EntreLeadership - #140: Gary Kelly—How Southwest Airlines Cultivates Amazing Company Culture

Episode Date: March 28, 2016

Is it possible to keep your company’s culture intact and offer unbelievable customer service—even when your business is growing fast? Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines, believes you can. Even though Southwest employs 50,000 and serve 118 million passengers per year, he and his team prove it every day! The CEO joins us to talk about his company, its culture, why people matter most, hiring, and the legacy of leadership. Also on tap is Dave’s CMO, Jen Sievertsen. Jen stops by to discuss how you can grow your business by creating trusted content. Fasten your seatbelts. This is going to be a super special episode. entreleadership.com/podcast MarketingMap Tool Infusionsoft: Kick Procrastination to the Curb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. Broadcasting from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Also, thank you so much for the downloads. We're getting a lot of love out there, Entrepreneur Magazine. Put us in a list of the top six podcasts.

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Our featured conversation is with Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest Airlines. This is a big deal. He and several executives were in town recently for an event, and somehow Eric, the producer, got him over here. Unbelievable, got him in studio. You're going to love this conversation. And then we continue to take you behind the curtain as we sit down with our chief marketing officer, Jen Severson. Very talented lady, very smart, fantastic leader. We're going to talk marketing and leading people in a marketing environment.

You're going to love that. Well, Gary Kelly is our feature conversation. Quick background on Gary. You'll hear this in the conversation, but this is a guy who's been a Southwest for 30 years. Started in 1986 as a controller. Three years later, becomes the CFO, and now he's been the CEO of the last 12 years. This is a big-time company. You want to talk about handing over the torch well, Herb Kelleher, to Colleen Barrett,

to Gary Kelly. That's a big deal. Three CEOs, the company's not gone backwards, terrific culture, great status in the marketplace. They have 50,000 family members. I love, you'll pick up on that. I love that he calls them family members. Really cool stuff. So let's get right to this, Gary Kelly in the Entree Leadership Studio. Gary, it's fun to have you in studio. This is quite a treat. And before we dive into a lot of leadership topics and things I think people really excited to hear about, I'd love to get your personal history. You know, way back in the day, you joined Southwest. Take us to that moment when you first walk in the building. I mean, day one, Southwest, what was going on in your career at

that time? Why Southwest? And where did you start? Well, gosh, that's a trip down memory lane. So it was 30 years ago. Yeah. And Southwest Airlines was a much smaller company at that point. But I started out as the company's controller. So I headed up all the financial reporting and accounting and payroll and all of those back office kinds of activities. I'm a CPA originally, and Southwest I was 15 years old at that time and approached me for that position. And I thought, you know, I was in the software business at the time, and I thought, you know, this might be an interesting opportunity. And company's 15 years old and its growth opportunities are probably behind. But nonetheless, it's got a great reputation. I love flying there.

as a customer and it just seems like a great opportunity. Well, at that point in time, we had 63 airplanes. I interviewed when the headquarters was in a part of the old Love Field Terminal and there were literally construction sheets that were hanging that you had to kind of fight your way through and I thought, I think this is kind of a rinky ink operation, you know, and so I sat down and interviewed with the CFO at the time, and he eventually offered me the job. And we had 63 airplanes, like I was saying, and now we have over 700. So boy, did I underestimate, you know, the potential of this great company. But it was a very small company, had a small company feel. And, you know, for somebody who's been here this long, it's, to me, it still has that feel.

Sure. It still has that family feel. And it's just a, it's just been a great ride. Do you remember, is there something that sticks out to you, top of mind, when you're having that interview process, they make the offer and you're in your consideration process. What stuck out to you is this quality or this feel that I've got? You mentioned the family field. Did you feel that at the moment in that early time of the interview process? Was there something else that you said, I think this is a special company? That was more the reputation. Yeah.

That it was hard to gain that feel instantly. and walking into your facilities here, by the way, you just instantly feel your hospitality. And I'm so admiring of that. And it's not that I didn't feel that then. But it was just more of a personal rapport that I had with a fellow that hired me. His name was John Denison. And I was impressed by the lack of bureaucracy that the company had, you know, in interviewing me and hiring me. So it was a fairly quick and efficient process, and I was grateful for that.

But I think it was as I experienced it myself, and I had already been out in the work world about nine years and felt like I was a veteran at that point. And I'd heard all the company rhetoric about, well, we put our people first and blah, blah, blah. But in pretty short order, Southwest proved to me that it was indeed a family, and it did indeed put people first. And I just fell in love. And that really was an epiphany for me. This company really does live up to its billing. And I think the vast majority of people that come into Southwest Airlines would tell you that. Would you describe yourself as a personality that you're not surprised that you've been there 30 years?

Or is that something that you look back on a guy? That's not something I would have ever thought that I would do is be somewhere 30 years. Well, you know, 30 years is a long time. And I was 31 then. I'm 61 now. We'll be in a month. This will be my 40th year of marriage. and I've got long-term friends.

And so I guess in that sense, loyalty is very important to me. So I guess in that sense, I'm not shocked that I have been there that long. But at the same time, had it not been my kind of place, my kind of company, doing the kind of things that we feel are good for our customers, taking great care of our people, I'm sure I wouldn't have stayed. But it's just been a wonderful 30-year love affair, quite frankly. And the reason I asked that is because clearly Southwest had an environment where Gary Kelly could rise all the way up to become CEO. At what point in your journey do you realize I've got a shot at continuing to move up the ladder? Well, I was a controller for just three years. And then one of our executives left the company and there was a little bit of a shuffle.

And all of a sudden I ended up at a very young age as the chief financial officer, you know, Fortune 500 company. and had a lot to learn, but it was a wonderful learning experience and very nurturing environment and obviously has been very rewarding. So when you're in that kind of a role, dealing with investors, dealing with the board of directors, dealing with bondholders, and truly in a communications position with the employees of the company, it's just a wonderful training ground. I have discovered in hindsight, really, for the CEO role. Herb Keller, Herb was a founder, was a 20-year chief executive officer for Southwest Airlines,

and, you know, as he got older, there was a lot of talk about who his successor would be, and that was never clear. And I wasn't his successor when he first retired in 2001. That wasn't important to me. What was important to me was to continue to contribute at Southwest, and I felt like I was in a position where I could do that. So it was nothing that I ever really coveted. But after Herb's first successor decided that that wasn't for him, I really felt like it was my duty to step up and do that.

And I'm so glad I did because it's turned out to be, you know, for the last 12 years, without a doubt, the best job I've ever had in my life. I think it's the best job on the planet. I've had the opportunity and privileged to interview Jim Collins multiple times. And he said something recently on this podcast that our listeners will remember, and I wanted to set them up to hear what you're about to share with them. He said that, you know, no great business ever just said, well, we want to be a great business. They were a small business trying to solve a problem.

And then, you know, over time through great strategies and great leadership, they've become a great company. And you mentioned Herb Keller, who, to a lot of business geeks and leadership geeks, Herb's a legend. And, you know, we have a lot of small business people listening in here, Gary. You know, leaders who are hustling, they got a dream, they're solving problems. culture, culture, culture is huge. And so I want you to talk a little bit about those early days you came on board and then you've been there now 30 years. Herb's role in setting the pace on culture that now you have clearly taken that baton. How important is it to Southwest?

And talk about how Herb set that in place so that you could walk into that. I think it's everything. It's more than just critical. it is literally everything for a company. It's hard for me to know exactly what his role was in the first, call it seven years of Southwest Airlines, because he wasn't the chief executive. It is easy for me to see the impact he had after he was,

and it's a profound impact. Now, again, to the original CEO's credit, the company was already very good, very popular, had a culture, but it was one that Herb just took to the next level. He's very passionate about the culture, as is our President Emeritus Colleen Barrett, so they were a fabulous team, never to be matched, I think, in the corporate world ever. And culture is a big, big, big word. So it's not just one thing.

That's right. It's everything. and to me it translates into what do you stand for, what are your principles, what are you passionate about, how do you treat each other, and then only time will tell whether you really live up to all those words that you plaster on the wall. And that's the beauty for somebody like me of being able to stay here for 30 years. As I can see that. I can run the videotape, and I remember what we did after 9-11. I remember what we did in the Great Recession. I remember what we did when the big guys were really ganging up on Southwest Airlines back in the 1990s.

And we took great care of our people. We followed through with the commitments to our communities. We've honored our commitment and brand promise to keep our fares low, not charge for bags, as an example. By the way, as a frequent Southwest Flyer, I appreciate that. It's rare you get to thank the CEO on that. I think I speak for all our listeners. Thank you for that. But all of those, I just give a couple of those examples.

I appreciate that you love us for that, but it is part of what our culture is about. And I think a lot of people overlook that and maybe discount that. I think it's good business too. But the reason that we made a lot of our choices was based on principle. You know, when you mentioned Jim Collins, I quote him all the time. He says, for a business to be successful, they need to be really good at what they do and the best in the world, ideally. It needs to make money, but they also need to really love what they do. And that's Southwest Airlines right there. And so it's great to have all these principles, but I will admit that it has to make money, too. And fortunately, that's what we've got in Southwest.

Early in our conversation, you mentioned that in your role as comptroller and CFO, you had to learn how to communicate key people in the business. And I know you're passionate about communication. So I think a big part of culture and having a vibrant culture that sustains is communication. And I think we think of Southwest. And I want to make sure our listeners don't get, you know, oh, well, it's a big, giant company. But there's so much that's transferable and I'm flabbergasted that you've got this gigantic company, values that were laid out by Herb and you've taken the mantle there. And yet it's transferable when I hop on a plane next week. You know, I'm going to feel that, see it, hear it, you know, on the plane with people that are, you know, all over the place and they're rarely in the corporate headquarters.

Give our listeners some practical steps on how do they communicate? so that culture is saturated, even if it's a company of 21 or 21,000. What's the key to making sure that that's communicated well so that it sticks? Well, it has to be a really high priority, and it is another very big word like culture. Communication is a huge word. And everybody says, well, you need to communicate. Well, first of all, you have to decide, well, what are we going to say? And then the other part of communication is we need to also make time where we listen.

And listening doesn't mean that you simply do what somebody says, but that you're thoughtful about it. And if you don't agree, that you provide some logic for that, you know. So we really work hard on communicating and certainly what we stand for. And I agree with what you said, that the foundation of the culture was laid down many, many decades ago. But what I have found as CEO is that I've got to. own that. And sometimes the words maybe can get evolved a bit. And so we have attempted to update some of those words where it works more for me. But what has been really fun and somewhat transformational for me as CEOs, I do feel like I own all of this. And I think it's okay to

tweak some of those things. And especially if you're doing it in a way where you're trying to not change the essence of that foundation. But I think communication is absolutely critical. And first of all, you need to make sure that everybody knows what you stand for. They need to understand where we're trying to go. And then you just need to do your best to listen and understand what those barriers are and then work together to break those down. I've always felt that the greatest definition or legacy of leadership is how the organization thrives or survives after that leader's gone. And you know this.

I mean, we see examples all the time where a powerful, great leader does some great things. And then when they're gone and they're awake, it's like a pile of ashes. If you look at Herb Keller to Colleen Barrett to you, the proof's in the pudding. It's worked. We have a lot of people that are listening in here who've got to start thinking, if I want my company to live on, what am I going to have to do to make sure that I transition leadership well? So from your unique perspective, what has worked? Because you have to be thinking about it now as well.

So what has worked and what could you encourage leaders to do right on this idea of preparing leadership so that when your season is done, it's passed off well? What did Herb and Colleen do well? Well, gosh, Herb and Colleen did so many things well. It's hard to think of what they did not do well. Right. But I think the main thing about Southwest is that they proved that you can have a family as a company, and you can love each other within the company as if your family and still have a great business. And it's just demonstrating that you really do care about people, not for the purpose, not as a marketing purpose,

but that you genuinely care about people, about the employees, about the customers. And then if you can do those two things and take care of those two groups, the shareholders are well taken care of. And it's just hard to think about that in reverse. Employees know it if they're not first. But they're the ones that have to do the work. They're the ones, ultimately, they're going to serve the customers. So I've got to take care of them first. And I think that that was probably the best thing that Herb and Colleen have left with Southwest

Airlines. But, you know, in terms of succession planning, you know, after 30 years, there are a lot of family members that I work with Southwest Airlines that I've known for a long, long time. And then we have this blessing of also having new talent coming in and infusing us with new energy. And I work with a bunch of very talented people, and we just have, the company is large enough where we have the luxury of being able to allow people to develop and have different experiences. In smaller companies that I've worked in, that is harder. It is much harder to do that. But in a company like Southwest Airlines, shame on us if we're not doing a good job of preparing that next line of leaderships to assume more responsibility. You know, I've flown all the airlines. I'm not just saying this because

you're sitting across from me, but, you know, one of the things that sticks out is that the customer services is stellar. I'm just curious, because again, this is transferable to you folks that run in a company of 50 people. How do you as the CEO, how does it not drive you nuts when you know that there are things that go wrong and making sure you feel good that, hey, we're taking care of our customers? Because you clearly are because they keep coming back. How do you balance that tension between, hey, we've got some systems, we've got some values, But that's a big deal when people choose to buy your ticket as opposed to another airline. It is a big deal.

And we take that very seriously. We don't take our communities for granted. We don't take our customers for granted. And I feel like we have to work hard every day to earn their business. But you really put your finger on it. So we have 50,000 family members at Southwest Airlines. And they are phenomenal. And they do a great job.

But we're human. Yeah. You know, and some days we let our guard down a little bit. And, of course, our business is one where our customers are experiencing us making the product while we're doing it. That's right. So it's a pretty intimate experience. So we do get complaints, and we do make mistakes. And the number one complaint that we get, by the way, is that our employee was rude, which I think shocks a lot of people.

Now, we don't get many complaints. Right. I will quickly add. But if you think about Southwest, the reputation that we have and the reason that people come to us, people have very high expectations. And we just have to work hard to live up to those every single day. So we take those complaints seriously and we don't punish people, but we just work on that. Then that's why I commented to you earlier. You just come into your company here and you feel the hospitality. And that's exactly what we want to try to accomplish at Southwest Airlines every day. That is what we're passionate about. And we have to work at it.

We have 118 million customers that we serve every single year. Wow. And so every once in a while, you know, things won't go perfect. But you're right. The vast majority of our customers are huge fans of Southwest Airlines just write to us with commendations on what a great flight experience they have. And so by far, we're winning on that front. But it's a never-ending pursuit to try to make sure we take care of every single customer. I love that, you know, you've put your stamp on it now. So you've given this great legacy and you've done an incredible job. But you've put your Gary Kelly stamp on this. I'm curious, what's your process for looking at systems? Because when you have served that many people, that many customers. It's mind-boggling. My mind can't wrap around that

number, and it can get away from you if you don't have great systems, I'm guessing. And so, curious, what do you do corporately to make sure you're constantly innovating, tweaking, got your finger on the pulse, if you will, to serving that customer so well? Well, I feel like we've been very fortunate at Southwest that we've made some good choices over the years. And I always felt like one of Herb's greatest strengths as a leader was the ability to say, No. That is not for Southwest. No, we're not going to fly 747s. We're going to fly 737s. No, we're not going to assign seats. We're going to have open seating and on and on and on. The world has changed a lot in the last 15 years. And we've had to evolve Southwest. And I know Herb would agree with me that we have faced more choices or more changes in the last 15 years than we did in the previous 30. And I think that, that's the main thing in thinking about support systems and policies and procedures is they all need to come together in a clear, coherent form or fashion. First of all, the company needs to be

confident that it can deliver what it sets out to do. And then the thing that over 30 years, again, that comes home to me is some of these things take a long time. I've been CEO now for 12 years. I feel like I've been working on some of these things, you know, for a dozen years, and we're not done yet. So I do think that there's an interesting tension between being patient and being impatient. So you need to have a vision. If you're fortunate, you'll pick the right choices and expend the resources and the time on the right things. Every once in a while, you just have to say, you know what, this was the wrong path and we're going to have to change. You know, knock on wood, I think we've been pretty lucky there.

and then you have to execute. I don't think there's any real magic to it. But the main thing that I try to tell our folks in the meantime is, I know you don't have every single tool or system or technology that you want, but we're going to sell what we have right now and we're going to be proud of it. And I think our folks have done a tremendous job at that. You look at our results in particular. We don't have a lot of technologies that a lot of our larger competitors

do and we outperform them. Right. So I just don't like for those things to be excuses. But at the same time, when you know that you have a need, you just need to commit your mind and your resources to that and need to get her done. And sometimes it just takes a while. But our folks have done a great job of managing through a lot of change at Southwest and especially over the last five years.

I love what you just said there, that tension between patience and impatience. And then what you said there at the end, I want to stay here because you mentioned your competitors, you know, or some of them have some fancy hot technologies. I'm aware of that. There's no question about that. Yet you're outperforming them. So I'd love for you to speak to the balance or tension between an eye on your competitors, because you got to win, you want to win. You said that clearly. And staying in your lane, if you will. So we're Southwest. We're not all these other people, and we're winning. But it's important to keep an eye on the competition. I'm just curious in your leadership time. What do you say the balance is or is there a percentage split of

watching the competition but not letting that influence and become a distraction? Well, and you mentioned innovation earlier. We didn't touch on that. I mean you talk about that now. I go back to you need to be really good at what you set out to do. It needs to make money. You need to be passionate about it. And within that kind of a construct, I think distinctiveness is really important. It's hard to quote the best if you were just part of the crowd. And so I feel like we've been very fortunate Southwest to pick some attributes that in many customers' minds really set us apart. Mostly it's our people. Mostly it's the friendliness, the hospitality, the caring, and you couple that great feel of service with low fares. And man, you've got something. Now we offer more seats

every day in the United States to destinations than anybody else. Oh, wow. I mean, there's just a powerhouse combination. So you have to work with what cards you're dealt, so to speak. And, of course, we've been building this for a long time. But you just have to be aware that if a competitor comes out with, if you're a gasoline company and you can now pay for your gasoline at the pump, well, you better get on board with that because that's what customer

want. So I think that there are elements of keeping up with competitors that are important to customers, but there's other points where you say, nope, we're not going to take that road. We're going to take a different road, and we're going to be proud of that. My favorite example of all time, Ken, is there was a feeling within Southwest in 2004 when I first became CEO that we had to start assigning seats, that that's what customers wanted. And we were pounding the table on that. and we didn't have the technology in place to be able to execute that. It was going to be a couple years. It was going to be tens of millions of dollars.

And, you know, it just wasn't certain in my mind that, in other executives' minds, for that matter, that that was the right choice. So what do we do? We talk to our customers. Two to one, our customers told us, no, no, don't do that. We like your open seating. We don't like your boarding process. So we changed the boarding process. And now, based on the customer feedback that we have, I think our customers prefer Southwest boarding over any other airline.

It's just a, what's the bottom line on that? You have to know your customer. Yes, that's it. Now, I marvel at Apple and Steve Jobs in particular, which is a visionary. And I will admit that what we don't do, I just don't feel it's appropriate for me to say to my customer, this is what you want. I would much rather talk to the customer and have them tell us what they want. And then we'll figure out if it's something that we're capable of delivering. It's so simple, Gary, but it's really profound.

There is a temptation to go with the culture and go with the, you know, assign seating and spend tens of millions of dollars, take two years to do it, or just ask the customer. And when you find out the customer, you know, validates what you're feeling, then it's huge. I mean, it's simple but profound. I want to ask you to talk about people because we've just been talking about that. I love that you call your team. We call them team members around here. You call them family members. I absolutely love that.

You mentioned in your last answer that really a differentiator is the people. So I think a lot of our listeners are going, Ken, asking you about the hiring process at Southwest, I think that's what we'd love to hear. What is intentional? You know, what are you looking for? Because you clearly are getting great people. And that's a big deal because they're brand ambassador. So what's unique about the hiring process? Well, you know, we try not to be bureaucratic at Southwest Airlines, but at the same time, we fly airplanes, you know, and that's got to be rigorous.

It's got to be disciplined. It's got to be safe. And so I've always marveled at Southwest, you know, before I joined and after how we have this really zany marketing persona. And yet we have this very disciplined approach to running the airline. line, so to speak. And the same applies now to hiring people. It is very disciplined, is very structured, and we're looking for people who have a great attitude, and it's just really that simple. I don't know that we have any patented techniques on how to identify that, but we do try to put all of our candidates in front of several Southwest team members,

and certainly our people department professionals who are very good at identifying people and, you know, just a lot of new employees may also deselect. You know, they may find that, you know what, this is just not for me. Maybe a less familial word is just team, as you said. Man, running an airline is the ultimate team sport. No question. 50,000 people, 4,000 daily departures, 700 airplanes. And we need to hire people who want to be a part of the team, who enjoy,

working with other people who enjoy communicating, who are willing to listen and, you know, working really hard to break down barriers. Diversity is extraordinarily important. Our customers are very diverse. We want our company to reflect our customers, and that's just another way of saying we need to work very hard to break down barriers and work together as a team. So, you know, you could be the greatest CPA. You could be the greatest. CPA, you could be the greatest pilot, you could be the greatest computer programmer, but if you don't have a great attitude and enjoy working with people and care about others, you're just not for us.

I found, Gary, that high performers share one thing in common, if nothing else. Share a lot. But one thing I know that you're in common is they're always growing. On some level, they're just always growing. Here you are, top of your industry. You've had a phenomenal career. Would you share with us maybe one thing? What do you do to keep growing as a leader or as a person?

Is there something you share with us that you do? Well, I do agree with you. I think people cannot stand still. You're either growing or you're shrinking, quite frankly, and companies are the same way. So I think we're all a reflection of that. But I have a wonderful family. I have a wonderful faith and church that we're members of

and have been, again, 30 years. again, 30 years, a very long time. And I have, honestly, you know, the opportunity to work at the best company in the world. So there's, within all of those areas, we just continue to all try to grow. I tell you what is really fun for me now at this stage of my life, we have two daughters, and now we have four granddaughters. And our youngest just turned two last week. So you talk about a growing opportunity, but it's just one of life's pure joys. And any grandparent out there listening knows exactly what I'm talking about. But I love sports.

I love music. We're lifelong Texans and have a family ranch that is always offering some opportunity to learn something new and to grow. And it's not real fancy and not real big, but nonetheless, just every part of life. Do you get out on the ranch and clear stuff to clear your head? Do you do that? Absolutely. That was one of Reagan's favorite things to do is to just clear brush.

Absolutely. I have a half a dozen chainsaws. I have a tractor with a number of different implements. And in Texas, we have this tree called a mesquite, which I'm sure you're familiar with. And I've declared war on mesquites. So if you don't keep up with them, they're going to overtake it. They sure do. All right, some fun stuff here because I know you're a history lover.

Your teen told me you love history. I love history as well. I love to put people on the spot with this question. If you could only have lunch with one person from history, no longer alive, you get one. You get one person to pick, you get to have lunch with him. Who do you pick? Abraham Lincoln. Love it.

Why? Well, you talk about a true hero. He was extraordinarily intelligent, very, very devoted to his country and taking care of his country, men and women, obviously self-taught, and he had many, many defeats in his life, and he never gave up. you talk about having the right person at the right place at the right time for our country but just the eloquence of his communication is just something that is just magical whether it's the second inaugural or the gettysburg address you know how can someone capture that essence with three minutes worth of dialogue so she was extraordinary extraordinary person. So yeah, I would welcome the opportunity to talk with him.

All right. Final question. We've got to let you go. But I've had the privilege to interview Dan of Chick-fil-A, multiple times, know Dan. And if you're around Dan and he meets people for the first time or multiple times, it's not unlikely for Dan to pull out a Chick-fil-A sandwich coupon and hand it to people. So I think people want to know right now. Do you walk around with drink coupons in your pocket? Well, I do have some drink coupons. I think what I primarily have, Because if someone, I don't want you to leave the studio without a kid, of course. Could you imagine? You know what?

I can write you a little chit on one of my business cards. How about that? I'd never turn it in. I would just show every flight attendant. Hey, listen, Gary wrote it. I'm not going to turn it in. I'm just going to keep it. But I wanted you to know.

Anything for you, pal. No, I'm kidding. It's so fun to have you with us. It's a great organization. I've got to say this. Ramsey Solutions, we fly exclusively Southwest Airlines. Well, thank you very much for your business. So it's great fun.

Well, it's great to be with you. Yeah, and I love your leadership. Thanks for spending, you know, you've got a lot going on. And to come in and talk with our audience of entree leaders, people who are entrepreneurs and leaders and have a heart to really change the world through small business. We're grateful. And you help them get their business done. So thanks for the quality, what you do.

Thanks for who you are as a leader and for spending time with us. Well, thank you for what you do. You are a real pro. And it's been a real delight to be with you, Ken. I really enjoyed that. And by the way, I never did get the drink coupon. We had fun with that. He reached inside of his suit pocket there, the lapel.

I'm painting the picture for the listeners who don't get to see this. I caught him off guard with that, and it was really fun. Of course, he didn't see that coming, and I really didn't want the drink coupons. If you fly with me, I'm not a drinker. So anyway, but he was reaching inside of his lapel. Like, he might have pulled out a business card and written a note. And in the moment of the conversation there, we had fun with it, and I wrapped it. We talked for a few minutes, walked across the parking lot, and said goodbye.

And Eric, I didn't grab his card. And I think that would have been kind of cool to have the CEO's business card, a little note to me. And something I would never turn in, but maybe use it in key moments, maybe to get an extra bag of peanuts. But that was great fun. He's such a prince of a guy, by the way. Level 5 leader, Gary Kelly. If you want to follow Gary on Twitter, Gary underscore Kelly is where you can find him. And if you go to the show notes for this episode at entreleadership.com slash podcast,

Southwest gave us the link to his LinkedIn page. You could find it on your own, but it's there for you. They would love for you to connect with him there. They've got some longer form thoughts on leadership there on his page. So if you'd like to follow up with him, that is an option. Well, folks, we're going to switch gears and now go behind the curtain here at Ramsey Solutions. This is something that we want to be intentional to do to let you hear from and learn from the leaders here at Ramsey Solutions, how we do what we do. Of course, you know about the book, Entree Leadership.

The podcast continues every week to try to distill out that information, those principles that have allowed this place to make a major impact. How do we run the place? Why do we do what we do? All these things we try to give to you as much as we can. And Jen Sievertson is one of the sharpest leaders I've ever met. This was kind of like, you know, all right, Jen, please, we'd love to have you in here. And, of course, she was gracious to do so.

She doesn't love to be on the microphone. She really is a level five leader as well. But this is going to be fun. And we're going to focus on two different topics, if you will, marketing, because that's our theme this month. But then how do you lead? How do you hire the right people to carry out marketing? So here's my conversation with Ramsey Solutions chief marketing officer, Jen Sievertson. Well, Jen, it's fun to have you in here. And before we dive into the way we do things from a marketing standpoint, I'd love for you to give our audience your background. So before you made the decision to come here and join Ramsey Solutions, what were you doing?

I was with Lazy Boy at the corporate headquarters in Monroe, Michigan. Did you go to school for marketing? For graduate school. I have an MBA in marketing and strategy. Yes, that's very fun. And by the way, incidentally, the Lazy Boy connection, very fun. My mom's been a manager for a long time, store in Virginia. So we have several items, Stacey and I do, lazy boy stuff. So you're at Lazy Boy, which is a pretty good-sized corporation. And I'd like to know what was going on when this opportunity presented itself because you didn't come in as our, CMO. You eventually got to that role, but you came in at what role? What were you thinking? Why this place? I took a little time off between my time at Lazy Boy and joining here at Ramsey Solutions.

And when I first joined here, it was the executive director of digital marketing, which was most of our marketing team at the time. It was much, much smaller. And it was just a great fit for what we are looking for with life balance, family balance at the time, and what the role required. And I've always loved marketing. And so having a little time off, really even more energize me, if you will, to get back into marketing. So the marketing strategy, we're going to get into that. But I think it's fun for our audience to hear about how you, as our chief marketer, Dave, our leadership team, look at our organization. We really are a content company. It's kind of all started around the Dave Ramsey show and that book that he sold financial

piece out of his trunk. But as we look at our company today, we are a content company and we have an internal strategy. I want you to describe that. Yes. Well, if you look back over the history of the company, Dave has always given people trusted advice, trusted content, and shown them, inspired them, how they could take that information, apply it to their lives, change their lives for the better.

And so a few years ago, this is probably going back three or four years, at least, we had our operating board, kind of our core senior leadership. We were at an off-site. We were working through some strategic things for the company and where we were going, and we determined that the center of our flywheel, if you read Jim Collins, good to great, he talks about you have to identify the thing you can be best at the world at. And the center of our flywheel, we determined to be trusted content. That that was what we would deliver.

And that's, you know, what we would provide to the marketplace. And that's really what we had been providing for years. And that that was how we were going to, you know, diversify into some other areas outside of just personal finance and really move the company. So you're sitting there as a leadership team. And you kind of decide, okay, this. So it's not anything new we were doing. But what you determined was, okay. This is how we communicate around this internally, and we were really all clear on this issue.

Yes. So how does that flush out? After that meeting, I'm curious, how did that change the marketing the way you did things? You know what it did is it really provided great alignment for the entire team, so that when we're talking through new initiatives or a new book idea or a new podcast or whatever it was, that we know that what we have to deliver is trying. trusted content. And there were some other nuances to that trusted content. We always talk about it being instructional. That's kind of obvious. Instructional needs to be inspirational. And then it needs to also have practical applications. So we have to give people steps to follow. We can't just inspire them. We can't just give them information. We actually have to walk them down a path so that

they can take all that information, apply it to their lives, and then make life change as a result. I want to ask you about the idea of all the different places that people are at now. And you look at a tribe as large as ours. You have this big demographic age, you know, economic levels. What is our company's approach to how we market to the different places where people are at? How do we stay, making sure we're aware, number one. And then how do we communicate to different people in different places? Yes.

Well, we're a long way from having three major TV networks, right? Like now people consume information and consume media in lots and lots of different ways. And what we are always looking to do is to see where our tribe is and make sure we go to where they are and not just expect them to come and consume our information the way that we want to deliver it. So, for instance, Dave has had a radio show for almost 25 years now. It's been very successful. It's done very, very well. Third largest talk radio show in America.

And that's awesome. And that really helps a lot of people. But the podcast of that same radio show, the growth of that is just skyrocketing. It's just skyrocketing, right? Because so many more people are listening to podcasts today than they were 10 years ago. And so we always are looking at what the trends are, where people are going, and seeing how we can best take the information that we have and package it up for those different outlets. So be it YouTube or Pinterest or whatever the outlet is, making sure that we're there and we're meeting consumers and our audience where they are, not necessarily what our preferred method is. it's becoming very, very diverse, and we want to make sure that we're continuing to grow as a market adjust.

We have this unique opportunity to talk to our chief marketing officer, and I know you folks are leadership junkies, and I think that leading creatives is its own kind of, I mean, leadership principles are leadership principles. They're very transferable. However, there are some nuances, and I want to spend some time talking about that. As chief marketing officer, you lead a lot of creatives. Let's just give people a snapshot. How many people in creative roles? So maybe this is a, this is a, Yes, not administratively, but creative people are reporting to you. Well, luckily, they don't all report to me. That's fair. But within the organization, we probably have 80 or so on our creative team.

We really have all of our creative resources are in-house, be that our writers or, you know, we have a full video production team, you know, lots and lots of web and interactive designers as well as traditional graphic designers. and we have an amazing team. And one of the pillars, and you'll find this throughout our entire company, is that we are just so collaborative in nature. We believe great ideas come from everywhere, and we do our best to make sure that we are always fostering that environment of great ideas. But I do think that there's something different to what you're saying about leading

creatives and how we all work with creatives, because what they are putting forth when they're putting forth their best design is they're putting forth a piece of themselves. And it's very personal. Yes. And so a few things really have to be in place. One, there has to be trust. Like that creative designer or that person in a creative role has to trust that when they're getting feedback from people around them, whoever that might be, that that feedback is not to tear their work down in any way because, oftentimes there's feedback and you're asking for changes or adjustments or you feel like it's not

quite hitting the mark in a certain way, but know that there's only going to be feedback to make it better and make it more effective and that we're all working towards the same goal and that is to serve our audience the best way that we can, serve our consumers and the folks that interact with us. And with that level of trust, it enables you to give really candid features. back always kindly. I mean, we're never unkind here. So, you know, there's that, of course, as a basis as well. But the other thing that we do is we praise people really well because, gosh, they're deserving a praise. We have some of the most phenomenal creatives on our team that I've ever worked with in my career. And I'm so honored to work with such a level of talent. And they know

that we love their work and that they're so appreciated. And because they know, know that they have the trust and they also trust our modos for giving feedback that when we have to give feedback and say oh guys I hate to say this but this didn't hit the mark on this particular whatever whatever it was they know and trust the motive behind it that we're giving that feedback for the right reason not to tear their work down that they poured so much into but to really make sure that we're meeting kind of what we need in the marketplace. You just touched on something that I want to dive into a little bit more. I think it would be great for our audience here, this idea of conflict and creativity.

I mean, there's just going to be conflict. And you also mentioned trust being a huge thing. Well, trust doesn't happen. You have to build that. You do. So it's the way you handle conflict and creativity. So I want to go just a little bit deeper with you because you brought up a great issue. How do you build trust in a moment?

meeting over time, several meetings, around this idea of conflict and creativity. Everybody gets in the room, they got their own ideas. So let's take a personality here at Ramsey Solutions. It's their book. Okay? Then you got your top people. You got designers. You've got copywriters. Whatever I'm missing, fill in the gaps. But you get in a meeting here, and this is early on, right? You've almost got a Mr. Potato Head with nothing on it. Sure. And so how do you handle conflict well at Ramsey Solutions in a creative process so that when we walk out, everybody's still been passionate, everybody's had their voice, but they're not mad at each other. How do you resolve that? Well, I think it is all based on that trust. And I think people within any organization, but I will all talk to ours, I think people

build trust in different sorts of ways. But if you have a basis of relationship with somebody and those folks in the room that are really, you know, kind of tugging and pulling on an idea or a group of ideas. As long as they have a basis of relationship, it's amazing what you're able to say with, again, candor with kindness, but what you're able to say and have it not feel like you've been personally attacked, whether or not they're saying it to you or you're having to say something. And we do a lot here to foster a culture of trust and of trusting people's motives. We have things like where we gather together as an organization. We have a staff meeting once a week and we, you know, interact that way.

We have something called, you know, Ramsey Solutions Lunch every month where we gather together and we have some fun, but we share a meal. And then informally, I think within the smaller teams, you have to find ways to build trust. And I see leaders and different individuals doing that in different sorts of ways. I know I do that in a different way than some other leaders in the world. organization, but I know how important it is to actually connect individually with everybody within the marketing division so that when we find ourselves in those rooms, sharing ideas, that it doesn't feel like, oh, wow, okay, it's Jen CMO that, you know, I never interact with. That's giving some feedback, but that it's, no, this is Jen. I know her. She knows me. She knows about my kids and about my

family and knows, you know, something about me. We've had other interactions outside of something, you know, kind of difficult, or maybe it's not even difficult. It's just, maybe there's just a lot of ideas and, you know, we're moving really fast. Well, sometimes that can be perceived the wrong way, right? But if you build that basis of trust and relationship, those other things, they just kind of happen really naturally. And then it's not odd when somebody's giving me feedback because they know me or when I'm giving that feedback in a meeting like that. It's really good stuff. Well, before we let you go, I want you to think of the entree leader out there who maybe it's the CEO. They're wearing multiple hats. Marketing falls within it. They don't have the 80-person team, you know, that we're

fortunate to have that you're leading. What would you say from your head or heart to them to encourage them, you know, in the very important role they play as a chief marketer or at least someone who has a really strong voice in the process, what would you say to them? Sure. I'd say that marketing is not difficult, so don't make it harder than it is. That the thing, if you're a small business owner and you don't yet have a dedicated marketer because your business is not to that size, that you make sure that the marketing you do is resonating with your audience, whoever that target customer is that you are trying to serve,

that it resonates with them, that you're very consistent in doing marketing, right? It shouldn't be, oh, I'm going to do this for three months and I'm tired and too busy and I'm going to go on to other things. You need to be consistent with it. Then you need to be constantly testing it and refining what's working best and continuing to get better at your messaging, at how it's being delivered, and maybe what mechanisms you're using to deliver those messages. Yeah, that's really good. She is Jen Severson on our operating board and our chief marketing officer here at Ramsey Solutions. Thank you, Jen, for hanging out with us.

We're better for it. It's my pleasure. InfusionSoft, giving you great stuff. Three lessons, 15 minutes a day. That's all it's going to take. And they'll help you kick your procrastination to the curb and take your productivity to all new heights. Simple, simple, simple to get this. These three lessons.

Infusionsoft.com slash 15. That's the number 15. You don't have to spell it out. It's infusionsoft.com slash one five. If you do that, you will get this kick procrastination to the curb. Three lessons, easy to digest, easy to do. Why wouldn't you take advantage of that? Hey, before we take off, we want to remind you, we're getting closer and closer to our second Entree Leadership Summit.

This event is in Dallas, Texas, May 22 through 25. Dave Ramsey has asked Seth Godin, Jim Collins, Henry Cloud, Pat Lynchioni, our very own Chris Hogan and Chris Uright to join him on the stage, and thankfully they all accepted. It's going to be an incredible event. There's no leadership event like it. You can learn everything you need to learn about it. Get the details.

Register to come at entreleadership.com slash summit. That's entreeleadership.com slash summit. Hey, if you like sports and if you love baseball, you're going to really love our next episode. And even if you don't like sports and your leadership personal growth junkie, well, you're going to get more of what you've come to expect every week. That's a big tease. Here's what it is.

We go one-on-one with the Kansas City Royals. That's the defending world champions in Major League Baseball. Their GM is Dayton Moore. We go one-on-one with him and a former player. Just last year, Ben Zobras joined their team for the stretch run, helped them win the World Series. he's now signed with Chicago Cups. We're going to give you great perspective.

Baseball is the context, the content, leadership, teamwork, personal growth through the eyes of a leader, decision maker, and then a player, a teammate who has to execute on the field, both operating and winning at the highest level. It's going to be a lot of fun, so don't miss that. All right, folks, my notes say it is time to leave you. I'm a little sad. But as I always say, but truly mean on behalf of our performance,

producer Eric Anthony and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so very much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.