list of graduates that our community can be proud of.

Rob Woodall (00:54:39):

If you want an all expense paid college degree from one of the finest engineering programs in the land, certainly one of the finest leadership programs in the land, along with a guaranteed job, along with an opportunity to make the world a safer place, along with the opportunity to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. Our military academies offer that, and you know, the kids who are applying today, Matt, they haven’t known a day of peace in their entire life. They weren’t born on September 11th. We were already at war in Afghanistan when they entered this world. And even in all of that, not just uncertainty, but certainty about the risks that they are taking on our community puts more people in the military academies than any other district in the state because our young people are just that good. So I would encourage everyone, even though I’m on my way out, the new Congresswoman is going to do things exactly the same way.

Rob Woodall (00:55:53):

It’s not a partisan exercise. Nobody wants to stack the military with a bunch of incapable packs. You want the finest people you can find to lead the country. And so if you have a great leadership background in in your boards clubs or in your church or in your community, now, if you have a successful academic background, not that you got all A’s every semester, but that you were working hard, you understood the value of, of the opportunities that you have and you availed yourself of them athletics matter. But none of those things are definitive. They’re all pieces of the puzzle. And then we bring those young people in Matt, just like every other member of Congress does. And instead of having the political leader say, okay, I want you in the Naval Academy. And I want you in the, in the air force Academy, we have an Academy board of of Academy graduates. You know Mr. Mike Murphy, Mary Kay Murphy’s husband Mike was in the very first graduating class from the air force Academy. Mike’s on our board picking the next generation of air force Academy, cadets. We have enlisted folks. We have educational folks. We want the very best that we can put forward. The rule is that we’re allowed to put one person in each Academy, but because our young people are so amazing, we send forward a list of four people or five people or six people. And the academies know that our people are going to be the best and year after year after year, we get multiple people into every single Academy. Again, not because I’m a rockstar, but because our young people are rockstars. If that’s a career path that any of your listeners are thinking about for themselves or for their kids, it is the least political thing that I do. And as a result, one of the most rewarding, if you’re having a bad day, come sit in with me, interviewing the young people who want to lead our country into the next into the next decade. It will it will give you great hope that our very best days as a country are ahead.

Matt Hyatt (00:58:16):

That’s terrific. Thank you so much for sharing that. I don’t, I really don’t think a lot of people know about that. So that’s good to hear. So let’s move on to a different topic for a few minutes. And the idea here is I think you kind of, you probably know this, I hope you know this. I think you’ve inspired a lot of people, and I think you’ve done that because of your approach to what would be considered a hot topics for a lot of folks, I would imagine it can be frustrating sometimes to try to work things out with a few hundred of your your peers and sometimes, well, we can just say it, right. Seems like there’s a lot of gridlock there. How do you keep your head on straight and keep your cool through that and how what’s the secret to try to work through some of those really big problems where it just seems like you can’t quite get to a different point of view.

Rob Woodall (00:59:28):

It is amazing to me that there are so many folks who have that same question and have been married to their lovely husband or wife for 25 or 30 years. That’s right. It’s not unusual to disagree with people passionately, but still recognize that they are wonderful human beings and that you have to find a way to work this out going, going forward. We use those same skills. The challenge is, and if folks want to know which members to cultivate relationships with at noon today, we’ll go into session and folks can speak for one minute on any topic they want to speak on. Some people will use that one minute to recognize a 30 year teacher who’s retiring, or a first responder who made a difference for a family and a life saving way to recognize a pastor or a young person for their accomplishments.

Rob Woodall (01:00:27):

And other people will use that 60 seconds to just rip the hide off of their political opponents and tell you how bad everything is. I can’t work with the people who want to use their 60 seconds of attention to tear people down, but I can work with anybody who wants to use their 60 seconds of attention to build people up. And I don’t need to agree my friend, Jim McGovern, who was chairman of the rules committee, a very liberal Democrat from Massachusetts. He and I disagree on almost everything. He wants us out of Iraq and Afghanistan for one set of reasons. I want us to vote on getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan for a different set of reasons, but we both share the desire to bring a vote to the floor on the authorization for the use of military force for the first time, since 2003.

Rob Woodall (01:01:28):

That is the secret, Matt. You don’t have to believe that your partner is right about everything. You just have to believe your partner has something to offer on the one finite issue of the day. And you develop that reputation. If your constituents will allow you to, there are folks who come from 90% Republican districts or 90% Democrat democratic districts, those constituents don’t always want their representative to be a good partner. Sometimes they want their representative to go burn the place down. I’m just lucky enough that I come from a district where folks do want to move forward together. They don’t believe getting half of what you want is losing. They believe getting half of what you want is winning and that you can go and get more the next day and more than the next day. I believe one of the kindest phone calls I received was from a liberal democratic Congresswoman in California, who called and asked if I would work on an immigration issue with her.

Rob Woodall (01:02:33):

And I said, listen, we have not met. I don’t know who you are. The Congress had just been been starting. I’d be happy to work with you, but why are you calling me? And she said, well, because I asked around, and I know if we’re going to get anything done, it’s got to get done in a bipartisan way. And I’m told that you have impeccable conservative credentials from the work you’ve done as the leader of the Republican study committee, but that you’re also willing to work with anybody on anything that you think is going to move the ball in the right direction. And I think I’ve got an idea that might, might do that. That’s quite a compliment. It was an amazing compliment. Matt and I’ve worked hard to earn that reputation, but only because the constituency in the seventh district allows me to, I hope you will take pride in it.

Rob Woodall (01:03:27):

Every single bipartisan effort that has been created in the time I’ve been in Congress, even whether it was a large effort or a small effort. And the Republican leadership has named me to be a part of that effort, because when it comes to reaching across the aisle, I have a constituency that just wants to get it fixed. They don’t care who gets credit for it. They don’t care what it takes. They just want to solve problems. And the more districts we have that look like ours, that elect people not to get their point across, but to make progress the better off I think we’re going to be as a Republic. The answer is not more congressmen like me. The answer is more voters like you, and that is what’s going to get us going to solve our problems going forward.

Matt Hyatt (01:04:20):

Well, you are very kind and very humble. I want to tell you, I’m grateful for you, and I’m so glad to be represented by you over the past 10 years or so that I’ve known you. You’ve done just a terrific job. I confess selfishly. I was a little saddened to hear that you’re retiring your position and moving on, I’ve been, you know, working through it over a period of time and I’ve come to terms with the idea, Rob, what’s, what’s your plan. What’s next for you? The revelations, by the way, I’m both being sincere and that I’m going to very much miss having you in that role, but also I’m kidding a bit. You deserve to focus on whatever you like. And I hope you’ve got great plans, and I’d love to hear about them.

Rob Woodall (01:05:18):

There is a fire that is required to do this job, and I am surrounded by men and women on my staff who share that fire there. When I announced I was going to retire was an opportunity for bipartisanship, with a Republican in the white house and Democrats leading the US house. I thought we were going to partner on absolutely everything and have a wildly productive, two years solving problems. It didn’t work out quite that way. COVID was part of that problem. And, and personalities were a part of that problem on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, I too am going to have to take some time to work out the disappointment of leaving things in an uncertain state. As I envisioned it, we were going to be in a place of much greater certainty and much greater prosperity, but that said, sometimes the country needs people who are going to partner and do things slowly but surely.

Rob Woodall (01:06:35):

Sometimes the country needs folks who are going to get in there and, and, and, and burn things burn things down. I don’t ever want to be the burn things down a person. And I see in primary after primary around the country, good Democrats and good Republicans being defeated because they’re not angry enough act at their opponents. I think constituents deserve what they, what they want. They ought to be able to elect any kind of representative they, they want to. But my ability to make a contribution depends on a Congress that wants to work together and get things get things done that had been coming increasingly less. So over the, over the years, John Bayner leading the house and Barack Obama leading the white house, had great success on very difficult issues, even though we didn’t agree on a lot, I am gonna go through a 12 step program to detox from all that partisanship, so that I will, again, believe that there are more people who want to work together.

Rob Woodall (01:07:46):

There are more people looking for the good in one another than not. But if we had a if we had a tag team Congress where I could trade out for a couple of years and then come back in and stay fresh, you know, just like on the football team, you don’t play both ways. You bring somebody else in to try to sort it out. I would love to I would love to serve, but I am. I’m excited for our, for our state, that there are new people who are coming in full of fire, full of enthusiasm. And I am hopeful that we’ll continue to have the same hardworking cohesive delegation that has that has defined Georgia candidly for the last 30 years.

Matt Hyatt (01:08:32):

Well, I wish you the very best with that 12 step program when you’re done and feeling great, come visit. We’d love to have you over at Rocket IT, and certainly hope we’ll stay in touch

Rob Woodall (01:08:43):

The, instead of trying to help with any problems that you all might have, Matt, I’ll be bringing you all of my problems to solve. If there’s, if there’s anybody that’s in the problem-solving business, it’s you all and losing my technical support team on Capitol Hill, I will need to hire folks who can succeed for me. And I appreciate that.

Matt Hyatt (01:09:02):

Well, we’d love to help you. Of course. So one thing that we do with every podcast guest is just ask a few questions that are pretty similar to one another. And so, in other words, from one episode to another, they’re similar. Tell us, tell us, you told us about one person that impacted your journey while you were chief of staff, but thinking more globally, is there any particular person that has really stood out to you as a role model?

Rob Woodall (01:09:32):

It sounds it sounds cliche, Matt, but I’m lucky enough that my dad was, that was that model. I lost him two and a half years ago to cancer. And you don’t always realize how much help someone is to you in your life until they’re gone. And we’re all lucky to have been touched by so many amazing people, but family is one of those things that you don’t get to choose. It’s the hand that you’re dealt and the federal government spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to help families be stronger. And we have arguably lost more of those battles than we’ve than we’ve won. But I, I had the, I had the great benefit of having a dad who was the man that I wanted to grow up to be. And if we could have more children who believe that very same thing about their dads then I’m sure that many of the things we perceive as problems in our country would be would be very short, very short lived. Having someone who loves you unconditionally in your life is something money can’t buy. And I wish that upon folks and try to provide that as often as I can.

Matt Hyatt (01:11:04):

I love it. Sounds like an amazing guy. And I’m sorry for your loss. Tell me what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your professional career.

Rob Woodall (01:11:16):

Everybody talks about first impressions, Matt. I would tell you that last impressions are critically important in transient job like this one folks come into your life for a period of time and they go out of your, they go out of your life. Sometimes when people are leaving your life, they’re more focused on the next opportunity than they are on their current opportunity. What I have learned is that what people will remember is not the first week that they worked with you, they’re going to remember the last week that they worked with you. And as you try to build that credibility, as you try to build that team of partners, and really, as you try to think about what your own personal work ethic demands of you, you absolutely ought to be putting in as much effort on the last day as you were putting in on the first day, if not more. And you sometimes see that in members of Congress, that they’re most productive, legislative years where their last too, because once they realized the clock was ticking and they weren’t going to have an opportunity to help any longer, they moved it all as fast as they could. I would tell young people, make sure you make eye contact, shake that hand, make that good first impression. But if you’re lucky enough to start building a relationship, make sure you leave that relationship on every bit as a high note as you started,.

Matt Hyatt (01:12:46):

That’s great advice, I love it. When you’re not curling up with the unabridged edition of the constitution and all of the associated paperwork, do you have a favorite book that you’ve read or podcasts that you listened to?

Rob Woodall (01:13:02):

I plan to become a podcast listener. I confess Matt that I’m not there yet. And I have not enjoyed fiction since I was a child. I get enough fiction in my real life here. The the book that I’m working my way through now, and I would recommend it to anybody who does not feel an optimism about our future as a nation to read ratification by Maier. It details the real fits that the country had in 1787 and the years that followed, trying to ratify this document that we call our republics framework. And time after time, it looked like all was lost. It looked like we were never going to get this done, that it was all going to it was all going to fall apart and people were bitterly divided.

Rob Woodall (01:14:10):

You know, we think of this as being this great awakening in America, but no, like any big change, it had its ardent defenders and its ardent opponents. And we have been blessed in my adult lifetime that we haven’t been challenged as a people in the way that the nation was challenged in 1787 to about 1800, but we may be approaching such a challenge. And if you need encouragement to know that it’s gonna work out as long as men and women of conscience apply themselves to it take a look at ratification and it hopefully will lift you up by knowing that the challenges we face are not are not really all that new stuff.

Matt Hyatt (01:15:02):

Rob, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your time. I know you’re awfully busy. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.

Rob Woodall (01:15:12):

It is my great pleasure. I don’t say this to to flatter you as the, as the host, but you are often the topic in our office. When we talk about civic leaders and how they get involved in all of the different things they do and the contributions they make, and folks who get recognized for some of those contributions and who don’t get recognized for others. If instead of being a lawyer, I had I had picked a business man and husband and father, I would want to do it the way you have done it. And when I named people for which our community is so much stronger because this family has chosen to live among us. I choose Matt Hyatt and the Hyatt family. And I’m grateful to you for that

Matt Hyatt (01:16:11):

Folks, I believe it’s time to wrap things up. Congressman Woodall, from myself and our audience, thank you for joining us today. To our listeners, thank you for tuning into the Rocket IT business podcast. Should you have any questions or suggestions on future topics that you’d like to hear more about email us at [email protected]. Finally, a quick plug for Rocket IT. We work with businesses, not-for-profit organizations and municipalities in the areas of IT support, information, security and strategic planning. To learn more about Rocket IT and its services simply visit rocketit.com. Thank you.