EntreLeadership - #190: Robert Herjavec—Creating Your Own Success

Episode Date: March 13, 2017

Dynamic entrepreneur and co-host of ABC’s Shark Tank Robert Herjavec knows what it takes to not only survive but also win. From escaping communism to delivering newspapers and waiting tables to building one of North America’s fastest growing technology companies, Robert’s done it all. He joins us to share his story plus insights on fighting fear, becoming a better leader, and learning to swim with sharks without being one.    entreleadership.com/podcast Summit Event EntreLeadership "Sales Cheat Sheet" Infusionsoft's "Emails to Close a Sale" 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, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature conversation in this episode is with Robert Hershevik, who is one of the stars of ABC's wildly popular reality show. For entrepreneurs and inventors, you know it as you. shark tank. He's got a new book out called, You Don't Have to Be a Shark, Creating Your Own Success.

And then we bring you some special gentlemen to guys that are winning like you all. They are your peers. They are CEOs of organizations and they are with us recently at our Entree Leadership Master Series. We put them up on stage and we just talked to them and we learned from them. You're going to love this. This will really encourage you. And of course, we're going to bring you some free stuff. So let's get right to it. This is fun. Robert Hershevik, you know, you never know what you're going to get when you interview somebody that has got some TV fame. I'm just going to be really honest with you. If you were to ask me, okay, Ken, would you rather interview a Pat Lynchione, a Daniel Pink, a Simon Seneca, you pick the bestselling author, or a reality TV star,

I'm always going to go with the author. You just don't know what you're going to get. So obviously, Hershevik is a businessman first and very successful. But of course, now he's gone on, you know, Shark Tank, and then he goes on Dancing with the Stars, ends up marrying his dance partner. So now he's got all this Hollywood fame going on, but I will tell you, this, he was very, very genuine. So I'm just going to tell you that on the outset, because I think there's some people that go, oh, geez, okay, we got Shark Tank guy. This is a really encouraging conversation. And I will tell you, at the very end of the conversation, he gets very real with us about a dark period in his life and how he came through. It's a really wonderful story. So really

good stuff here. I really enjoyed him, and he's going to be with us at our summit event. So it was kind of fun to get a preview of what our audience is going to get this coming May. So here it is, Robert Hershevik, from ABC Shark Tank and the author of the new book. You don't have to be a shark creating your own success. Robert, it's a treat to have you with us. We're excited about you being with us at our Entree Leadership Summit in May. And as reading this book, several great themes that we're going to cover. But the first chapter, learning new.

steps on a different floor, obviously addresses your time on dancing with the stars, and then, of course, you address it later in the book. And I think this is fascinating stuff, because I think a lot of people learned who you were, obviously, because of that. And then the Shark Tank and that whole series of great success that's brought you a lot of acclaim. But I'm just curious for somebody who was so successful in business, and you've accomplished so much, you detail a lot of the adventures and things you were able to do in your life. And then you go on the show, and you've got to dance in front of millions and millions of people. So before we get into some of the other stuff, I'm just curious, what was your fear factor

like to put yourself into that situation? Because that is not a small stage. Well, the fear factor was off the charts. I was petrified to go on the show. I'd never danced. And what people don't realize about Shark Tank is it's a very real show, but it's not live. There's no studio audience, and we just talk, people are in front of us for over an hour, and it all gets edited into seven minutes.

So there's no retakes. It's very live that way, but it's not live. And when you're on Dancing with the Stars, it's very much live. There's 15 million people at home, and there's a thousand people live in the studio, and it just freaks you right out. It was probably one of the scariest thing. I've ever done. Yeah, which I admire tremendously.

So let's start learning from you. What from your past, whether personal, professional in your life up to that point, what did you summon in those early days to overcome the fear? Because you did a tremendous job, given that no experience and how terrifying that is. What helped you step into that fear? Well, you know, I think there's a couple of things. I've always felt that there's a certain amount of discomfort that comes with growth. You know, people always think that growth is fluffy and feely and an open field full of beautiful flowers.

And it's not. Growth is change, and change is difficult and uncomfortable. And it brings on a lot of fear. So, you know, I'm relatively comfortable doing things that are, that put me out of my comfort zone. I think that's important, especially as you have a certain amount of success in a certain area. I think the minute you step back and you think,

yeah, I got this baby and it's all smooth sailing from here on in, you begin to make mistakes. And the world is an ultra-competitive place. As soon as you're satisfied, there's somebody coming up that really wants to take you down. And so I think it's important to stay hungry. The other element that Kim, my dance partner, really drove home for me, was purpose. The reason I did the show was it was my mom's favorite show.

And she had passed away from ovarian cancer many years before. And when she was ill, I'd go to the hospital with the other ladies who had it, and we'd watch the show. And, you know, it's these Eastern European women dreaming of a better life kind of thing. and they loved the show. And so my mom said, one day you think you might be on show. And I said,

oh, mom, you know, they'll never ask me to do it. I'll never be famous enough. And I wasn't even on TV in the States back then. This is a long time ago. And then when the producers called and asked me, the first thing I thought of was my mom.

Wow. And how much she loved that show? And I said, yes, right away. But in the course of that journey over being asked to the four months before that very first dance

in front of a thousand people and 15 million people at home petrified and terrorized by fear and forgetting everything Kim looked at me and realized I was losing it and just looked at me and said forget everything

forget the audience forget your fear forget the steps and just remember your purpose. And it really calmed me down. I got to tell you, it just kind of this whole

it like washed over me with relief. And I looked at her and I said, you're right. And that was it. It didn't help me dance any better. Right.

But it certainly made me be able to do it. And I always think how many of us in life allow that tangible fear to stop us from starting. So many times. I mean, the reality is fear cripples so many of us. That's really good.

Folks, you didn't know you could get that much good content out of Dancing with Stars, did you? But there it is. He just laid some gold on you. You know, I want to stay here for a second. I'm not trying to be cute, folks. I really think there's something here. Before I move on, Robert, I want to ask because we have a lot of leaders,

you know, from five people to 500 people. people that are leading and larger. I'm just curious because you've led in so many unique circumstances, what would you take away, looking back on it now, in working with Kim and learning how to trust her and she's teaching you and there's communication between the both of you that has to happen in practice? And then I've watched enough of the show to know there's got to be a ton of nonverbal communication during the dance. I know nothing about dancing. But I'm just curious, what can we as leaders learn or what did you learn from a leadership perspective that has made you a better leader through that experience. Yeah, that's a great point.

It's the old Leah Coca quote, which is lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. That's right. And it made me a better leader because it made me a better follower and everything that comes along with it. You know, I think I'm a pretty good leader, partly because I know when to step away and I know when to listen. And the great thing about having more resources and getting a little more success is the people that you want leading you in different areas of your company and different areas of your life, you get to learn from masters. And, you know, Kim was one of the top ballroom dancers in the world.

And so I very, very quickly learned that there is no value. I'm going to provide in terms of feedback. There is no point in me saying, gee, maybe we should do it this way. And so I became a very active listener. And sometimes, you know, when we go through the day or we're building a business, sometimes you're an active listener

and sometimes you're a passive listener. And to me, the difference is passive listening is when I kind of really know the subject matter and I'm listening, but I'm looking for a way, to improve the information you're giving me because I have a love subject matter expertise. In this case, I had no value. I provided absolutely no value, and I completely trusted her and respected her leadership ability.

And, you know, we were good to go. And so I think that's the big thing that I take away from it is, you know, to be a great leader, you sometimes have to be a great follower. You know, I'm listening to you, and I realize the reality for our listeners, we're not going to be on Dancing with the Stars. But there's got to be something to the context of what you did, which is put yourself in a completely foreign situation, whereas you just said, you couldn't really add a lot of value. You just simply were a student. That's probably a great challenge, isn't it, for all of us to try to put ourselves in some situation like that just to see how we respond and what we learn? Well said.

I mean, the minute we stop learning, we stop growing, and the minute we stop growing, we're dying. It's funny, we were just at the Grammys over the weekend, and I had a bunch of my friends who are all retired. And what I took away from all of them is they had been retired for a while, and they talked a lot about all the things they had done. You know, they kind of went on and on about, you know, I remember that time when this and I remember that time when that. And it was interesting because their focus was very much on the past and the things they had accomplished. Whereas my focus tends to be very much on what's ahead of me. I don't really care what happened in the past. I don't dwell a lot on the past.

They try to learn from it, but, you know, it's all about constant, forward momentum. And the other thing is they talked a lot. They talked more than they listened. So I think that's a skill that you, listening is a skill you begin to lose. And my wife said to me, please don't ever retire because I don't think I could listen to you for that long every day. Oh, that's true. That's a good word for all of us. Oh, that's fun.

All right. So let me switch gears to the other reality show that a lot of people. people know you from. Of course, Shark Tank. And I just thought of this because you just, I think, really touched on an important point for all of us that want to grow and keep growing. And you talked about listening. And I've watched enough of Shark Tank to know the format. And so everybody can get in their mind's eye. Just picture the sharks, Robert, one of them sitting there on that stage, and people come in and they do the pitch. My favorite part of it is watching the sharks, listen and then ask questions. And it gets to be one of the most intense. And I'm an interview. That's

why I do for a living. I love asking questions. I want you to talk about how what we can learn when we're watching you, how you are listening, what you're listening for, and how that's helped you make good decisions, not just on Shark Tank, but in general. Well, I think to put it in context, I think you would find the show very interesting. Anybody who's in business or personal development would find a live filming of Shark Tank fascinating, because that's really what comes through is the arc of the pitch. People come out, we ask

questions, and there's a cadence to each pitch that is very individual. It's a little different for the show because we know nothing about the people. There's no background. We have no dossier on their business, on them.

They come out and they pitch, and it's very real that way. Sometimes people get nervous and they can't go on and ask, can I start over again? They're gone. It's over. And so the average pitch is well over an hour. The longest pitch was two and a half hours. The shortest was about 40 minutes.

No matter how long or short that pitch is, it gets edited into seven to eight minutes. Wow. And so what the viewer sees at home is a story. storyline that the director and the editors have put together. We don't have a script. We don't do any retakes. And we film with 18 cameras and we just talk. When you watch the show,

because what we're saying is fulfilling a storyline that may or may not be happening in that sense. But the one thing I will tell you from a questioning perspective to answer your question is the, absolute pivotal moment on the show in every pitch is the beginning. I would say that the first 10 minutes, anywhere from the first two to 10 minutes, determines how the rest of that pitch is going to go. And you see that sometimes people come out and they don't know their numbers and we're all over them. We're like, you've got to be kidding me. You don't know what your cost of goods are. You don't know what

your acquisition cost is. This is ridiculous. Get the heck out of here. And sometimes you'll see people come out and they don't know their numbers and we're like, don't worry about it. We have an accounting team. We're going to work with you. It's okay. What's the difference? The difference is how they engaged us. Before you sell me a product, before you sell me an idea, before you sell me anything, even before you sell me yourself, first you have to engage me. And that's the magic of the great pitches. You know, we're cold because they blast the air conditioning. We all have very busy lives.

We're always thinking about other things. The pitch before you may have not gone well. We're thinking what we're having for dinner that night. And then you come out. You got to engage us. Yes. And that level of engagement determines everything that happens after the fact. Wow.

That's good, folks. I'm telling you, you should try your next pitch that way as if you're facing those sharks. I think it would be good for everybody. I love the heart behind this book, Robert. There's so much that we could cover. I can't cover it all, of course. But one of the chapters towards the end of the book, Chapter 20, and it's entitled Learn to Swim with Sharks Without Being One.

And I just want to set you up here. I'm going to read just a small passage from that chapter, page 219. You say, so what do you do if you're an entrepreneur who believes in fairness, honesty, and respecting the rights of everyone around you? And then skipping ahead, you say, I buy those ideas, and I've applied them over the years, building my business from a wild idea into an international corporation. But deciding to behave brutally on a personal level isn't for me and never has been. Being strategically ruthless, however, is more than that.

than acceptable. I like the distinction here. And I think there's a temptation sometimes for entrepreneurs, especially, given the risk and an all-in type attitude to cut corners ethically or relationally, you've decided not to do that. I love the challenge here. Learn to swim with sharks without being one. We all have a moral compass, and then there's a difference between ethics and morality. All depends, I think, what the end goal is. And, you know, The thing that people struggle with, and we see this a lot when people pitch to us, is, can I be successful by being nice? Or do I need to be brutal?

Do I need to be able to put people down? Do I need to be angry? Do I need to yell? And the answer is no. But you need to be firm. There's a fundamental difference between kindness and weakness. And they don't exist in the same bucket.

Most people believe that they exist in the same bucket. If you're kind, it means you're weak. I'm not weak. But if you push, I'll definitely push back. If you yell, it doesn't mean I'll yell back because for me, I've determined that yelling at people doesn't get me to the desired effect. And frankly, I think it's rude

and it's just not in my character. Everybody's different and you can get to that same goals. I've just been in environments where I've had to lead a large group of people and for me, it's always worked to motivate people than to necessarily scare them,

although a little bit of fear is always good. Yeah, on that note, I'm curious to what you would say to leaders when it comes to this idea of recognition. You know, when you're a hard-charging leader, an organization that's moving fast and you're putting some victories up on the board, there's always a temptation to move too quickly onto the next thing. And, of course, that's healthy. Progress is healthy. But I'm just curious your thoughts on the importance of recognizing the team, recognizing victories. I look at our culture. We have a great company. We spend a lot of time at developing it. It's native to us.

We love to celebrate victory, and we always recognize those around us and try to make people feel proud from big wins to little wins. We have over 300 employees now, and every woman in our company gets a rose for Valentine's Day. And we've always done that. We've been in business for 12 years. We've done that from day one. and we don't do it because it's a good strategy to do or we're doing it to increase our HR satisfaction or some other element. We do it because, you know, a long time ago I felt bad for somebody who didn't have anybody on Valentine's Day.

And I thought people work really hard. It's great to recognize them. It's not a male or female thing. We do all kinds of things for all employees. So recognition is great. But the one thing you learn, I see a lot of companies make the mistake on, is they dwell. And dwelling on victory or dwelling on defeat is not good in both cases. We dwell on victories for a very short amount of time, high five, and then we move on.

Fail quickly, succeed quickly, but the next day is another battle. And it's really true. Nobody cares what you did yesterday. It's that famous sales line, what have you done for me lately? And not in a mean way that I don't appreciate you, but in a constant improvement kind of way. You know, you don't win the national championships

and then sit back and say, well, you know, when I get to the Olympics, what it did on a national level was good enough. you have to constantly improve. I want to have you talk about chapter 26 in the book. It's so powerful, very heartfelt, comes from an experience in your life you had been experiencing pain, and you decide to go get involved at a union gospel mission.

You've got a guy there by the name of Jeff that you reference to the book kind of leads you through your time there and you get involved. And the title of the chapter is the significance of socks. And so what I was preparing for the book, I was like, oh, I'm in. What is that? And so I don't want to give the chapter away. but I think it really is a powerful message in this short chapter. Would you share the significance of socks?

Yeah, we had, I was going through a particularly painful time. I was, you know, one of those moments we all have in life where we see far more problems than we see opportunities. And it was particularly painful. And I felt like there wasn't a lot of light at the end of the tunnel and a lot of anguish and stuff. And so I wanted to help others because I just wanted to be in a place where I felt it's going to sound awful. But if I was spending time with people whose life was worse than mine, it would make me feel better about myself. And so I called my priest, who's a friend of mine, and he said, you should go and serve for some time at the Union Gospel mission, which his friend, who's also a priest, was running for the state. state of Washington. And so I ended up literally had a phone call at two in the morning and that afternoon

I ended up in Seattle at a homeless mission called Union Gospel Mission where I spent the next couple of weeks working with people that completely frankly I never would have noticed and I hate to say it would have stepped over if I saw them on the street in the past. It just wasn't an experience that I I had any background to. I do you know anything about homeless people? I'd never been exposed. And when I went there and I learned very quickly, I thought that everybody on the street is there

because they made a conscious choice to be there. You know, the typical thing that I think most of us would have thought, oh, they're lazy or they're not motivated. But what I learned is a lot of people end up there because they don't have any other choice in life often. And sometimes life really does put you down and you need a lot of help in getting back up. And along that line, I thought that the biggest thing they would need would be food or, you know, a roof over their heads. But what I learned is that the most valuable thing that most homeless people, especially in Seattle where it's cold and rainy, is socks.

They don't get enough socks. and there's something about warm socks on your feet that not only have a physical obvious benefit, but have an incredibly emotional benefit. It just makes you feel good to put on a clean pair of socks. And so, believe it or not, most homeless people are given a choice over food or socks, they would take socks. Wow. Unbelievable.

And so you walk away from that experience. and you're in a dark time. What did that do for you? Well, the first thing I did was when I learned that, the next day I went to a Walmart and I bought every pair of socks in the Walmart that's great. That I could.

But, you know, the business side of me said, hang on a second. I just bought, I think it was 3,000 pairs of socks at retail. What the hell's wrong with it? Right. You should get your own sock line. So what we did was we had my, our team found a bunch of sock manufacturers. And so today, and this has been going on for about three years,

we provide somewhere between 20 to 30,000 pairs of socks every quarter to Union Gospel mission. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. And when I walked away from them, I said to them, you guys will never need for socks again. But what I took out of that was, you know, we all know. need help from time to time. And we're all equal as human beings. Uh, you know, and there's no, there's no scorecard for pain. My pain is no more important than your pain. And, you know, we all can heal the same way and we can all help each other.

Oh, good stuff. All right. We have to honor his time, folks. But I'm going to ask one final question here. It happens to be the final chapter of the book, three simple words at the top of that chapter. And I think three words that all of us who are a part of this community of Entree leadership, your go-getters, you're leading people, you want to make a difference in your life. These three words are so important. Robert, they are keep moving forward. It's the final chapter. It's the final challenge.

And I think a great way for you to challenge our listeners. You can always do better. There is nothing that you will confront in life that you cannot do if you're willing to put in the effort and the work. Whenever I meet somebody that says to me, I can't or I don't or I won't, I always think the pain of your current situation isn't great enough for you to make transformational change.

because when you have enough pain in your life, you will change if you want to get ahead. Wow. Good stuff. He is Robert Hershevik. The book is You Don't Have to Be a Shark, creating your own success. And of course, you know him from ABC Shark Tank. Tremendous success in business. And personal life's going great. And dancing with the stars was great.

And we're really excited to have you in Orlando with us in May on our stage for the Entry Leadership Summit. I'll be hosting that event, so looking forward to meeting you then. But I got to tell you, Robert, this is great stuff. Folks, run and go get the book. It's full of amazing business advice, and then you've already heard amazing stuff that'll help you when you need your heart to be healthy to stay in the game and keep moving forward. This really is good stuff. Robert, we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule and spending it with us.

We're much better for it. I appreciate it. Thank you. Big thanks to Robert for hanging out with us, and the link for his book, is in our show notes. So just go to this episode at entreleadership.com. Hey, he is going to be with us at our summit event. We've been telling you about it.

I got the numbers before we came into the studio. The event is steamrolling towards a sellout. So this is not some fake urgency. I'm just telling you've been thinking about it. You've been kicking the tires around in your head. And you want to come. It's going to be great. If you haven't heard about it, and you're new to our podcast.

It's May 21 through 24. I think it's the premier business leadership event in the country. And we've got Simon, Seneca, John Maxwell, Lou Holtz, Pat Lynch,ioni, Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, joining Robert Hersheveck. It's going to be an unbelievable week at the gorgeous J.W. Marriott, by the way, in Orlando, Florida. I'm going to be looking for opportunities to jump into the Lazy River when each day is done.

I'll see if I can get Eric the producer out there with me. And maybe, you know what, maybe we'll just float together through the way. We'll maybe provide some behind the seats pictures. Everywhere people are just turning the podcast off all of a sudden. They just cannot bear the idea of my lily white skin and the sun glaring off of it. But it's going to be a great time. We're going to have a lot of fun down there. Most of our team goes, and we're sitting there learning alongside of you.

We've got a special discount, $300 off for you, podcast listeners. All you've got to do is text the phrase, summit 17 to 33444. That's summit 17 to 33444. And you can also hop on the phone. Go to entreleadership.com. Just call our advisors directly and they'll take good care of you. Hey folks, I told you about this at the top of the podcast that a few weeks ago at our Entree Master Series event, we had an idea.

We said, what if we get some peer-to-peer conversation going on and pull up some attendees who are winning, who have come through some tough challenges, and they've figured it out? And we just wanted to capture that conversation for our live audience, and then we actually put this on Facebook live, and we thought it was so good, we're going to share it with you to encourage you. The two gentlemen are Dan Cornish, who is in software, Jeff Osinski. It has a kickboxing school. Both guys, very different businesses, very different stories.

But the conversation was so encouraging to our live audience just going, okay, these guys have walked many miles in the same moccasins that I'm wearing, and so we want to share it with you. So here it is. Well, this is fun. What we're going to do now is something that our team cooked up. We thought, what could we do for you on Facebook who you've not had an opportunity to be a part of this unique group of men and women?

And when I say high achievers, I mean, these. men and women are absolutely killing it. And yet they're here paying a good sum of money and what's even more valuable to them is their time. Not just their money, but their time. They're taking time off from their businesses and they're here to develop themselves. And we thought wouldn't be great if we just had a couple of attendees and just hear from them, their real stories. Because we think it will really encourage and equip you. And so that's what we're going to do for the next few minutes. And this is exciting. I'm going to introduce these guys immediately to my right is Dan Cornish, and I'm going to have them talk a little bit about themselves,

and then Jeff Ossinsky. But guys, we'll start with you, Jeff. I want you to just take just a brief minute here and describe your business and then your unique role as you're leading it. What's it look like? Thanks, Kent. I have been in the martial arts industry for about 32 years, and about four years ago, we attached our wagon in Pittsburgh to the fastest growing fitness franchise in the United States right now. I love kickboxing.com. And shout out to Team Pittsburgh. You guys are awesome. And my role right now as of December 1st is I am now an absentee owner. So I'm still involved slightly. I do some things like payroll. And I do like a 30 minute block of training every week for our team. Okay. All right. And Dan, tell us about your

organization and your unique role as the leader. So my company's called Cossential. We are the largest CRM and proposal automation for the construction, engineering, and architecture industry in the world. Okay, now I'm going to stop you because I don't even get that, and I know nobody else does either. So explain that. We're a software company. Okay. We automate sales, marketing, proposals, estimating for the largest firms in the world. All right. And as the, are you the active CEO? And I'm the founder and CEO. All right. Now, before we move into some very specific things that you guys, can share with our audience. Why do you come to an event like this?

So I'm here for my provisions. So my story starts long ago, and I liken it to the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton, who was trying to go across the Antarctic, and you should all look this story up because it's an amazing story. He gets there, his boat is crushed by the ice, and then his journey starts. I started my software company in 1999. I raised an A-round of venture capital. I was supposed to do a B-round of venture capital that was supposed to close on September 15th, 2001. So that didn't work out so well. I had $300,000 in the bank, and I was burning $200,000 a month. So I laid off everybody in one day, 35 people, and then I bootstrapped the business from there by

myself to today. And what I learned and why I'm here is that it's tremendously important to have the right provisions for the journey, and you can never stop it. So I first got out of debt, paid off my mortgage. That gave me freedom. Then I learned a bit more about my business. Then I came to another master event. I ramped up my business. We're now at over 50 people. We're growing at 70 to 80 percent a year. In three years, we're going to be at 250 to 300 people. So I'm here to get my provisions for the next step in my journey. That's good. I want to do a quick follow-up because you obviously had some drastic changes that you had

to make to fix it. And now you've got 50 team members. You've got them all back and then some, right? And one thing that I thought was amazing in talking with you beforehand is that you have stayed on this cash operation. You're running it cash only. And you've had some significant offers for people to come in and infuse cash, be investors. And it's absolutely no way.

I just want you to share your unique perspective. And then for those that are watching and those that are in the room, how powerful it is for you, knowing you go to bed every night, knowing I'm running my business cash, and I'm in a really stable situation. So as everybody probably raids

about the technology business and private equity and all of that, I went through that once, and I felt that experience. By paying off my house, by getting out of debt, I was free to take chances. Because if it didn't work out,

it's okay, I can always start again. But then I was determined I was never going to go through that nonsense again. And hence to today, I mean, almost every day I'm getting phone calls now from every private equity and venture capital firm in the country. And what I've learned here, and the greatest strength I've learned is I can do it on my own because Dave's done it on us own. Look at Dave's business. It's enormous.

And he did it all on cash. So if he can do it, I can give it a shot. and give it a try. Yeah, and it's worked. Now, Jeff, this is your, I'm going to give folks a little bit of context here as I lead you into this question. You told me the other day that you were a one-man gang in your business for 28 years. Now, first of all, he doesn't look old enough to me, so I had to really question him and do some research, but it is in fact true.

So 28 years, you're one-man gang, right? And then now you have eight team members, and you just described to our audience that, hey, you've kind of pulled yourself out. You've got a good system. I want to ask you, what changed for you? Was there a moment, a catalytic moment, that you then decided, all right, I'm going to take some action because of this, and it's really led to some of your success. What is that?

Share that with us. I realized within the last couple years that the three biggest issues in my business were me, me, and me. And the speed of the team is determined by the speed of the leader. And I needed to grow. I need to become a better version of myself every single day, and I wasn't doing that. I was a high D with tendencies of just craziness. And I need to change that.

And I'm like, I'm a high eye now with some D tendencies still. So I would repel people in our business. So I was not treating people the way that I wanted to be treated. So I realized, I needed to do things for me. I need to read every day. I started reading since the summit back in December. And you told me this is unbelievable,

and I don't say this to embarrass you because you offered this. But you told me that before last year's event in Dallas, the summit event that we just talked about, that you had never read intentionally. I have not read since high school was 89. And so what did you start reading? Dave gave us a ton of books. Well, that is true.

We do give you a lot of books. The top two books that changed are, changed my life, changed my business. Number one, Patrick Lencioni, phenomenal. Ideal team player. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Dr. Henry Cloud, the power of the other. Wow, we give those books out.

We teach on those. Now, the hungry, humble, and smart. I needed to realize that I had to change. It had to come from me. And I needed to put 10 pages a day. We're in a fitness industry. We change people's lives with fitness. People go to the gym, three, four, five hours a week.

but they won't put, we wouldn't put, I wouldn't put 10 pages a day into me becoming a better me so that I can change people. That's good. Dan, I want to ask you about that because you've obviously had some tremendous success. What have you done to grow yourself? Just what's your personal growth plan or some things that you do? I'd be curious to know. I'm reading a lot more than I used to. I've learned to start to take some time at least once a month and to just get very, very introspective. We've baked into our whole culture, this concept of a retrospective. So we go in these things called a two-week sprint. We use this methodology. Every two weeks, the company stops, and we all look introspectively to ourselves. What did we do right? What did we do

wrong? What can we do to get better? And then, on top of that, I got more of this from this summit is that I need to work a bit more in myself and my family because I've been so totally focused on survival for such a long time that it's okay to enjoy it a little bit more and so I intend to start to enjoy

what I've built a little bit more than I have in the past well that's really good Jeff I want you to talk about some of the things you've done now that you've got 18 members building and developing culture that's such a vital vital thing for our organizations and many people overlook it. What have you done intentionally?

Intentionally after Dallas, after the summit, we went home immediately. And like I was telling John, we implemented the disc profile immediately. But we kind of stuck our toe in it. We kind of dabbled in it. We got all of our team members to take the profile exam. We took the summaries, hung them in our break room, but kind of dabbled with it. It's very excited to get home now and become a student of the disc profile. We also changed our verbiage immediately. This was from Dave in Dallas. Our verbiage in our business, we had a manager, we had employees. We went home, and we had a team leader now and I'm not a manager because managers count widgets. And we went home. We didn't have employees anymore, and we didn't have staff anymore. We have a team. In fact, we didn't even change that. We changed that on Tuesday from the summit from the phone with my team leader com. And I remember the conversation that we had.

had. And the final thing that we did immediately to change culture was we took our interview process from a three-step process to it's about eight steps right now. And some people that we've shared that with have kind of, you know, chuckled and laughed a little bit, but it's working for us. And those are just some nuggets. Here's a question for both of you. And Dan, I'll let you start, because I love what you just shared, you know, that two-week thing and kind of a pause and then we're going to be introspective. That's a process change. That's a culture change. I think there's a natural fear among leaders. They come to an event like this and some are tuning in online. They're going,

okay, this is good stuff. And it's rung a bell and they know, okay, I need to do something. But it is a little bit natural to be, have some trepidation, if you will, to make these changes. I want you both to speak to that because I'm sure you had some fears and some worries. Is this going to work? Are they going to think I've gone and joined a cult? You know, whatever it is. What has worked for you in beginning to instill new culture pieces to the organization and then see them work. So the first thing that we did was

started an all-hands meeting, which we weren't doing. So we did that. That was easy. But then because we're scaling so rapidly, what I learned, which was really hard, because I'm the kind of person that I can do everything, I can code, I can sell,

I can do all of that stuff, is to learn how to get other people to do these things. But here's the thing, not everybody's like me. And so the real learning that I had was I had to find people who could specialize in different things and then pull them together as a team so people who can sell or people who can do customer service are highly empathetic versus my software developers who are anything but empathetic. But they're brilliant. And so to take all of those things together, put them together in a team. Also, what I've been trying to do,

is our culture, I've been communicating, actually over communicating what our culture really is to my teammates now. Because it was sort of apparent from my early folks, but now every week somebody knew is coming in the door. So now I'm having to say it, what I've learned here very much again say it over and over and over and over again, so that people hear

what the cultures that I want to have in my company and that ultimately everyone else buys into and that buys into and takes all of it. Jeff? I certainly had to do implementational things, and I can't take credit. Our corporate headquarters does have a lot of awesome training. They taught me I had to realize that people will do things better than you,

and you need to start delegating. And I had to realize that, because remember, I was a one-man show for a long time, so I had to realize that people will do things better, women especially. 99% of our team are women. Jeff pandering to the female audience. Thank you, Jeff.

So that was a big change for me. One of the other things that we do teach and we are taught is everyone has a voice in our weekly meetings. When a team member has ownership, they're not told what to do, they're excited because they know in Pittsburgh, we have three types of policy. We have corporate policy, got to do it, it's corporate. We have Jeff policy, minimal, and then we have team policy. We know what has to get done. Let's put our heads together and let's figure out how to do it. And then we hold each other to it.

So that's powerful for us. And we hold space for each other, which is another real important thing because drama will creep into your building. We do it pre-shift. We do it post-shift. We do what's called 30 seconds of truth where we just hold space.

And for 30 seconds, that team member gets to dump or talk about anything going on in their life. and when you're present for someone and you hold space for them, guess what? It cuts about 90% of the drama out of your business, the other 10% you can deal with. One more thing. We've also done KRAs and KPIs in a very serious way.

For our web audience, who's not used to that, want you to do it. Key responsibility areas, so we really very clearly describe what we expect everyone's job to be and what success looks like. And then P is the KP. or key performance indicators are the metrics that we're actually going to measure you by. And so we're really good at measuring, but we make sure that we're aligned in terms of both.

All right, final question for both of you. Don't mind putting you on the spot because you're handling it beautiful. All right? We've got people that are tuning in. They've not sat here all week, but they're already getting some good stuff. You guys have done a wonderful job here, really challenging all of us. There is a moment of overwhelming emotion that hits a lot of. of people at times when they realize I've got to make a change, right? Identify with something

I've heard here or these folks are sitting out here and some of them are a bit overwhelmed. What do I do first, right? That's a natural question. Just from your own experience, you've both been to our events before we've been to other events. You've been here all week. You're getting ready to go back. What has worked for you when it comes to, all right, I've been drinking from a fire hydrant. Now I've got to go back and begin to implement. How do you overcome feeling overwhelmed and just begin to make changes. Simple, simple answer. The thing that I love about Dave's events is the two minutes.

Take your two. When Chris says, take your two, we are bombarded with phenomenal information and your mind wanders, especially, you know, if you're a C, a high C, because you're thinking, what am I going to implement? How am I going to do this? That two minutes, I get two, three, four, bowl. it points from that one, two, three hour block. And those are the things where I start with. Because how many times do you go to a training, you go to a seminar or you're part of a group,

and then you get all this information. And we know what happens come Monday. Where do I even start? And then rah, rah, rah, it's like a cheerleader event, and then nothing ever gets done. Every day I've got 15 things I have to do, and I get to pick three of them. And so from this, that's good. I've got 50 things that I want to do. So then it's brutally honest with yourself. That's actually one of our values in our company is to first be honest with yourself

is what's most important from all of this stuff and then do that and then move on and do the next things. But really, the thing that I'm taking away from this is that not to wait until it's too late to make a change because then if you, and I got to the same, some wonderful advice from some of the senior leaders here is that if you wait too late, then the change really hurts an awful lot and is really painful. It's not as simple as pulling off the band-aid anymore. It's like surgery. And so I have some key hires I have to make.

And what I learned from your leadership is don't wait too long. That's good. He is Jeff Hosinski. He is Dan Cornish. Guys, appreciate you. We show them some love for sharing some of their personal journey with us. Thank you guys very much. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Dan Cornish in the software business is actually a sales guru. The guy is sales, sales, sales, and he's hired great technicians and people that, you know, deliver the software that he is selling. And we were talking backstage about just things that work for him. The guy really is amazing at selling. And so one of our tools we're giving you this month from our Entree leadership team is our super selling cheat sheet. Simply put, if you want to take your team sales, you're organizing

sales numbers and take them through the roof. This tool works. We're going to show you how to sell the right way. And here's a hint. It really focuses on serving your customers. Now, the practical stuff we're going to give you as a checklist for making calls. We're going to give you a chart so that you can begin to make sure that you're selling properly to each personality style. And then we're going to give you some classic sample closes that actually work. So essentially, here we go. Ripping out a page from our Entree leadership. Playboy. and we're going to give it to you. Simple. Text the word.

EL Sales. Entre Leadership is the EL. So text the one word, EL Sales to 33444-4. Text EL Sales to 33444-4. If you'd rather not text, you can get the link to download it in this episode. Show Notes at Entreeleadership.com slash podcast. Speaking of more free stuff, our amazing partners in Fusionsoft, they are giving a free tool out this month.

It's 10 emails you need to close a sale. So here's what I love about this. Our Ontario leadership team is working so closely with InfusionSoft, our partner. And by the way, people ask me sometimes. Is Infusion Soft a sponsor? No, they're not. We use their products. They are a partner.

I'm not selling you anything. That's all we do is give you stuff from InfusionSoft, stuff that we use. And this resource works hand in hand with our super selling cheat sheet. 10 emails you need to close the sale. Why wouldn't you try this? It's absolutely free. Here's the deal. Email is increasingly becoming a preferred form of communication. Shouldn't limit it to that, but if you're emailing and you are and your team is and your customers are emailing,

well then this is an amazing, amazing free resource. Ten free email templates that help you close sales. This is such a great tool. Download it at infusionsoft.com slash ten emails. and Fusionsoft.com slash 10 emails. Big thanks to Robert Hershevik from Shark Tank. And remember his brand new book is on sale everywhere. You don't have to be a shark creating your own success.

We also have a link for you in this episode. Show notes, entreeleadership.com slash podcast. And folks, if you're coming to the summit, make sure you reach out to us. Podcast at entreleadership.com. That is our email. It comes right to Eric, the producer, and we would love to be. to hang out with you a little bit, a little bit of community at Summit. It's going to be fun. More details coming on that, but we want to know if you're coming, so shoot us an email.

We'd love to connect with you while you're there. On behalf of Eric the producer, engineer Will Rudder, and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.