Rocket IT Business Podcast | Steven Tomlinson & Dave Hollister | Accountability at Every Level | Ep. 26

Rocket IT Business Podcast | Jeremie Kubicek | Finding Peace in Chaos | Ep. 28

https://youtu.be/JDmbRAP9_Z4 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 [https://www.giantworldwide.com/], Jeremie Kubicek [https://www.jeremiekubicek.com/]. 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 [https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Index-Five-Part-Framework-Fulfillment/dp/1119985927]: A Five-Part Framework to Conquer Chaos and Find Fulfillment. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR MORE ABOUT: * How the Peace Index helps sustain balance * How to calculate your Peace Index * How to keep peace with a daily regimen * Strategies to counter negativity * How to serve as a model of peace in a chaotic world JEREMIE KUBICEK CONTACT INFORMATION jeremiekubicek.com [https://www.jeremiekubicek.com/] | giantspeakers.com [https://www.giantspeakers.com/] RESOURCES MENTIONED The Peace Index: A Five-Part Framework to Conquer Chaos and Find Fulfillment [https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Index-Five-Part-Framework-Fulfillment/dp/1119985927] LIKE WHAT YOU HEARD? GIVE US SOME FEEDBACK! podcasts@rocketit.com [podcasts@rocketit.com] [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/matt-sm.jpg]Host: Matt Hyatt [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/DSC01290-e1586373809777.jpg]Guest: Jeremie Kubicek

Rocket IT Business Podcast | Marlon Allen | The Potential to Win | Ep. 27

https://youtu.be/OCiicuFI_Wg 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. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR MORE ABOUT: * How a career in baseball helped launch a business * Key differences between sole ownership and a partnership * The challenges of launching a sports apparel marketing company * The importance of community involvement * How coaching can be applied to every area of life * Concepts for staying relevant in the consumer marketplace CONTACT INFORMATION Marlon Allen | marlon@rampmarketingco.com [marlon@rampmarketingco.com] RESOURCES MENTIONED RAMP Marketing [https://www.rampmarketingco.com/] Rotary Club of Gwinnett County [https://www.gwinnettrotary.com/] Leadership Gwinnett [https://www.leadershipgwinnett.com/] Gwinnett County School Board Foundation [https://gcps-foundation.org/] Rowen Task Force [https://www.rowenlife.com/] Shoe Dog by Phil Knight [https://www.amazon.com/Shoe-Dog-Phil-Knight/dp/1508211809] Nike TRAINED Podcast [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/trained/id1414073313] [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/vcio-button-1024x349.png]https://rocketit.com/virtual-chief-information-officer-frequently-asked-questions/ * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/matt-sm.jpg]Host: Matt Hyatt * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Untitled-1.jpg]Guest: Marlon Allen SHOW TRANSCRIPT 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.

Rocket IT Business Podcast | Steven Tomlinson & Dave Hollister | Accountability at Every Level | Ep. 26

https://youtu.be/Ni5hPhAkMOo As organizations have scrambled to adapt to health guidelines for commercial workspaces, Steven Tomlinson and Dave Hollister of Level Seven Facilities Services [https://l7fs.com/] have served on the front lines of the pandemic. In episode 26 of the Rocket IT Business Podcast, audiences hear how Dave and Steven [https://l7fs.com/about-us/] have built their business to embrace challenges and opportunities as they appear. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR MORE ABOUT: * The vision behind Level Seven Facilities Services * The difference between working in an organization and building it * What to expect when transitioning to a leadership position * How to effectively divide responsibilities * A new type of management framework * Steps to develop an office culture of safety and responsibility * Incorporating community involvement as a key component of success CONTACT INFORMATION Level Seven Facilities Services | www.l7fs.com [https://l7fs.com/] RESOURCES MENTIONED Level Seven Facilities Services [http://www.l7fs.com] Philosophize This! podcast [https://www.philosophizethis.org/] IFMA (International Facility Management Association) [https://www.ifma.org/] BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association) [https://www.boma.org/] Vistage [https://www.vistage.com/] Fall of Giants by Ken Follett [https://ken-follett.com/] Tim Ferriss Podcast [https://tim.blog/podcast/] [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SECURITY-button-1024x349.png]https://rocketit.com/essential-it/ [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Phishing_test_popup_FOOTER-1024x256.png]https://rocketit.com/phishing * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Matt_Headshot.png]Host: Matt Hyatt * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/steven_headshot.jpg]Guest: Steven Tomlinson * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/dave_headshot.jpg]Guest: Dave Hollister SHOW TRANSCRIPT 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]

Rocket IT Business Podcast | Bill McDermott | Being Mindful of Mindset | Ep. 25

https://youtu.be/ZH8sj3GJpGs 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. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR MORE ABOUT: * How business owners can become better financial managers * How to make the transition into entrepreneurship * Why it’s important to delegate tasks as an entrepreneur * Maintaining a competitive mindset while operating a business * The importance of succession/exit planning * The long-term benefit of documenting all business processes * How to minimize entrepreneurial risks * Pitfalls to avoid when building a business * Barriers to break through for business growth CONTACT INFORMATION Bill McDermott | 770.597.3136 [tel: 770-597-3136] | Bill J McDermott on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/billjmcdermott/] RESOURCES MENTIONED The Profitability Coach [https://theprofitabilitycoach.net/] [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SECURITY-button-1024x349.png]https://rocketit.com/essential-it/ [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Phishing_test_popup_FOOTER-1024x256.png]https://rocketit.com/phishing * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/matt-sm.jpg]Host: Matt Hyatt * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Bill_Headshot.jpg]Guest: Bill McDermott SHOW TRANSCRIPT 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 podcasts@rocketit.com. 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.

Rocket IT Business Podcast | Kristina Blum & Jody Campbell | Maintaining Authenticity | Ep. 24

https://youtu.be/hbweAGxzG0s 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. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR MORE ABOUT: * How Kristina Blum became Gwinnett County’s first female Chief Magistrate Judge * The importance of personal relationships in business development * The core components of a good team * The impact of creativity in fundraising * How to remain on the lookout for good partners * The importance of being yourself * How to find joy in your career CONTACT INFORMATION Kristina Blum | kristina.blum@gwinnettcounty.com [kristina.blum@gwinnettcounty.com] Jody Campbell | jody@blumcampbell.com [jody@blumcampbell.com] | 770-712-0923 [tel: 770-712-0923] RESOURCES MENTIONED blumcampbell.com [https://www.blumcampbell.com/] [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SECURITY-button-1024x349.png]https://rocketit.com/essential-it/ [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Phishing_test_linkedin-1024x173.png]https://rocketit.com/phishing * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/matt-sm.jpg]Host: Matt Hyatt * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Kristina_headshot.jpg]Guest: Kristina Blum * [https://rocketit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Jody_headshot.jpg]Guest: Jody Campbell SHOW TRANSCRIPT 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