Business RadioX ®

Marc Nudelberg with On the Ball Ventures

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High Velocity Radio
Marc Nudelberg with On the Ball Ventures
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Marc-Nudelberg-headshotMarc Nudelberg is a coach, author and entrepreneur. He leverages his experiences as a Division I football coach and President of On the Ball Ventures to help individuals and their teams adopt the 1 percent better mindset.

Marc delivers energy, passion and competitive drive while focusing on the details and developing processes that produce results.

Connect with Marc on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Marc’s new book – Family, Football & Failure: Leadership Principles from my Life as a Coach
  • Principles that translate from sports to business
  • The 1% better mindset
  • Creating culture
  • How to adopt new technology without abandoning good fundamentals

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast coach, author, entrepreneur and president with On the Ball Ventures Mr. Marc Nudelberg. Good morning, Coach.

Marc Nudelberg: [00:00:38] Good morning. Stone Thank you so much for the opportunity to join you on this fantastically named show.

Stone Payton: [00:00:44] Well, thank you for that. No, we’re delighted to have you on the program. You’ve got a new book out, Family, Football and Failure, and I want to talk all about that in just a moment. But I was thinking maybe first you could share with me in the listening audience. Mission, purpose. What are you and your team out there every day Really, really trying to do for folks?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:01:06] Sure. So I think, you know, to sum it all up, it comes down to helping everybody adapt the 1% better mindset. And I think when most people read into that or they think about it, James Clear did a great job of publishing a book called Atomic Habits, which talked about our habits making us who we are and the 0.01% that you could accumulate over a year, ultimately getting you to 36% better a year. But when I think about the mindset, to me it’s about accepting the challenge of trying to get better, right? I was fortunate to grow up in an entrepreneurial family, was fortunate to have a 14 year career in college football, and ultimately what entrepreneurship and sports have in common is the willingness to get up and accept the challenge of going out and trying to do your best every day and trying to be better. So that to me is how we help organizations, help individuals, whether you be in the C-suite, whether you be a middle manager, or you be some sales associate responsible for a quota at the end of the month, it’s all about how do I develop the right processes for myself, How do I develop all of the right mental gymnastics that I have to do every day in order to accept the challenge of getting 1% better?

Stone Payton: [00:02:27] So when you’re bringing this to the market, the work itself is a is it coaching, training, speaking consulting, or is it span the gamut? A little bit of all of.

Marc Nudelberg: [00:02:36] That, All of the above? All of the above. So so so for me, the biggest difference that I saw when I left the athletic arena and moved into the business arena was that training was something that only got done in the first two weeks of you being hired or it happened once a quarter when they would bring in a keynote speaker and try to motivate everybody to go move the needle. Or maybe it was only once a year. So coming out of sport where training was something that you did year round, right? It didn’t matter whether we were in season or out of season. We as coaches were watching the film and training ourselves on how to create better schemes, teach better, become better, recruit better and bring in more talent to the organization, or whether it be the athlete. They were working in the weight room, they were doing extra reps, one on one with each other out on the field, and they were doing training year round in order to offer them the opportunity to become a high performer. So I think helping organizations develop a year round training for their people and helping them invest more in their people to keep them on their game, keep them growing and ultimately create a better engaged workforce is a mission that I have.

Stone Payton: [00:03:56] What a fantastic way to frame it and a marvelous perspective to offer to training year round. I really like that. So was there a specific catalyst or a catalytic moment that compelled you to transition from the athletic arena to the business world?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:04:17] Sure. You know, I was I was fortunate to to spend my career at five different schools across the United States, got to work with some of the best coaches and some of the worst coaches in college football. And ultimately, to me, I’ve always been under I always believed that whatever you wanted you could attain as long as you were willing to sacrifice whatever it took. And so after ten years of being a special teams coordinator, moving around the country and working at five different schools, I really was unsure that I was willing to continue to sacrifice what I knew was necessary in order to continue to operate at a high level in a college football environment. So for most people they think, Oh, you’re a college football coach, you work. You know, August to December, and that’s it. The lifestyle of a college football coach is 24 seven, almost 365. Essentially, you’re working 16 hours a day for 340 days a year. And I was unsure that I was willing to devote that for the rest of my life. So that offered me the opportunity to take a step back and reassess what I was going to do with my life. And that was the entry point into the corporate America and business world that I work in today.

Stone Payton: [00:05:35] Did you have the benefit? Have you had the benefit of one or more mentors as you try to navigate this this new landscape, this this business arena?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:05:45] Oh, absolutely. You know, I’m fortunate to work in a family business. And so my entire life and my entire career, I’ve looked at my father, Steve Noodle Burg, as one of my mentors. He’s he’s been always been there for me to not only support me, but also challenge me and challenge me on my thoughts and challenge me on on what I was really trying to do and what my visions were. And so when I told him that I was having second thoughts about whether or not I was willing to devote what was necessary to be successful, he was like, Come on home. He’s like, Come on back here. I got a bunch of people that I’d like to introduce you to that can help offer you perspective and help you make a decision. And that wasn’t the moment that led me to working with him, but that was the moment that started the journey that led me working with him.

Stone Payton: [00:06:35] Well, I can hear it in your voice. I know our listeners can hear it over the airwaves. You clearly are enjoying the work, the the passion, the enthusiasm comes through. What are you what are you finding the most rewarding? What are you enjoying the most at this point about the work?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:06:52] The same thing that I’ve always found the most rewarding, which is helping people get better. You know, I was fortunate to, at a very young age, be able to find my passion, which was coaching. Right? It wasn’t necessarily about being in football, It wasn’t necessarily about being in athletics. Yes, I love the game and yes, I love learning it. But the thing I was passionate about was being able to help the players be the best they could be, whether that be in the classroom, whether that be on the field, whether that be just as a young man growing up. So it’s that same philosophy that I take to working with individuals in the business world or organizations in the business world is I get to watch my impact, help an individual get better, both personally and professionally, whether that leads to more money for them or a promotion for them. And then I get to watch that impact take effect on the business and watch people’s businesses grow because of the growth of their people. And that’s the thing that’s always excited me is the growth of people.

Stone Payton: [00:07:54] All right. Let’s talk about this book. How is it structured? How can we get the most out of it? Tell us a little bit about this book.

Marc Nudelberg: [00:08:02] Sure. So so I when it was about a year and a half being removed from football and being into the business world, my dad pushed me, as he always does, and said, Hey, I think it’s time for you to write a book like you’ve got unbelievable stories, you’re doing unbelievable things, impacting people. Now in the 2.0 version of your career, he’s like, You have to encapsulate all that and be able to share it before you forget it. And so that started the process of me writing the book, which is titled Family Football and Failure, which is truly the roadmap to success that I learned from growing up in an entrepreneurial family, having a career in athletics and then ultimately becoming an entrepreneur. All of the parallels, all of the individual lessons through stories that I learned about leadership, about developing championship mindset and championship behavior. Because when I say that to me, what makes Mark Cuban successful as an entrepreneur is the same thing that made Kobe Bryant or any of the great athletes that I worked with. Successful starts in the mindset, moves towards a process and ultimately ends in the discipline of that process. So I live and then I try to teach this acronym, which is RPD, which is relationships, process and discipline. If you feed those three factors in your life daily, you’re going to find success.

Stone Payton: [00:09:34] So the way this thing is set up is, is it a story based thing? Is it a is it a process? How did you choose to to lay out this content in the book through stories?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:09:44] Right. Because I believe that that’s the best way that people learn. And I’ve found that that’s the way people receive information. Best. So by the chapters, it’s kind of taking you through the journey of how I learned all of these lessons. There’s the stories that are that are built into that are that come from the lessons. And then at the end of every chapter, there are key takeaways which synthesize the stories for everybody to say, Hey, here are the blocking and tackling, or Here’s the fundamentals of what I just talked about and what you need to take away to go apply for yourself.

Stone Payton: [00:10:18] So as a trainer, consultant, facilitator in a former life, what you’re describing strikes me as a great tool to utilize in a team environment as well. Is that accurate? Can a team inside a company use this book, go read pieces of it, come back and talk through their perspective on what they read, that kind of thing?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:10:39] 1,000%. And what I hope people are able to do with it, with or without my assistance, is to take those principles, apply them into their organization, and say, Hey, here’s the core philosophy of what he was talking about. How do we develop a leadership development strategy around this? Or how do we how do we find a way to create some of these behaviors for our self within our business? How do we adopt these principles that he’s talking about into our own culture, into our own strategy to help us be successful?

Stone Payton: [00:11:13] Well, I’m so glad that you brought up culture, because I got to confess to you and gotten everybody as much time as I spent in the training and development arena, man, I never could really get my arms around that. The whole idea of culture and I don’t feel like I was ever particularly effective at helping a leader genuinely impact, let alone shift or create a culture. Can can you offer some insight on that front?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:11:41] I think culture comes down to very simply the way your people live day in and day out. So in order for them to have a structure or a guardrail, for them to live within or the way you want them to live, you have to have core values. So if you were if I were to define for you your culture, number one, everybody says they have core values because they’re written on a wall or they’re in a playbook somewhere. But if you ask the people walking down the hallway, Hey, what are our core values? Most of them would struggle to tell you. Even one of them you get the Oh, I’m pretty sure that accountability is one of them. Right? And so so in order to develop culture, you, number one, have to have core values that speak to the behaviors that you want people to be living. And then number two, it’s a very simple three step process. You need to have people know them, you need to have people live them, and you need to have people get held accountable to them, both from leadership and from their peers. And so the highest performing cultures are not a top down hierarchy of accountability, but it’s actually an accountability at every level through every peer and through every individual, because everybody is well aware of what the core values are and what’s expected and everybody is living them. So the ones who do not tend to stick out like a sore thumb and because everybody understands the importance of them, they’re willing to hold each other accountable to them.

Stone Payton: [00:13:09] So what’s the day to day application of this 1% better mindset idea? Like how do I apply that in my day to day life?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:13:20] Well, so for me it comes down to understanding what are your priorities? So everybody has goals. Most people do a poor job of breaking down their goals into milestone objectives. And so I liken that to football for people. The goal was to win a national championship at the end of the year, but in order to win a national championship, we had to make the playoff. And in order to make the playoff, you had to win the conference. In order to win the conference, you had to go undefeated at home. And in order to go undefeated at home, you had to practice a certain way. In order to practice a certain way, you had to train a certain way. Similarly, for business, your goal may be to break $1,000,000,000 in revenue this year, but in order to break $1,000,000,000 in revenue this year, you need to have a certain number of sales. And in order to make a certain number of sales, you need to be creating a certain number of conversations in order to be able to creating a certain number of conversations, you need to create a certain amount of interest. And how you go about doing all of those things ultimately is the effect on the goal. So most people set the goal and then stare at the goal all year long, understanding that if I’m going to have a 1% better mentality, I need to understand what are the behaviors and what are the activities that I need to be responsible for in order to reach my goals. And if I can define those behaviors and activities, then I just have to develop a process that is repeatable because most people have a process. But that process is based on what the weather is and how they feel every day. So if I can develop a process that regardless of circumstance and regardless of the way I feel, I’m able to execute that process, then it becomes down to disciplining myself, to showing up day in and day out, doing the things I need to do in order to give myself the opportunity to reach my goal.

Stone Payton: [00:15:16] I know you help clients sell more effectively. How does the whole sales and marketing thing work for you? How do you and your team get the new business?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:15:29] Sure. So. So I was I was raised in a retail family. My grandfather owned a designer women’s shoe store. My father started his career in that business and then moved his way through retail to clothing and ultimately to cellular phones when they were first happening down here in South Florida. And that understanding of the retail experience and what it meant to have a loyal customer and what it meant to create customers and the relationship building side of it. While buyer behavior has changed over the decades because of the access to information and the education level of the buyer and who’s holding information. The thing that hasn’t changed is that people still want relationship. People still want to know the people that they’re buying from. And so ultimately, the game really changed because those tactics of cold calling, cold knocking became or the interrupting strategy that that had become of sales really turn people off. And so how do you as an individual, stay responsible for creating awareness for yourself and ultimately creating conversations for yourself, but do it in a way that’s warm, that’s engaging, that’s relationship development driven, and that offers you the best opportunity to get time with someone. So leveraging tools like social media, leveraging tools like video in the best ways possible in order to create new opportunities for yourself is the ways that we monetize the sales process.

Stone Payton: [00:17:04] And to your point, it’s so important that, yes, we take full advantage of those tools, those resources, but don’t get away from from the fundamentals, like still respect and deploy the fundamentals. Yeah.

Marc Nudelberg: [00:17:18] Amen. Like, to me, it always comes back to the fundamentals. It always comes back to the basics. And so if you are taking that interrupt mentality in that cold pitch mentality and showing up in your content that way and showing up in direct messages that way, then you’re just doing you’re just taking a new tool and using an old school philosophy, and that doesn’t work that way. So if you change your thought process to it’s not about me selling all the time, but it’s about me figuring out a way how to market myself to people in order to create relationships and create new conversations and drive new opportunities, then that changes the way you operate inside of these platforms. So a lot of people don’t like social media. A lot of people are like, Oh, I don’t want to put myself out there or It’s not for business. All social media is. Is is the largest relationship development tool in the history of the world. So whether you look at LinkedIn, whether you look at Facebook, Instagram, I don’t care what it is, those are all opportunities to engage with individuals and create new relationships. And if you look at it that way and that informs the behavior in which you operate, it can change the way you take advantage of them.

Stone Payton: [00:18:31] So after 15 minutes with you, I’m not at all sure this ever happens to you, but I’m going to ask anyway if and when you do kind of run out of gas, the batteries get low. How do you recharge? How do you kind of rekindle the flame? What do you do?

Marc Nudelberg: [00:18:49] So I believe that we are all a product of our inputs. So for me, if I feel like I’m running on E, like if I’ve maxed myself, I’ve kind of put myself into too many situations back to back or I’m not taking care of myself nutritionally or I’m not getting the workout, or maybe I’m listening and reading and watching things that aren’t feeding my mindset. I go back and I look and I say, Where? Where did I get away from giving myself the things I need in order to be able to perform my best? Now I’ve looked at it for myself. I know that working out early in the morning is really important to me. Being energized throughout the day. I know that the way I eat over the weekend has a significant effect Monday through Wednesday. So all of the things that are important to me help feed my fuel and my fire. And so if I feel like I’m running low on those, I go back and look at them and say, well, where have I gone wrong? Or have it gotten away from these things? And what do I need to get back to in order to feel the way I need to feel?

Stone Payton: [00:19:54] Just before we wrap, let’s leave our listeners with a couple of, I don’t know, RPD Pro Tips or maybe a couple of actionable things from the from the book, from the work. Just something that we can we can start to be thinking about reading about doing, not doing.

Marc Nudelberg: [00:20:10] So I would say the easiest things to put into practice if you’re not sure on where to get started. On accepting the challenge to get 1% better every day is to just start paying attention to what you do. Right. I think when it when it comes down to time management and understanding that there’s nothing more valuable than our time and how we spend it, then if we’re just become aware. And the easiest thing to do is at the end of every day, just write a log. Think about from the time you got up to the time you’re going to bed. What are all the things I did today, right? And keep track of those things so that at the end of a week you’re able to go back and review and say, I say that these things are my priorities. Yet when I look back at my activities, not a lot of what I’m actually doing feeds those priorities. So if I don’t feel like I’m making movement, if I don’t feel like I’m making progress, if I don’t feel like I’m growing, what can I take away? What are the things that I’m doing that I know aren’t feeding my priorities in order to replace those things with the things I know I need to do in order to get better.

Stone Payton: [00:21:17] Where can our listeners get their hands on this book? Let’s leave them with some contact info. I want them to have a really easy path to connect with. You have a conversation with you or someone on your team. I want to make sure they can get their hands on this book, maybe begin to learn a little bit more about social selling, video, selling, so whatever you feel like is appropriate. Linkedin Websites.

Marc Nudelberg: [00:21:37] The two best places to find me are on LinkedIn and on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at Coach Noodle and UDL. Those are the two best places to get me in to get my book. If you don’t go there, go to our website. Ww on the ball ventures dot com almost any of the links on that page will bring you to a member of our team and offer you the opportunity to engage with us, have a virtual coffee as we would like to to do with everybody because that’s the best way to start a relationship and have a virtual coffee with us, ask questions and allow us to help direct you and where you need to go.

Stone Payton: [00:22:15] Well, Coach, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show today. Thank you for investing the time and energy with us to share your perspective and your experience. Thank you for the work you’re doing, man. It’s important work and we we sure appreciate you.

Marc Nudelberg: [00:22:31] Thank you. Stone This was an absolute fantastic opportunity and I appreciate you so much.

Stone Payton: [00:22:36] All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Coach Mark Noodle Burg, president of On the Ball Ventures, and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Chris Spanier with Carpe Diem Consulting Group

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Chris-Spanier-Carpe-Diem-Consulting-Group
High Velocity Radio
Chris Spanier with Carpe Diem Consulting Group
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Chris-Spanier-Carpe-Diem-Consulting-GroupAs President and Chief Ideator at Carpe Diem Consulting Group, Chris Spanier brings decades of experience in marketing, sales and technology to serve his clients. Launching Carpe Diem Consulting Group at the start of the pandemic after more than a decade of doing pro bono consulting work, it has proven to be the most exhilarating job he’s ever had.

Chris will describe Carpe Diem as a group of professional “marketing utility players,” able to help their clients across a wide variety of marketing functions ranging from traditional and digital marketing, prospect research and branding work. Chris, himself, has worked across various industries from tech startups to financial services to manufacturing and professional services.

Some highlights include quintupling sales at a startup within 12 months of joining their team, building a website that served 5 million annual visitors with individualized content and volunteering his skills with a scholarship program reaching deserving youth who could not otherwise afford to continue their post-high school education.

Chris believes we all have an amazing story to share, and is passionate about helping people and businesses enrich and share those stories in ways that resonate with the world around them.

​Connect with Chris on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Advice for someone marketing their business for the first time
  • What makes a good client for Carpe Diem
  • What marketers often get wrong
  • About the book Chris co-authored, SalesFusion

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results and less time Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. This is going to be a fantastic conversation. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Carpe Diem Consulting Group, Mr. Chris Spanier. How are you?

Chris Spanier: [00:00:37] I’m doing great today. Stone Thanks for having me on the show.

Stone Payton: [00:00:39] Yeah. Delight to have you on the program. Really been looking forward to this conversation. I think a great place to start would probably be mission purpose, What you and your team are really out there trying to do for folks. Man.

Chris Spanier: [00:00:54] No, I appreciate that. So I guess in a nutshell, we’re a marketing marketing consulting firm. We dabble obviously in technology and some other things, but I kind of view our mission when I go and introduce us to people. So I said, it’s getting close to World Series as we’re doing our recording here. And so I kind of use a baseball analogy and say, Think of us as the marketing utility player. So we work with businesses of all different sizes, but we tend to go more medium, maybe small sized businesses where they want to do some marketing, but they don’t have people on staff or they’ve got a small staff and they just they need some help. So we come in and we work with leadership to figure out where their best potential is going to be, where they’re going to get the biggest bang for their buck, and then we get to work to help them put some tactical things in place while also thinking more strategically about where they ultimately want to end up and be successful with.

Stone Payton: [00:01:42] So what’s the back story, man? How did you get into this line of work?

Chris Spanier: [00:01:48] Oh my gosh. What? We don’t have enough time for the whole story, but the short version of Back in the day. So thankfully, this is this is audio only so you don’t get to see the amount of gray I’ve accumulated. But my my start was back when the Internet bubble was really had burst. It was still building. So there was all this innovation. I started with an Internet startup. We were going to make our millions. It was just such a wonderful experience and we obviously didn’t make our millions, but we were really successful. The company got sold and merged and there was an AT&T division that became part of it. It was just it was this neat story, but my path took me into a more traditional path where I got married to the love of my life. We started a family and I started to settle down into kind of a more traditional corporate role. But I always had that entrepreneurial spirit. So there was a company I spent a number of years with that I always describe it as I was running a startup inside of this 100 year old financial services firm. So about five, six years ago I had an opportunity to set back out on my own, had a good heart to heart with my wife and city. And what do you think about this? I’d been doing pro bono consulting for probably a dozen years prior to this, and you’re in a good place. And she’s like, Let’s do this. Let’s let’s let’s hang out the shingle, let’s go. Let’s see where this leads. So with her blessing, carpe diem officially became a real thing.

Stone Payton: [00:03:15] Well, you and I both really enjoy capturing and sharing the story. What what do you do if and when you run into a client or a potential client and they just don’t feel like they have an interesting story to to share about their brand?

Chris Spanier: [00:03:33] Yeah. And that happens more often than you might think. And what I find one of the things I love, whether it’s a company like me or any other kind of consulting company, one of the things I think we bring to the table is just fresh eyes and fresh perspective. And I’ll give you an example. So I’ve been working for a little over a year now with this this complex metal fabrication company, and they’re in the region and you go in there and these are just good people. I mean, they’ve been around for 50 or 60 years. They’ve continued to grow and had success. But I started talking to them about kind of what their story is, and they were just so humble about it. They’re like, Oh, you know, we just do this, this, whatever it might be. And I’m like, okay, great. And we got talking about some more, and I said, Well, what are we working on here? We’re taking a tour of the factory floor. And I’m like, Oh, that’s a part that’s going and I won’t name it, but but a large new aerospace based company. And they’re like, Yeah, that part’s going to end up in space here probably in about six months. And I’m looking at them going, you know, outer space go, Yeah. And then you were talking about other work they’re doing and like, yeah, these are actually medical devices they use in surgery or here’s a part that’s, that’s an integral component inside of a jet engine. So it’s the part that’s keeping us safe as we fly all over the country. And this is a monday for them. And what I like to do, actually, and I have to give credit, there’s a colleague of mine in the area. She’s brilliant. She’s a digital marketer named Kendra Ramirez.

Chris Spanier: [00:04:58] And Kendra and I were talking a couple of years ago and I love this idea of hers. And she too client was like, I don’t know what to talk about. I’m not that interesting. So Kendra said, Just do me a favor. How won’t you drive home? And the gentleman is like, Oh, about 20 minutes, half hour. She goes, Perfect, I want you take your phone out now. I want you to turn on the dictation and then record. Tell us what you did today and specifically focus on interactions with your clients and projects maybe were working on and just see where that goes. And I think a day or two later, the gentleman calls her up and he goes, okay, I got it. Because what he realized then, what he’d fail to realize in the day to day living of his life and doing his great work was the impact he was having for his clients, the things that they were doing, the innovation, and by telling his story and in a very non-threatening way, very easy way, he ended up, I forget how many pages, she said, of content that got out of that one little recording, and then he’s done subsequent ones. But I love that because what it was is that we tend to lose sight of who we are and the really cool things we do. And we tend to be humble about the work we do and that that’s great, that that’s good people. But sometimes working with somebody like me or like you or others in our industry, you have an opportunity really to get that fresh perspective and realize, Oh yeah, this is pretty cool that I’m doing. So I’ve yet to meet a company whose story I haven’t loved.

Stone Payton: [00:06:23] What a fantastic idea. I’m going to borrow that page out of your playbook.

Chris Spanier: [00:06:29] Credit where credit is due. Kendra was the one who gave that to me, and I’m like, That’s brilliant. So I’ve used it with a number of my clients as well.

Stone Payton: [00:06:35] Yeah. So have you found yourself over the over the course of, of this journey gravitating to certain types of clients or industries or types of people?

Chris Spanier: [00:06:49] You know, I’ve worked on blessed work with companies all across the country, but I do tend to work more in the region. So the funny thing is, is I tend to avoid similar industries because I really don’t get into a place where, you know, I’m telling a similar story for two different potential competitors or close competitors. So I tend to avoid industry overlap, but that then allows me to talk to a lot of different companies. So what I really like or what I find is successful is when the team goes in and we’re meeting with a company, if they’re marketing aware, if you will, so so they realize the value that marketing can potentially bring to the table. But they’re at a place where, again, they don’t have the staff or the expertise or the resources to really dedicate some time to it. What we can do then is come in and we’ll be a bridge. We’ll help get them started. So my thought is if I’m fortunate enough to work with a company for a year or two years or three years, that’s probably a good run way. But it gets them to a point where they’re like, Okay, now we’re ready to bring this in-house. So we help kind of build the initial marketing that they’re doing. We ultimately then will then hand that off to the next generation and then hang around for as long as they need us to help with the transition. But on the one hand, it makes it challenging when you go off in your prospect and like who do you work with? And the answer is, well, everybody. But the flip side of it is you do see that pattern of companies that have an appreciation for marketing. They aren’t able to do it on their own just yet, but they’re building towards that. So I love getting into those kind of opportunities and helping them kind of realize those dreams and ultimately get them to that next level.

Stone Payton: [00:08:24] Well, you’re clearly enjoying the work it comes through in your voice. I know it’s coming through over the airwaves. What are you. Finding the most rewarding at this point in your career?

Chris Spanier: [00:08:35] Oh, gosh. You know, it goes back to the last answer. I love it when we are facing some tough economic times right now. And one of the realities is marketing tends to be one of the first things on the chopping block when companies pull back budgets or when they have to think about we can’t spend as much. And that’s I have a whole philosophy on that. I do think that probably is it’s a short term reality, but it also can be a longer term issue. So what I find extremely rewarding is when you work with companies and you start to see the fruits of the labor and you get that reinvigoration where we’re not only are you telling their story to an external audience, but when you see it reflected in house and they start to walk a little prouder, they stand a little taller of, Yeah, this is who we are. I did a workshop a couple of months ago with a client and they’ve been around for a while and I said, What about brand? And I gave them a couple of options. I’m very realistic and practical with my clients so that if they want to go all in and we want to do a whole redesign, great, we can we can tackle that.

Chris Spanier: [00:09:41] But in this case, it wasn’t wasn’t going to be that they simply needed to spruce up and revisit it. But we spent we were pretty effective about it. We came in for a couple of hours one day and maybe a half day on the second day. But what I what I did, what I tried to do was when we went in, I told my team, I said, let’s let them do most of the talking. We facilitate, but let’s let them tell their story. So one of the things I think I find the most rewarding, whether it’s a workshop like that or it’s a marketing campaign that we’re doing or materials that we’re developing, it’s seeing it not only be successful with the audience they’re trying to reach, but then you’ll also see it be successful with the team there. And again, they come out of those meetings and their heads are held higher and their chests are puffed up a little bit because we came in and we had a chance to remind them of just how awesome they are. So that’s always that’s always feeds the soul for me.

Stone Payton: [00:10:34] Well, it sounds like great work if you can get it. How how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you, a practice like yours? How do you get the new clients?

Chris Spanier: [00:10:45] Oh yeah. Again, another great question. Everybody kind of struggles with that a little bit. You know, what I’ve been blessed with is a lot of word of mouth. So you start working with a company and then I’ll give you an example. When I set up my consulting practice, I had my very first client and paying client, and we did this pilot project for something they wanted to do, which which really kind of straddled the line between marketing and sales. And we had some really great success the first couple of months, so much so that what was originally a three month pilot turned into basically a three year relationship. And early on in that I’m talking to another company just meeting for coffee and then there wasn’t really any expectations. I tend to be a very soft sell kind of guy. Let’s get to know each other. Let me kind of share a little bit about what we do our story, and then obviously I want to hear their story and then see where that that leads us. And if I can pour in a little bit to them, whether something comes out of it in terms of business or not, I kind of feel like this has been a worthwhile meeting. This has been a great connection because I get to know people and I love finding out their stories. Well, in this case, this gentleman said, here’s you say, here’s what we’re looking for, because, you know, we’re facing with some challenges, but I want to hear more about what you’re doing.

Chris Spanier: [00:12:04] So I started describing some of the different project work we were on, and I went back to that very first one and some of the innovative stuff that we were doing to pilot with them. And apparently I wasn’t intentionally selling, but at the end of it he looks at me, he goes, We need that. And it was a really good I mean, again, marketer, market thyself, right? It was a really good eye opening moment for myself to say, you know, as I’m building my consulting practice, as I’m building the team and we have one more capabilities, I don’t want to be the guy that’s that’s out there. Like, look what we can do. It’s more of here’s the journey we’re on. And I think people always will resonate with that. So we I appreciate opportunities like this, not not that I’m doing anything other than hopefully sharing a little bit of knowledge. But, you know, if somebody somewhere down the line hears this and it’s like, oh, that’s kind of interesting, maybe they’ll take those ideas to a local consultant that they want to work with. Or heck, maybe somebody looks me up and says, Hey, what do you think about this? And, you know, just setting that good out into the world and trusting that it finds its way back to you. It’s a little hokey, but but so far, that model has worked well for us, and then I don’t see that changing.

Stone Payton: [00:13:12] So you coauthored a book that came out this year. Talk about that a little bit. What was that experience like?

Chris Spanier: [00:13:20] Sales Fusion. Right. Thank you. It was it was really cool and really scary. You know, the funny thing was, if you go back four or five years, I remember I was at a small conference, a talk being given by some professionals and there was a panel discussion. Actually at this point. And every one of the speakers, they were all independent of each other, but every one of them said everybody in this room should write, should be writing. And we’re all of course. And no, it’s No, no, no. You should be writing, publishing stuff. And in fact, one woman went even so far as to say you should write a book. And I remember walking out of there thinking, you know, Yeah, but. But really, what do I have to contribute? What would be interesting for people to hear about and like. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized, yeah, there really are. Right. So I started regularly blogging At that point. I started doing more along those lines because frankly, it was just good practice whether many people read it or nobody read it. The fact that I was exercising my mind and thinking about ways to communicate, I think ultimately made me a better marketer. And then fast forward, I was having actually coffee with a friend of mine who is president of this boutique publishing company, and she was talking about this fusion series that they were just starting. And the idea behind Fusion really is I think there are right, maybe five or six books total. And the idea is to write it targeted for small and medium sized businesses so that they can go.

Chris Spanier: [00:14:52] And rather than read these these really in-depth books, which are amazing and teach us so much. They were wanted to focusing more on the practical and the tactical. So what they’ve done with the Fusion is they’ve approached 10 to 13 authors, 14 authors per book. So we want you to contribute a chapter, give us your best stuff. And then what they do is they synthesize that into an overarching theme. So there’s been one on marketing and readership sales, and then I think people comes out in January. And so what you have is these thought leaders who are coming together and saying, all right, here’s some practical things that you can do in your business that will help you drive your people. Retention and culture development, your marketing, your sales, your readership, or whatever else that might be. So it was a really nice way to lend my voice with a dozen other experts whom several whom I knew, several whom I’ve gotten to know over the last several months and just keeping good company. So it was a nice way to kind of scratch that itch and say, Well, I’m a published author now. In fact, the book is a best seller, so I can now say we’re bestselling authors collectively, but it’s really been kind of a fun experience. And now, unfortunately, she planted the bug and saying, Well, what about writing your own book? So we’ll see what comes of that in the next year or two. But now it’s been a great experience.

Stone Payton: [00:16:14] I have no doubt in my mind after hanging out with you for a few minutes that you have at least one book in you. Probably plenty. I, I think I already know the answer to this question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Have you had the benefit of one or more mentors along the way as this effort has unfolded for you?

Chris Spanier: [00:16:38] You know, absolutely. I think if there’s anything that maybe in our society we don’t do enough of is seeking out mentors or offering an opportunity to mentor others. In fact, I’m actually having coffee tomorrow with a gentleman that I’ve seen as a mentor for 20 years, and his great nephew is 18 years old, lives in a rural part of the Midwest and is coming to the big city and really wants just to talk with people to get a sense of what he wants to do with his life. So I jumped at the chance when he said, Would you be willing to spend an hour or so with them? And I said, Absolutely. And, you know, in some ways it’s a little it’s a little sobering to realize I’m switching from mentee to mentor role, I think, at least in this conversation. But you’re spot on, Stuart. I mean, any chance we have to share knowledge to gain knowledge, but also then to share knowledge, that’s something that can be given freely and it’s something that gets added upon as it passes from person to person to person. So, yes, your mentors have played a big role in my life and now I’ve reached a stage where I still have mentors, but I’m actually being able to maybe offer a little bit of I won’t say wisdom, but maybe avoid my mistakes to the next generation. So yes.

Stone Payton: [00:17:50] Yeah, maybe you can help them reduce the friction and shrink the timeline a little bit. If you’ve made anywhere near as many mistakes as I have.

Chris Spanier: [00:17:59] I think you’ve done quite well. But yeah, that’s that’s my hope here. So I’m looking forward to this conversation. In fact, as a quick aside, we’re doing this just locally, so this isn’t necessarily something that’s going to help your listeners nationwide. But I’ve actually talked talked it was would you be willing they were like, oh, yes, but we wanted to give something back to our local business community. So a group of us now are putting together a speaker series. It’s going to be absolutely free and we’re going to invite small business owners to come in and medium sized business owners to come in. And we’ve got four or five or six different topics in this first series that we’re going to do. And the whole goal, I mean, selfishly, maybe we’re. Build a little bit of our brand out of this, and that’s great. But every one of us said we’ve been given so much that we are looking for, continue to look for ways to give back. So that kicks off in a month where we’re going to do the first session and just see where it goes.

Stone Payton: [00:18:55] Oh fun. Now I know that you often refer to yourself as a hyper optimist, and I do. I would like you to speak to that in just a moment. And at the same time, I’d love to know when when the tank is running a little bit low and things aren’t as great. Where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical place, but to to recharge, to, to, to get inspiration and fill the tank back up and get ready for the next for the next wave.

Chris Spanier: [00:19:24] No, that’s very insightful question. So hyper optimist. That’s a phrase I coined. Gosh, back probably in college because I’m the goofball when you get home and it’s like there’s never a bad day. Well, yeah, there are. But to me, the idea of being a hyper optimist is that you actively seek out the good, you’re actively looking for the positive. And so, you know, if I look back on my own life, I’ve certainly had my fair share of tragedies and happy days. I was thinking back, even as a simple example, this was my mom died fairly young. I was I was in my mid twenties when she passed and she was the parent I was the closest to. And without going to a lot of sad details, she was in the hospital for two weeks before she ultimately passed and my dad and I had an okay relationship. But up to that point, but for those two weeks and then obviously the months that followed, suddenly we had the shared experience and we were supporting each other and as was the extended family. But if you will, maybe my mom’s parting gift was she helped my dad and I resolve some of our whatever issues we might have had. And we became a lot closer in the last 20 years of his life that I’m very thankful for. So as a hyper optimist, if you’ll indulge my phrase, you look at that and say, gosh, you know, the death of a parent or the death of any loved one is a horrible experience. And it really was. But you have faith or trust that it’s gone. There’s going to be good that comes of it. You just need time and perspective.

Chris Spanier: [00:20:58] Maybe you won’t even see it. You just have to have faith that it’s going to benefit somewhere, somebody down the line. But time and again in my life and I’ve seen this play out where it’s like, Gosh, I don’t like where I’m at right now. I don’t like what’s happening. I don’t whatever. But then if I if I go back to that place and that speaks to me where you find the recharge is if you have that belief that things will work out, then they tend to and I think to some degree becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because if you’re if you’re constantly looking down, literally looking down and you’re like, Oh, things are horrible and you’re trying to avoid your stones in your path, but then you miss all the beauty that’s going on around you, the incredible sunset that the kids playing in the playground, the whatever it means, the leaves and fall. And so I think it’s an intentional mindset that we benefit from If we can keep our eyes open and it’s true in life as it is in marketing or in business, that there’s some tough times. So we have to get through. And this isn’t Pollyanna ish to say it’s not real or this is going to go away. No, we’ve got to live through. We’ve got to work through it. But if you keep focused and you believe that that good will come of this, then I think you put yourself in a mental space where you’re looking for that good and you’re ready to find it or identify it when it comes up. So it does become sort of that self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stone Payton: [00:22:20] Yeah. So in just a moment before we wrap, I’m going to ask you, if you will, to leave us with a couple of pro tips, actionable items, stuff for us to be thinking about and reading on this path of trying to do a better job of sharing our story and getting out there and marketing properly. And we’ll get that to that in just a moment. I am not leaving this conversation without asking you about. I understand that you are a Scottish Lord.

Chris Spanier: [00:22:47] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I am. So I am not Scottish. The short version story about five six years ago it was my birthday and my wife had been out of town on a girls weekend the weekend before and my birthday comes along and she’s like, Hey, I got you something. And we had reached that age where it’s like, I don’t need to do anything. Just a happy birthday is fine. And she goes, No, And she’s she’s beaming. Stone So I open this thing up and it’s an envelope and I pull this out and it says, Congratulations, Chris Spanner, you are Scottish Lord. I’m like, What? So apparently she had gone to this Scottish festival. She isn’t Scottish either, but but she was fascinated by some of the culture, so she and her sister went to it. There was an author they really wanted to see who was making an in-person visit and was doing kind of a. One on ones with the art. It’s a really cool thing. Apparently there was this little like Marketplace area set up and the story behind it. There was a guy selling land in Scotland, and the back story is that this was a somewhere in the highlands of Scotland. This family goes to sell the family land and a developer was interested in it. And whatever the Scottish version of Walmart I think was potentially going to show up in these ancestral places. So this other group got wind of it. They managed to purchase the property and to make it harder, maybe difficult, impossible for the developers to get access to the land. They started carving up the property. So my wife bought 100 square feet of this.

Stone Payton: [00:24:24] Wow.

Chris Spanier: [00:24:25] And it comes with a cute little certificate and says, You are a Scottish Lord. There are caveats, of course, but the neat thing and I haven’t done this, but it came with a certificate that apparently you can take the BMV and get Lord Christopher Spaniel on your license. I’m not quite that egotistical. I’m not done that yet. And I can’t go to Scotland and show up, whatever it is, the House of Lords and demand a vote that doesn’t count. I’m not allowed to build on my land, though. I am allowed to go camp. So it’s just it’s a nice way to to to do something, to help preserve some some really just beautiful land in the highlands of Scotland. It will sadly not pass on to the next generation is really just good for my life. But of course then a year or so later I had to do the same for my wife. So we actually have 200 square feet of land in Scotland. As the Lord and Lady. So yeah, so that’s my story.

Stone Payton: [00:25:18] I am so glad that I am okay. So let’s do it. If you would. Let’s leave our listeners with a couple of pro tips. I mean, number one, Pro Tip gang, reach out and have a conversation with Chris or somebody on his team if you want to dive into some of these topics. But let’s leave him with some things to be thinking about, reading something they can kind of act on now in this pursuit.

Chris Spanier: [00:25:41] Absolutely. So let me let me give you just one thing. And again, this is me sharing knowledge that others have poured into me. So one of the things that I see that and I’m guilty of this, but one of the things that I see marketers sometimes we don’t do so well is we tell the wrong story. There’s a couple of folks that come to mind, like Steve Jobs, Apple Computer, right? He founded Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak and I think was 1984. He got shown the door because the greatest innovation they were introducing there, the apple. Lisa, if you’ve ever heard of that. Yeah, it was an amazing piece of technology, way overpriced. But what happened was they just they just went about it, marketing it poorly. Again, super short version of the story. The highlight of this, they took out a nine page ad in the New York Times full of geek speak, and nobody bought the computer. They sold, I think, like 10,000 units. Total product flop jobs was fired. And then he comes back, what, 96, 97 as the interim president of Apple. And in that time, we’ve done a lot of different things. Next computers. And he had helped get Pixar kind of started. It wasn’t Pixar yet but got that started. And I’ve never seen this written anywhere. But I have to believe that in dealing with the folks at Pixar, Jobs learned how to tell a story much better. So he goes from leading a company that does a nine page ad, very expensive ad in the New York Times, about all the specs and the cool things about the computer and how cool our computer is to the Think Different campaign, which you may remember from the nineties and even into the two purposes where you know, nine pages down to two words and was all about realizing the stories about you the customer and that likens to if you’re familiar with Donald Miller story brand he he talks about marketers telling the story anybody telling their story and he goes where we tend to fail our mistake make trip up is we forget who the hero of the story is.

Chris Spanier: [00:27:39] Too often it’s we think it’s us. And he actually uses the analogy of Star Wars. And if you think back to the very first one where the Luke Skywalker is out there and he’s out to defeat Darth Vader and the emperor, and he goes, You’re not Luke Skywalker, you’re certainly not Darth Vader, you’re Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re the guide. You’re the one that comes in with the answers, the solutions, the experience to help the hero, your customer, the person listening to your story, help them defeat whatever it is that they’re trying to defeat the evil empire in Darth Vader. And between those two examples, I’m like, What a powerful way for us to think as marketers, because it isn’t about us. It’s the consumer. It’s the customer who’s hearing your message, hearing your story. And what we need to do is a better job of helping them see how our product or service or whatever it is that we’re offering will help them. To be ultimately more successful. And I think if you do that, you’re ultimately going to tell a better story. You’re going to connect better with your customers, and ultimately everybody on the day is going to win. So that’s my big advice.

Stone Payton: [00:28:50] I will say, all right, let’s make sure that our listeners have an easy path to to tap into your work, have a conversation with you, maybe get their hands on this book, whatever you feel like is appropriate. Linkedin website, email. I just want to make it easy to connect with you and tap into your work.

Chris Spanier: [00:29:07] Man. I appreciate that. Stone Probably the easiest way you actually do this first name only to make it easy so no one has to figure it out. How to spell my last name. It’s email is just Chris Chris at and it’s carpe diem S.G. for consulting group or if you want to spell it all out, we’ve got that one as well. So Chris, at Carpe Diem, it’s consulting group, Carpe Diem Consulting Group, and then LinkedIn or whatever else is is easy. I’m one of the few Chris Spaniards out in the world, so hopefully that makes it pretty easy to find you, too.

Stone Payton: [00:29:42] Well, Chris, it has been an absolute delight having you on the program this afternoon. Thank you for investing the time and energy to to share your insight and your perspective. This has been a lot of fun. It’s been informative. It’s been inspiring. I really appreciate you. And you’re doing important work out there, man.

Chris Spanier: [00:30:01] I really appreciate it. So thanks for having me on the show. Thanks for asking questions that you made me think. So I really appreciate that. Anytime you can have a conversation like this, it’s just it’s wonderful. So thanks so much for the opportunity.

Stone Payton: [00:30:14] My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Chris Spinner with Carpe Diem Consulting Group. And everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Growth Coach Warren Coughlin

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High Velocity Radio
Growth Coach Warren Coughlin
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Warren-Coughlin-headshotWarren Coughlin helps principled entrepreneurs build a Business That Matters. That is one that delivers to you, the owner, attractive profits and a fulfilling lifestyle while also creating positive impacts on customers, team and the larger community. In other words, it is one that helps make the world – or just your corner of it – a better place.

This requires a combination of solid business skills and disciplines guided by deeply held values. Warren has been helping entrepreneurs do this since 2002. They have experienced everything from 8 figure exits, to 7 figure salaries, from rapid expansion to minimized operational work because of the development of great leaders and high performance values-driven cultures.

Warren is also a recovering lawyer, a serial entrepreneur,college professor, actor, theater director and Dad to a wonderful daughter who constantly challenges him to be a better person.

Connect with Warren on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Why Warren feels entrepreneurship is so important
  • Warren’s take on culture eats strategy.
  • How important culture is in the face of the challenging current labour market

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Jump Start Coaching. Mr. Warren Coughlin. Good morning, sir.

Warren Coughlin: [00:00:34] Good morning, Stone. How are.

Stone Payton: [00:00:35] You? I am doing well. Really been looking forward to this conversation. I’m thinking a great place to start would be if you could articulate for us mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks? Ma’am?

Warren Coughlin: [00:00:51] That’s a great question. A great place to start. I so I’m a business coach, but with a bit of a bit of a different twist, I guess. I like to work with what I call entrepreneurs to do what I call a business that matters. That’s one that wants to make for the entrepreneur a lot of money, but also makes a positive impact on the world or just some corner of it. And those folks are people I think deserve a little bit of extra help because they’re actually trying to do some good in the world.

Stone Payton: [00:01:16] Well, it sounds like it would be incredibly rewarding work. What’s the what do you enjoy the most about it?

Warren Coughlin: [00:01:23] I love entrepreneurs. I have been an entrepreneur and I’ve worked with entrepreneurs and they’re I say this cheekily, they’re kind of a freak. They’re freaks of nature. They’re a different breed. And because they take a lot of personal responsibility, they’ve actually taken the gamble or the risk to say, I’m going to go out there and carve a niche in the world for myself based on my own vision, my own effort, what I want to contribute to the world. That takes courage, it takes confidence, it takes energy, commitment, compassion, all kinds of great things. And so the challenge, though, is they do that with all those motivations, but most of them don’t have the grounding in business skills. And so they’re out there trying to do good, but without necessarily having all the tools they need to do it. And so that’s kind of why I do what I do. If I can help them accomplish that better than I’m having fun, I’m working with people who I think are fantastic people. And it just it’s ultimately very, very rewarding to see the outcomes. When somebody started from struggling to selling a business for eight figures a few years later, it’s super rewarding.

Stone Payton: [00:02:33] So how did you get into this line of work? Man? What’s the back story?

Warren Coughlin: [00:02:39] Oh, man, I got to I have got a weird long. The Reader’s Digest version of I was supposed to die at birth. I was given zero chance of survival. I was the second person in history to live through a weird congenital defect. And when I found out about that, I wanted to do something with this kind of unexpected gift. So I went through all kinds of iterations. I was a lawyer thinking I go to politics or pursue justice. I was a college professor, I was an actor, a theater director, and then it was really an entrepreneurship that I went, No, this is entrepreneurship matters. It’s entrepreneurs create, they create jobs, opportunities, wealth, innovation, solutions to problems. And there’s a great line in the play rent that says the opposite of war is not peace, it is creation. And so I really felt no entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are the ones that make the difference. And so that’s where I want to play. So it was this long, circuitous route, but when I landed on it, it was like, okay, this is where I want to play. And then after I exited one business, I was sort of looking for the next thing to do. And a family friend back in 2002 was doing this weird thing called business coaching that I’d never heard of. And I looked into it and thought, Well, that sounds pretty fantastic, and looked into it and jumped into it and never looked back.

Stone Payton: [00:03:50] So you write and speak about and consult toward I think you describe it as three foundations that kind of set businesses up for growth and success. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Warren Coughlin: [00:04:03] Yeah, for sure. There’s there are really three foundations, and I think the best metaphor for it is, is like sports. So you can’t win if you if you don’t know how to keep score, you can’t win if you don’t have a winning team and you can’t win if you don’t have a game plan. So those are the three foundations for success in any sort of competitive endeavor. And so in businesses, how do you how do you know how to keep score? You’ve got to know your numbers. The number of entrepreneurs who don’t know how to read their numbers, all they do is they look at their sales and they look at what’s in a bank account and they think that’s all they need to know. And they’re just missing so much valuable information on how to perform in their business better building a high performance team so that it means creating a culture and having a recruitment, performance management systems, all that kind of thing that builds what I call a high performance culture. No one likes to play on a team with a slacker, so you want to make sure that your team is populated with high performers who care about winning. And then the third is you need it. You need a game plan. And so I actually created a software tool because I’ve been doing this for 20 years.

Warren Coughlin: [00:05:03] I’ve coached people from start up to 150 million, and I can count on one hand the number of people who do strategic planning well. So I’ve actually created a software tool that automates the whole front end of the strategic planning process. So what I do is within the first three months of working with a client, we get each of those foundations in place, make sure you really understand your numbers. I’ve got some software tools that just produce KPIs, financials, projections, all that kind of stuff, so you always know what you’re doing. Then we go through a process to define your culture, build that high performance team. Then we go through the planning exercise and at the end of the three months you walk out with a fully baked 90 day action plan, a system for execution and a series of areas of focus for subsequent plans. So it’s an intense three months, but it really it’s sort of like if you ever see a condo being built, you know, there’s this hole in the ground for three, four or five, six months. You don’t know what’s going on and you walk by a week later and all of a sudden it’s three stories up and it’s because they took the time to build those foundations, right? And then everything gets built on that platform.

Stone Payton: [00:06:06] And you place a great deal of weight on numbers. And I kind of resemble some of your remarks because I’ll confess to you and the listeners, I was just looking at my own QuickBooks before we got on the line here. And, you know, I looked at sales volume for the month, sales volume for the quarter. I looked at the bank account and that was about it. And then I got ready for the for the interview. We won’t ask for the whole intense course here, but what are some of the other things that I that I should be looking at?

Warren Coughlin: [00:06:34] So rather than looking at I won’t tell you particular numbers, I’ll just get your books are a story. Your numbers actually tell a story and we know how to read them. When you know how to tell the story, you can actually understand what’s going on in the business more effectively. So the main thing is you don’t just look at one number or one period of time. You look at it as a trend. You look at your numbers over time. And so you need to see it charted out over a year so you can see what the trends are, because that’s you know, if you can look at, for instance, a number called a quick ratio or which is a measure of liquidity, you can look at the number once and say, oh, it looks good. But if you actually see it went from 5.1 to 4.1 to 3.1, you know, 3 to 1 is a decent number. But if it started at five, you’re heading in the wrong direction. Right. And so you want to intervene before it gets bad. Not once it’s bad. And so if you’re not if you’re not looking at it as a narrative, you know, as this is a book that’s trying to tell me something, then you’re just you’re not really gleaning the information that helps you make smart decisions.

Stone Payton: [00:07:37] I think you and I may have touched on this when we had a chance to chat by phone a few weeks ago. But you might remember in a in an earlier part of my career, I was in the change management world. And I if I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times that, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast and you’ve got a whole different take on that.

Warren Coughlin: [00:08:02] Yeah, Yeah, I do, because it’s I used to believe that. I used to preach that and now I’ve shifted. I actually think culture and strategy are bedfellows. They’re a perfect marriage because strategy defines what’s to be done and culture makes sure that it gets done. If you have a culture without strategy, you have a really motivated group of people who will wind up getting frustrated because they don’t know what they’re supposed to do or there’s no clear direction. And then like winners want to win, right? So if you get to really just think of it again in a sports analogy, if you have a really, really great player and you put them on a team that doesn’t have a strategy, they’re going to get pissed off. They’re going to get annoyed and frustrated. Right? But if you put that person in another team with a coach who kind of knows this is the direction that we’re going, this is the strategy that we’re going to deploy. Now they’re liberated to really use their skills in a way that’s going to motivate them. And so I think those two things, culture and strategy, when they’re when they’re aligned, man, you’re unstoppable.

Stone Payton: [00:09:00] Then I got to believe it has a tremendous impact and a real influence on your ability to to recruit and develop and retain as well. Yeah.

Warren Coughlin: [00:09:12] Oh, so again, you’re you’re a high performer. You’re being offered for jobs, you know, And that’s that’s the reality right now in the marketplace, right? Somebody who’s a high performer has lots of opportunity. So you look at a place now they’re going to pay me a bunch of money, but man, they’re a they’re a dog’s breakfast, they’re a mess. And then there’s this place over here that they’re paying a little less to start. But man, their path that they’ve laid out for me looks really interesting. And the culture they’ve got is aligned with my values, the people they have or other high performers. And I like to play with high performers, and there’s some way for me to benefit when that strategy pays off. Which of those two jobs are they going to take? You know, you put yourself in the position of the decision maker on the other end. Of course, they’re going to go for that place. That’s got a clear strategy, a high performing culture, opportunity for growth. And so if you if you build your business that way, you’re going to wind up attracting the high performers. And then the result of that is you’re going to attract better customers as well.

Stone Payton: [00:10:08] Yeah. And and keep them both.

Warren Coughlin: [00:10:11] Which is exactly which is how you build long term sustainable growth.

Stone Payton: [00:10:15] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you, a practice like yours? Do you do you have to have some sort of rigor and discipline to a sales and marketing process? Are you or are you at a point now in your career where it just sort of comes in over the transom?

Warren Coughlin: [00:10:31] So you’re asking that at an interesting time, because I actually am just starting some new marketing things, but more because I’m trying to build a platform to help some other coaches as well with with these three foundations and some other tools. But historically, yeah, it’s been, you know, I don’t want to pad myself on the back too much, but I’ve had some good fortune that I think in the coaching industry, the average client retention is I know the numbers have changed over the pandemic, but like 6 to 8 months or something like that. Mine, I’ve got an average client retention of between two and a half and three years, so I haven’t had to do a ton of marketing. It’s usually by referral or somebody hears me on a conversation like this and then they reach out. So that’s that’s been my model. But now I am actually trying to be more proactive in marketing because I’m wanting to feed other coaches.

Stone Payton: [00:11:16] So have you had the benefit of one or more mentors, especially in the early years when you made this pivot to this arena of having a mentor or two that have that have helped you kind of navigate this terrain?

Warren Coughlin: [00:11:32] Yes, very much. I was I was with a group of people and there was there were I retained mentors. I went and studied with people. Yeah. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have those folks. And I’ll tell you, just I remember when I first started, I did this sales profile that says I have a really high personality match with consultative sales, but I wasn’t selling like my revenue was not where I needed it to be and the organization I was part of, they actually at that point had a sales coach to go out with the coaches and he went out with me on a couple of sales calls and he actually reported back equals warns like the best sales guy you’ve got in the country. And I was so mad at that because it was just patently untrue. There were some things I was good at, but I wasn’t closing. So by definition his analysis was just wrong. And so I actually targeted a couple of people who did have high closing ratios, and I went and followed them. And then I realized it was just like two turns of the tumbler that I was missing. And as soon as I got those in place, my conversion rate started to skyrocket. So like, if it weren’t for those couple of people who let me go along with them, I would have never figured that out. And so, yeah, having someone because you can read like I read the books, I knew the theory of sales sales, right? But it was just contextually there was just this little thing that I was missing. And as soon as I went, Oh, that’s what they’re doing. Then all of a sudden everything fell into place.

Stone Payton: [00:12:56] So there are so many reasons to struggle or even fail on this entrepreneurial journey that so many of us are on. You know, there’s COVID, there’s inflation, there’s potential recession, there’s the challenge in the labor market. Do you think resiliency and working through all of that comes back to what you mentioned earlier in the conversation, the personal accountability, the self-awareness somehow coupled with these these disciplines of strategic planning? What’s the. I mean, is that the magic? Is that is that what helps us get through it all?

Warren Coughlin: [00:13:29] Yeah. I mean, there’s a common approach. I call it the brute force approach, right, that a lot of people use, which is I’m just going to jam my way through it. And I admire people who do that. And there are some people who succeed just through brute force. And so that resilience is one piece of it, but the discipline is also required. And I use the metaphor of poker. Some people think poker is a game of luck, Right. But it’s not. Poker is a game of skill, of which chance is an element. Business is the same way. So when poker, a rookie can beat a pro in a given hand, but a pro will always win the game. And why? Because they have the discipline. They have the skills, right? So you can’t just sit at the poker table and say, I’m going to be resilient and just keep trying when I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re going to continually get your butt kicked. Right. But if you say, I’m going to be resilient and I’m going to study and I’m going to watch those people who are successful and I’m going to try those strategies, then you will wind up being successful. Right. There’s a reason why when you look at the people who are most successful, if you look at their history, they’ve had failures, but they don’t just keep failing. Each one of those failures, they reflect and they learn from, right? So it isn’t just resilience that I’m just going to keep pushing against a brick wall doing the same thing. It’s resilience to say, I just need to figure out a different way of doing it. I’m going to have faith in my ability. I’m going to have faith in my dream and vision, but I’m not going to have faith that just the way I do things or the way I want to do things is the right way. Right? So it requires a certain humility that goes along with that resilience to be open to the learning.

Stone Payton: [00:15:03] So if and when you get a little worn down, the batteries run a little bit low, where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical place, but where do you go for, I don’t know, inspiration to recharge, get refreshed. Where do you what do you do personally?

Warren Coughlin: [00:15:20] I do a few things. So one actually is a physical place. I get on a mountain bike and I go in the woods and I go mountain biking for a couple of hours. That just lifts me like nothing else. I also do something called SDR, which is non sleep depressed, also called yoga. And it’s sort of a form of meditation but a little bit different. There’s a neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman, who really just turned a lot of people on to that. It’s a really, really useful technique. And then do some journaling. And then as well, I have I have some really, really good friends. And, you know, and we’re we’re guys who really support each other. So any time any one of us is a little bit down or struggling or something like that, we just we’re there for each other. So those three things like being in nature, getting physical exercise, doing some meditation and then having a network of supporters is really, I think is the magic combination to for me anyway, to always be ready to.

Stone Payton: [00:16:20] Go Well, and it’s so important for us to build those things in, right. No matter what the mechanism is, that’s it’s important to have that that support system and those those things where we can go and kind of get refreshed and ready for the next thing.

Warren Coughlin: [00:16:35] And yeah, and you know, as a side note, there’s a thing, right, that, you know, men don’t talk about their feelings and all that kind of stuff. So there’s just this part of the conversation is directed specifically at guys. What I found like with this, this group of buddies I’ve got, there’s actually a lot of vulnerability that we share and it’s it’s not anti masculine, you know, it’s it’s not like it’s very strengthening. To have people that you can be open with and we’re going to have your back and we’ll frankly kick you in the ass a little bit. Yeah. You know, like, that’s that’s such a powerful asset. And people who are like, well, I can’t talk about how I’m going to. What I’ve discovered is I think I, me and one other guy sort of let it is that guys actually want to be able to do that if you’re you’re a guy listening alone you know this to be true you want to be able to say what you’re thinking and feeling to somebody, and that means other guys around you do as well. And if you’re willing to take the risk and just share a couple of things, you’ll find that the guys around you who you think are tough, macho guys can have it all together, don’t. And they’re going to be open to having the conversation.

Stone Payton: [00:17:46] All right, let’s. Let’s leave our listeners with a couple of pro tips, if we could. Just a couple of things to be thinking about, reading about, maybe even something we could take a little bit of immediate action on. And my recommendation to you going is the number one pro tip, reach out to Warren, have a conversation with him. But but maybe there’s something you know, just after listening to this that we can start thinking about, reading about doing anything on that front would be great, man.

Warren Coughlin: [00:18:13] So first thing I would learn how to read your financial statements. I mean, as maybe boring or as intimidating as that may sound, even if you’re not good at math, you don’t have to be good at math to do it. Just look at your financials over a six month period and just look at the trends on your sales, on your cost of sales, on your gross profit and your cash flow. Just look at what’s happened to your cash on a month by month basis and see what one thing you could tweak. Like if you could drop your accounts receivable days by ten days, that’s going to boost your cash flow by a whole bunch. So that’s just one real pro tip. The second pro tip is actually think about the next 90 days or we’re in the time of this recording. We’re nearing the end of 2020 to say, Where do I want to be at the end of 2023? And what are the two top changes I can make? Don’t, don’t list 23. So what are the two top things that I could do in my business to make that change? And if you just do that, you just focus on two and then start knocking them off. You’ll be amazed at the momentum that starts. So those two things get get a handle on your numbers and then just start doing some planning with just a couple of key items.

Stone Payton: [00:19:30] All right. So what’s the best way to connect with you? Have a conversation with you. Someone on your team start to tap into your work. Whatever you feel like is appropriate, whether it’s LinkedIn, email, website. I just want to make sure that our folks can connect with you.

Warren Coughlin: [00:19:44] Yeah, sure. So my website, Warren Coughlin. So Warren Coughlin. There’s a way to book an appointment with me there. There’s also a description of what I do, and there’s actually a free resource there that can really help you with some of the things that we’ve just talked about.

Stone Payton: [00:20:01] Fantastic. Well, Warren, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this morning. Thanks for investing the time in In Energy to share your perspective and your insight with us. You do an important work, man, and we we sure appreciate you. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Warren Coughlin with Jumpstart Coaching and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

BRX Pro Tip: Try the Libby App

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Try the Libby App
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BRX Pro Tip: Try the Libby App

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you this afternoon. Lee, you’ve got an idea. You’re suggesting that people try the Libby app?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:12] Yeah. The Libby app is a great resource for folks who want to read more but maybe can’t afford to go to Amazon and buy a lot of books. Libby app is a partner with libraries around the world or the United States at least. And if you have a library card, you have access to all these digital resources through the Libby app, and that includes books, audiobooks, movies, all kinds of stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] So, if you go to libbyapp, L-I-B-B-Y-A-P-P, .com, you can see – you can get it and check it out, and all you need is a library card and you put in that number and that Libby allows you to access the books, the audiobooks, movies from your local library, all for free. You just put the library card in and you start reading and it just downloads right onto your phone or whatever device you’re using. It’s easy. It’s free.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:59] Even if you haven’t entered a library in years, it’s a great way to just go in and get the number and then you’ll have digitally all the books and audiobooks that you can imagine at your fingertips and you can get them. They travel with you on your phone wherever you want it. And you can get Libby app, like I said, at their website to download it, or you can go to your Apple or Google store and just look up Libby, L-I-B-B-Y, check it out and start reading more books and less news.

The Hardy Realty Show – Julie Smith with TRED

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Rome Floyd Chamber Small Business Spotlight – Lauren Weldon and Marc Hunsaker with Berry College, Sarah Husser with Cancer Navigators, and Allen Miller with German Ornamental Iron

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Rome Floyd Chamber Small Business Spotlight - Lauren Weldon and Marc Hunsaker with Berry College, Sarah Husser with Cancer Navigators, and Allen Miller with German Ornamental Iron
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BRX Pro Tip: Who Knows You?

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BRX Pro Tip: Who Knows You?
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BRX Pro Tip: Who Knows You?

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Here’s a great question to ask and I suspect you’re thinking is, let’s ask it of ourselves periodically, not just what, who knows you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Yeah. If you’ve been in business for any length of time, it becomes pretty apparent that it’s a lot less about what you know and more about who you know, and more importantly, who knows you when it comes to business success. And then, once you realize that, you have to say, okay, do I have a strategy that’s going to help me build relationships with the people who matter most to me? And if I don’t have a strategy around that, I better come up with one if I want to succeed at what I’m trying to do here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] And I think that’s really the secret sauce of Business RadioX. And I think it’s worth everybody’s time to take a minute to learn about Business RadioX. If you are looking for an elegant way to meet more of the people you think are important to you, Business RadioX has a proven, elegant, non-salesy way to help you meet the people who are most important to you. I promise you, you will not be spamming them. You will be serving them first before you ever ask anything of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:23] So, if you’re interested in building your network and having more people know about you and what makes you special and unique, then you owe it to yourself to invest some time to learn about Business RadioX. You can go to businessradiox.com. Learn about us there. Read about all the stories that we have shared, the 75,000 plus stories that we have shared through the network, and see how we help our clients meet the people who matter most to them.

David Fossas with Restore

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David Fossas with Restore
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David-Fossas-Restore-HeadshotDavid Fossas is a growth stage leader with a record of driving revenue and maturity of companies from startup to exit. Currently leading marketing for Restore Hyper Wellness.

Prior to Restore, David led global brand for WP Engine, a growth-stage platform for building websites and digital experiences, from 2016 – 2020. He helped define its corporate, product and brand strategy, repositioning the business, launching the brand, and helping it grow from 55,000 customers to 100,000+ customers globally in three years. WP Engine closed a $250 million investment from Silver Lake Partners in 2018.

From 2011 – 2016, David held various leadership positions at Real Chemistry—a high growth communications agency. He grew Verizon to be the agency’s largest client, created the Strategy & Planning practice and led the Media & Engagement Practice. During David’s tenure, he directly contributed over 25% of Real Chemistry’s new business and top-line growth, from $47 million to $95 million in revenue, leading up to Mountaingate Capital’s investment in 2016.

Prior to Real Chemistry, David served as Director of Emerging Platforms and Distribution at Big Fuel. He developed content marketing and influencer marketing practices for GM brands—Chevy, Cadillac, Buick and GMC—many of which are now common industry practice. Big Fuel was acquired by Publicis Groupe in 2011. Restore-logo

David has worked with over 35 brands, including General Motors, Verizon, HP, Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Visa, P&G, Clorox, CVS Caremark, Philips Health and Galderma.

Between 2004 – 2010, David held business development and corporate development roles at International Creative Management, Endeavor, and Intrepid Pictures.

David was named to DMNews.com’s 40 Under 40 marketing leaders in 2018. He serves on the advisory board for St. Edward’s University’s Master of Science in Digital Marketing and Analytics.

David is a contributing author for “Contemporary Issues in Digital Marketing: New Paradigms, Perspectives, and Practices” published by Libri Publishing Limited in 2018.

Connect with David on LinkedIn and follow Restore on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Victor Arechavaleta with Farm Stores

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Victor Arechavaleta with Farm Stores
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Victor-Arechavaleta-headshotv2Victor Arechavaleta is the Vice President of Business Development of Farm Stores Franchising, and has been in this position since March of 2012. His responsibilities include management of all new business channels, franchise development, territory development, and product and supplier relationships.

Prior to joining Farm Stores, Mr. Arechavaleta was the director of sales and marketing for Pagnifique USA from 2010 to 2012, and the director of marketing and product development for Quirch Foods from 2002 to 2010.

He pulls from an extensive background in marketing and product development, having spent over a decade in digital media, advertising, and film and television production.

He entered the food and beverage industry in 2000, and has since developed marketing and sales programs for national and international product lines in the supermarket retail channel.

Follow Farm Stores on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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