EntreLeadership - #232 Clate Mask—How to Grow Over $1 Million

Episode Date: November 13, 2017

When New York Times best-selling author Clate Mask talks about scaling a small business, he has plenty of personal experience to draw upon. Infusionsoft, the start-up he cofounded in 2001 and now runs as CEO, is one of the fastest-growing private companies in Arizona and boasts annual revenues of over $80 million. His best advice? Learn to identify the growth curves of your business. They are more predictable than you think, Clate insists, and your preparation for them is absolutely pivotal to your success. Tune in to find out how to foresee and navigate growth with confidence. Also joining us is Bobby Brennan, CEO and Founder of Kamado Joe. His David-and-Goliath story of conquering the Big Green Egg—which at the time of his business’s launch had 90% market share—is nothing short of inspirational. entreleadership.com/podcast Defining and Achieving Small Business Success EntreLeaders Guide to Delegation   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. From the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. We're really excited about this episode. We're bringing you two feature conversations. How about that?

A big theme today are the stages of growth in a small, business. And we're going to start off with Clayte Mask, who is the co-founder and CEO of InfusionSoft. And then the CEO and founder of Camado Joe. This grill is unbelievable. Taking on the venerable green egg. It's a great story. You're going to love it. So much great content. Of course, we have some free resources for you as well. Our first conversation is with Clayton Mask. Clay's a great thinker. If you think about Infusion Soft, if you know anything about them, And this is a company that obviously has got great leadership. They found a need and they have fulfilled it.

And one of the big parts of the conversation you're going to hear is Clay talking about how 7% of small businesses, only 7% rather, get past stage 3. What are the stages? Stage 1, you're under 100,000. Stage 2, under 300,000, stage 3, under a million. So this is going to cover the whole gamut here. Really, really good stuff. And you'll also hear us talk about the pain point. or the leaky buckets in your business.

So a great thinker, and this is great stuff. Here is my conversation with Clayt Mask. Well, this is exciting to have Clayton Mask on the line and on the video, depending on how you're consuming this conversation. The CEO and co-founder of InfusionSoft, one of our dear partners. What a great relationship we have with your team, Clay. It's good to have you with us. Thanks for hanging out.

Oh, you bet, Ken. It's a total pleasure. It's great to be with you. and I love the partnership that we've created, and it just keeps getting better and better. So thanks for having me. Yeah. Well, we're going to start off with a really, really important topic

that our audience constantly brings up to us, Clay, and the good news is you really understand this, and InfusionSoft works on this on a daily basis to help companies, and that's the idea of scaling. How do we go from where we are to that next level? And so I want to talk about before you get there, You got to prepare to get there. And, you know, it sounds kind of simple, but we as entrepreneurs and go get her sometimes we

forget about the preparation and we just start on the journey. And you know all too well that preparation is really important. So set us up. How do we need to be mentally and logistically thinking about preparation? Yeah, you bet. Well, Ken, I think that it starts with understanding that businesses go through normal growth curves. And what happens is these growth curves are based on the stages of business growth. And I'm not going to go too much into the detail, but suffice it to say that when we had been in

business for several years, we noticed kind of a trajectory and a growth curve, these stages that we were moving through. But then we started to see it in our customers. And we saw it again and again and again. And we got to a point that when Scott and I wrote the book, Conquer the Chaos, we said, you know what, it's actually becoming predictable what businesses go through. And we think we should write about this. So we ended up doing a bunch of research at the time we wrote Conquer the Chaos. And we don't lay out the stages of small business growth in the book, but we certainly began the research there.

So long story short, Ken, there are predictable stages of growth the businesses go through. And these curves of growth, think of them as kind of S curves, where you sort of plateau at each stage before you get things resolved and then pick up in the growth to the next stage, that's really where you've got to understand first and foremost as you think about growing your business. Because if you don't understand those kind of laws of business growth and those stages that occur, you can find yourself sort of, you know, banging into the same wall over and over and over and over. And so I guess what I would say just succinctly can is there are predictable stages of growth. And when you understand that and you identify where you are, then you know how to

get through to the next stage. What are some of the challenges now that we know, okay, we're going to be realistic and we know there's some stages of growth and we're going to hit some walls or some plateaus? What is the right way to react or maybe be proactive knowing that you're going to hit maybe that lull or that plateau? Right. Well, the key is to know what it is you're hitting and why you're hitting it. When you don't know, it can be so frustrating. Like you said, as business owners, we're just used to plowing into challenges and conquering them and moving forward. And sometimes those challenges are pretty big. And so it can really do a number on your confidence. You can get frustrated with it. You can start to feel like, man, you know, do I, do I have what it takes to get us

through these challenges when you step back and you realize, oh, these are natural? These things are normal. They're actually predictable. Then you have the, you have the ability to approach them in a very different ways. So I think I would just say if you know they're natural, you know it's a common thing. You don't have to feel defeated by it. You can be confident that, oh, I can work through this. And we can certainly share with you some of those challenges that you hit that you need to work through in order to get to the next stage of growth. Yeah, let's stay right there. This is great, because you're talking about these stages of growth. I'd love for you to take some time and unpack that for us because I think you've really set what I believe is a clear expectation for folks. This is the

reality, you know this. You've written a book about it. You help businesses through this. So walk us through some of those challenges. For whatever reason, and I'm not sure exactly why the reason I have some thoughts and opinions on it, but a really shorthand way to understand are we hitting a stage change and that's why we're having these challenges is to recognize that the changes happen at revenue sizes typically on the one, three, 10, and so forth. Here's what I mean by that. At 100,000, you're hitting the end of stage one, at 300,000, end of stage two, at 1 million, end of stage three,

at 3 million end of stage 4, at 10 million end of stage 5, and it goes on to 30,000, 300 billion and so on. So if you're at the one or the three in your revenue, chances are you are at that stage change and you're going to need to adjust some things. So that's a shorthand way for people to sort of self-identify, are you hitting kind of regular business challenges or are you hitting

stage change challenges because those call for a little extra kind of entrepreneurial finesse to get through them. Yeah, that's really good. I like that. Okay, so let's walk through that. So we've got people that say, all right, Clay, you're on it, buddy. We're coming up on that three, whatever that, whatever that multiple is there, but we're coming up on this next three level and I'm starting to sense it. And I think you're right. What am I looking for? Here's what it looks like. When you're at the stage one and you're under $100,000 in sales,

usually your issue is just not enough hours in the day. That's the number one limiting factor. When you get past that and you've kind of got the business going a little bit, what you find to get to $300,000, you really have to have somebody who's taking responsibility for sales. And while that sounds so fundamental and so obvious, especially when you're past it, if you're in that $100,000 to $300,000,

And usually what happens is you're so used to just doing the work, doing the work, doing the work, that you don't have somebody that's dedicated to making it rain, bringing in the sales. Either people don't like it, the business owner thinks it's kind of a plaid jacket, car salesman, whatever. But you've got to realize that's actually a function that's got to be handled and got to be handled effectively and consistently in order to get to 300,000. Then the real trick is going to a million. And this is where most businesses get stuck. only about 7% of businesses ever get past 1 million. And at this point, you've got to create a marketing system with a service program behind that to serve those customers.

So your marketing system has to consistently bring in customers. It's not just about closing sales. It's actually about having a funnel in a way that you bring prospects and leads into your business in a systematic way. But then even more important, you've got to have a service program that's going to take care of those customers effectively. Otherwise, you've just got a leaky bucket and you're bringing customers in one end. They're going out the other and that doesn't help you. So that marketing and service system is the key to getting to a million. And Ken, this is where, like I said, 93% of the businesses are. They're in that stage one, two, and three. And many of your audience are not, you know,

they've gotten past that, but it's good to kind of recognize how they got past that. And then for those folks who are in one of those stages, you can kind of recognize, okay, this is what's happening. We've got to work through those stages. And depending on where you are, you've got a little bit of a different prescription or solution to get through it. You've got some great articles that you've written. And so, you know, kind of look through some things as we look at this idea of preparing for that next stage. And one of the things you suggest is to adjust the product market fit. And specifically say, you've got to invest in your current product. Why? Why do we need to do that. That's right. Well, and here's the reality is that at each stage change, you've got to make a

product market fit adjustment. And the reason, Ken, is that your target customer changes as your business grows. You may not think that. And you might think, no, it's just doing the same exact thing and continuing to do more of it. But the reality for entrepreneurs is that you've got to make small adjustments to your product, to the target market that you're serving, because if you don't, you end up trying to serve all people and you don't get specific and clear enough in solving the problem for your target customer. And so it's just not valuable enough. And so when you're on these stage changes, you've got to recognize, okay, it's probably time for us to tweak our product a little bit. Sometimes that means bringing on a new line of your product to appeal more

specifically to a subset of your target customers. Sometimes it actually means dropping off a part of your product set because it's no longer helping you to grow. Maybe the price point is too low. Maybe it's too generic a solution for the more sophisticated customer you have. But that product market fit needs to get little tweaks and adjustments as you go through each of the stage changes in the small business growth success path. Okay. So now let's talk about what we need to do that's foundational, that will help us move into this next stage. We know it's coming. Establishing a foundation, you've written about this as well. What does that look like and then why is it so important?

Yes. What it looks like is you're very, very clear on your purpose and your values and your mission, the philosophy of your company. And you've got to have that really clear, particularly at these stage changes, because so many other things are changing when you hit these stage changes. You're changing your product market fit. There's some strategy changes. We'll talk about this at a minute, but you'll have some people and team changes.

that occur. What happens at stage changes are your people, process, systems, product, those things all get tweaked. And you need that in order to stimulate the progress and the growth. But you've also got to preserve the core of who you are. And that foundational core of your purpose, your values, and your mission is what's got to stay intact. It's really kind of what grounds you as you go through these stage changes. And if you don't stay grounded in that, man, you feel like you're, you feel like you're in the middle of an earthquake. Everything's changing and it just feels so tumultuous. And you got enough changing at these stage changes.

You want to keep your core philosophy nice and strong. Yeah, that's a really strong point. Is this where Clayton companies, they forget their why? And then they look back years later and then they go, well, this is what happened. Yes, it's exactly what happens. And it happens at these stage changes that call out the need for adjustment. And people lose the clarity. and they say, oh, you know, we're changing all these other things.

So they start to change some of the foundational core culture of the company. And that's really problematic. You actually have to preserve that part while you stimulate the progress in other areas. Okay. So this leads to, I think, a really sticky issue for a lot of leaders. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to your answer on this. There's an old folksy phrase, I'm sure you've heard it, Clay, that says,

Dance with Who Brung you? And it's just, have you ever heard that before? I have heard that. Yes. We southerners like to say things like that. And so there's a lot of great truth in that. And it's a wonderful phrase. It speaks to loyalty.

But I'm going to take you here because I think there's a lot of people that need to hear this from you. While that is a nice saying, and that is something that is ideal and it's something we aspire to, right? To take the early people with you that were in the early days or early stages and they stay with us throughout the entirety of the organization. but the reality is when you go to a stage change, we know this from experience, and I know you do as well. Some of those people aren't the right people. They were great in the early stages, but for a myriad of reasons, Clay, they're not the right people to go with you into this new frontier. Is that right? And then how do we really assess that and make the changes necessary? Ken, thanks for bringing up. I suspected that's where you were going when you said this next thing, because it's, it really does come down to the people.

And I'm going to put it very straight. I wish it weren't the case. I truly, deeply wish it weren't the case. But the honest fact is that most leaders aren't going to stay with you through two-stage changes. That's the truth. A good leader will help you go through one stage change. You know, that's three times growth.

And a really good leader will help you go through two-stage changes. That's like 10 times growth. But it's a very, very, very-react. rare leader that will grow with you through more than two stage changes beyond 10 times growth. Why is that? Yeah. Let me share with you another saying that I think you'll like. There's some truth to you've got to dance with Ubrunya.

There's also some truth that those who get you out of Egypt won't take you to the promised land. Yes. Yep. So you've got to look at that and say, okay, well, are those two things completely incompatible or is there some overlap? And I actually believe there's some overlap. And here's what it is. Sometimes the people who you've had with you need to take on a different role. And they're still able to contribute a lot in the company.

But as a key leader, it's probably not the case that your VP of sales is going to be the same VP of sales with you when you're 10 times bigger. Now, there are rare athletes out there who can do that, who can actually keep growing, keep getting better, keep pushing themselves. and they actually have the appetite and the desire to be in the company when it's 10 times bigger. But most people either don't have the desire. It's just not their cup of tea. It's not really what they like. They like it more when it's small and closer and a little more family friendly and just all those things.

And they don't really want to be in it at that next level. Or if they do want to be in it, they struggle to really push themselves. So this really gets to why can sometimes they don't have the desire. Sometimes they don't want to just do the hard work to push themselves. And sometimes they just don't know what it looks like and they can't imagine it. Yes. And they don't go out and learn from others who have done it and been there and push themselves to say, okay, here's what it looks like, here's what I've got to do.

They just don't have a model in their mind for what it looks like. Yeah. And, you know, we can't forget for a moment as leaders, Clay, that the idea of growing means change. Yeah. Change is a horrifying word to a large portion of the population. And therein lies a lot of the problems, too. It could be they're on board with the mission. They're good people.

They're willing to do the hard work, all these. But they're unable to even process change because it's so different, especially when you see explosive growth, right? That's exactly right. And most people, it's just too uncomfortable to go through that amount of change. And the reason I started off by saying, I wish it weren't true is I've been through this. I've experienced it. I've watched it. I've had to make really, really hard changes in myself.

I've had to change team members that have been really difficult because these are great longtime friends. People have been with me for years. Those are really hard things to do. But you said it right. It's that commitment to your vision, to your purpose and your values and the mission that you're up to. And to me, our mission to simplify growth for millions of small businesses worldwide is that's what drives me. That's what's more important than sometimes being able to work with someone who I've just come to love. And that's hard to do. It's really hard to do. But you've got to do it for the good of all of your other employees and of your customers and your partners and everybody associated with your business.

Yeah, there's some people that are facing that right now. And maybe they're kicking the can down the road because it is difficult. These are real people. These are relationships that you've been through some wars together. What have you learned, whether it be from a failure in this area or a way that has worked? I think it's important for you to share some ways that we have some. some leaders right now that might be paralyzed by the fear of having to deal with this and say, you know what? Yeah. I love you, Bob. I love you, Susie, but it's not working out and you're not coming with this. Whatever that scenario is, what's the right way to deal with that? You know, there's so many cliches around it about how, Dave, it's not working for the company. It's not working for the person. But there really is some truth to this, that when the company's struggling because that leader or that person isn't performing well, isn't, isn't accomplishing what they need to. It's not a great experience for the person either. And so getting to that place

where you can say, look, you know, it's just not working. It's not working for the company. It's not working for you. You know, I care about you so much. You've done amazing things. And there's no shame in looking back at the accomplishment and the progress and all the things that we've done together. It's incredible. And to say, you know, but I think we're to a point where there's some something that is going to be a better fit for you. And the company needs to get somebody in that role that's just killing it, the way that you did for so long. And that's, that's tough to do. But I would say, number one, it's not working for the person. And it really is a service to them to help them get into a place where they are just loving it and they're doing awesome the way they

used to do for you. Number two, it's not working for you as their leader. You are weighed down. It's in the back of your mind constantly. It wears on your energy level. Your confidence is struggling. because of it. You might even be wondering if you want to keep doing what you're doing or if you want to keep pushing the business forward. It's not working for you. And therefore, it's not working for the company. It's not working for anybody. And so it's hard. It's really tough. But what I've learned is time heals the wounds. It's hard initially. I've let best friends go. I've let family members go. It's hard. It's really, really tough. But as time goes by, the individual finds success, the company continues to be successful.

And it ends up being a good thing for everybody because as the company continues to grow and be successful, those who had a part in that success can be proud, can point to it, can build off of that in the next stage of their career, whatever is next for them. Yeah, and these kind of changes we're talking about, Clay, aren't just rank and file. This is also leadership changes.

You talk about this. At Ramsey Solutions, we have an amazing culture where we see a lot of leaders come. We call them homegrown, right? So they come up through the ranks. they've been hired, they've moved up the ladder into leadership. But we also have some key leaders, top positions that came from outside the organization. I want you to speak to that too because it's kind of right in line with what we're talking about.

So if you're looking at this next stage and so some of these leaders may not be able to stay in a leadership role, it's also finding the right leaders from outside who can come in with the qualifications and the experience and know-how and take the team to the next level. Will you speak to that tension as well? developing leaders is really important for the businesses that are going from the stage of 1 million to 3 million and then 3 million to 10 million. As you get past that point, you do need to bring in some outside leaders. You just tend not to be able to produce and develop leaders from within who have seen what it looks like when you're beyond 10 million. And so it becomes especially tricky as you move past that 10 million stage. But it's also real at the 1 million stage and the 3 million stage.

What happens is you've got to incorporate enough of the outside experience and that model of what the company needs to look like at the next stage. You've got to combine enough of that with the inside cultural homegrown leaders that were developed. And that's a real art to blend that. Every entrepreneur who is built and blended those teams knows how tricky and difficult that is. So you've got to blend that. And what I would share is one nice little rule of thumb to follow is when you're bringing in that outside talent, you generally don't want to reach more than two stages ahead of where you are right now. In other words, it's helpful to have somebody who's been where you are and three times bigger. To go where you are and 10 times bigger, okay, that's helpful.

But you start to get into a dangerous zone where they're thinking something so different than what the company is used to if they're more than two stages. bigger in their sweet spot, that it gets really tough to blend the internal leaders with the external leaders. So the trick is to bring in some leaders who have seen it at a stage or two bigger and help them to come in and blend into the entrepreneurial homegrown leaders that you have. And getting that mixed right is a subject for a whole other conversation, but that's the idea. Yeah, though that's really good. I think that's really wise what you just said, making sure you don't get the wrong person

because you're so far ahead and you're thinking. We've been talking about the established business leader and the established business problems. But let's talk about startups. We have so many people, Clay, you know, who are entrepreneurial and they've just launched or they're on the verge of launching. And they can't quite grasp what we're talking about, you know, over the last several minutes for those young companies, those startups. And there's a way to do it the right way.

You know, you could save yourself tons of time and tons of money and, you know, grief and stress and everything else if you do it the right way. So there's several steps here that you've written and you teach about. And the first one is for startups is stay true to the core purpose. Why say that to somebody who's so new to the game? Is that a temptation? Well, what happens is when you first start, you kind of chase anything and everything. That's right. And you know, you're just trying to keep the lights on. I'll tell you, when we were in our early days, we weren't a software company the way we are today. We were just techy guys that would do anything and everything for a buck to keep the lights on so we could stay our own bosses. And so there's a certain amount of pragmatic reality to getting

started in a business that is less theory on get your purpose and your vision and your mission, right? It's just more got to keep the lights on. So I get that and the things I share are within the context of understanding that reality. I've been there. I know it. And so what I want to share is you need to as much as possible drive your company toward the vision that you have for it. And most people don't stop and take the time to create that vision. So, because you're probably a big fan of Simon Sinek, it's starting with why. You know, why are you doing this? And what I find is interesting, many business owners, many entrepreneurs in the very early stages, especially when it's just them, they haven't really stopped to say why. Their why is usually just because I want to do this on my own.

I want to pursue the freedom of being my own boss. I don't want to go work for anybody. And so they have this kind of really deeply felt personal why. And then they have the reality of needing to pay the bills. And that caused them to run in a hundred different directions chasing a buck. And if they'll take the time to say, why am I doing this business? Why does this business exist? Why should this business exist?

Why does the world need this business of what I'm doing? I'm taking my precious, valuable time on this earth to put into this business. Is it really just about a buck? Is it just about money? Because I would submit to you, it's not just about a buck, and it's not just about being your own boss. In between that is a really important why you're doing what you're doing. And it gets down to customers. It gets down to serving them.

It gets down to solving a problem that is a painful, frustrating problem that you've come across in your life and you believe you have a solution to that. When you get clear on that, it guides your sales and marketing activities so that you're not just running all over half cock chasing a buck. So true. And when you're clear on that purpose, Clay, it's easier to create a purposeful culture, an intentional culture that serves that purpose. So obviously we started out talking about people. You and I agree, people are our greatest resource. It's all about people, winning in business is winning with people.

But I want to talk about this, the idea that the why, which is that answers the question of purpose, when we know that we're able to hire and fire and train with that why constantly on the forefront. That's why it's so important. It's not just a cool book idea. When you are growing your business and you start to hire people, what happens is you've probably gotten to a place inside of you if the business is successful, kind of a gut. understanding of why you do what you do. And yes, you're trying to pay the bills and yes, you want to be your own boss. But it's more than that. You've started to fall in love and become a fan of your business and what the problems that you solve. But when you start to hire people and the company starts to have some success and you're building a team, if you don't articulate

that why, if you don't articulate your purpose and your values, how you go about doing your work and your mission, if you don't articulate that, you end up walking around, running your business, asking yourself the question, why can't I find good people? And so if you're sitting there saying, you know, I've such a hard time finding good people, the answer is actually right in the mirror. All you've got to do is articulate why you exist, that's your purpose, how you go about doing your work, that's your values, your core values you stand for, and what big thing you're up to. That's your B-Hag or your mission. And when you get that clear, it's magic how it attracts the right people, repels the wrong people. It's amazing. All right. So another key point here for

folks that are starting out is be selective with opportunities. And this is almost counterintuitive. Back to your answer a few minutes ago, when you guys were getting started in Fusing Softme, you were just doing anything that had anything to do with technical if it paid the bills. And we get that. But if you're not careful, you fall into that mode of operations. and you never kind of square up that why statement with the actual amount of work we're doing. So we get a little bit of momentum. How do we make sure that we're not tempted by every opportunity that we're intentional for the right opportunities? Yeah, great.

You know, it comes down to focus and the discipline to say no to bad sales. So what happens is in the early days, every sale is a good sale because you're surviving. But if you're not intentional about it, you said it exactly. right, you get stuck in that mode and it prevents you from growing. And so if you say no to certain opportunities and let those things go, then you can put your attention, your time, your resources into the opportunities that really are worthwhile in order to develop this focus and this discipline. You can look at your customers and you can identify who the profitable customers are because probably 80% of your profits are coming from 20% of your customers. You can get more disciplined

and saying, we're going to say yes to the profitable customers, and we're going to begin to say no to the unprofitable customers. You can do the same thing with products. You can look at the profitable products and the unprofitable ones, and you can say no to the unprofitable ones. But what you want to do is you want to have some disciplined approach to how you're going to get more and more focused and shed the things that require a lot of activity and a lot of attention,

a lot of resources, but don't contribute to the bottom line, to your happiness, to the success of the company. That focus to grow is the key thing as you build your business. And it will help you to kind of break through some of the challenges that you get stuck on in the normal course of operating your company. You just mentioned the phrase bottom line. I mean, that's, you know, to really understand that and get that as a young business when you're starting out, a healthy bottom line is lifeblood, it's gold.

We've all heard the phrase return on investment. Let's talk about something you teach on that I think is a huge point here, and that's return on revenue. So as we start to get revenues in here, how do we make sure that we are leveraging and using the revenue to invest in the growth of the business? You know, we're talking with business. We're talking right now about businesses that are in the early stages. And what so typically happens is that revenue comes in, but it doesn't get put to work in the best ways. and what I mean in the best putting revenue to work in the best ways is how can you reinvest that in more growth, in more customers instead of using that, spending it

personally or putting it in other things that aren't going to deliver more growth for the business. And what it comes down to, Ken, is you've got to systematically build your sales and marketing machine. This is not very intuitive for early stage businesses. Business owners that get started, if I were talking to a group of of business owners today who were under a few hundred thousand in annual sales. So let's say they're, you know, one, two, three hundred thousand in annual sales.

And I asked them, what's their process for marketing and selling? You know, I'll get blank stairs. I'll get kind of uncertainty. Now, in their mind, they have a way for kind of how they do it, but they've never really mapped it out. They've never gotten it out of their mind and put it on paper and said, if I meet somebody here at this conference and they start to show a little bit of it. interest. You know, I'm going to call them back up. I'm going to send an email. I'm going to do

this. I'm going to do that. But pretty quickly, at some point, that process breaks down. There's not actually an automated systematic machine in the background that's making sure it moves forward through the pipeline. And it starts to become a matter of the business owner remembering and not dropping the ball. Well, guess what? I'm going to bet the business owner's going to drop the at some point because they're wearing 20 different hats, running 90 miles an hour with their hair on fire, and no human can keep up with all of the follow-up and all of the tasks that need to be done in a sales and marketing process. So my answer on the return on revenue is get a system in place that you can invest in that allows you to put prospects and contacts in the top of that funnel and work them

through the machine and have them come out as happy customers that become lifelong clients for you. That's the magic that you want to create to get return on your revenue. Yeah. And it just so happens where you find people that Infusion Soft helps you do that. We really love you guys. Before I let you go, I've just got to know because we're always giving away free resources from you guys on every episode. But what are you excited about that's coming out from Infusion Soft in the future, whether that be near future or several years down the line, that you can tell us about? I love getting to know what's coming down the pike.

As people probably know, the reason I talk so much about that sales and marketing process is I've learned in working with tens of thousands of customers and speaking to hundreds of thousands, if not millions at this point, that most small businesses don't have a sales and marketing process. And they don't have a customer relationship management system. And so that's what we do. Our passion is to help small businesses grow and to simplify their growth by giving them this customer relationship management system, CRR.

system and it helps them automate their sales and marketing process. So it is my passion. It's because I want to see business owners successful. I want them to grow. And I know that most of the time they don't grow because their follow-up breaks down because they don't have a system to do it. With that background, what I'm excited about is some new capabilities that we offer to our customers. We just came out with a new way for our customers to build landing pages and move prospects through those landing pages in a really effective way. So that's a new capability. It's really simple.

It's awesome. I think, you know, to be honest, for a long time, our capabilities there were powerful, but they were really complex and they were kind of hard. And I didn't like that.

We've created a really, a really cool new landing page component of our software. That's awesome. So that's one thing. And then Ken, the other thing is along similar lines, for a long time, we didn't have a good solution for the solopreneurs,

the one, two person company that, didn't want all the power of infusion soft, but they needed kind of the basics to manage their customers more effectively and to do their sales and marketing more effectively. And we recently created a starter edition that has a much easier price point, a much easier path to get started. We've taken away a lot of the complexity and really simplified down the key things that you need to do to get started in the software.

So that starter edition is something I'm really excited about. Then we've got some other cool stuff coming, but I'll leave it with those two things for now. Yeah, he can't tell. me that folks or they'll get a shock in my ear here and that won't be pretty. Hey, that's exciting stuff. Both of those new offerings are really exciting. And I imagine there's huge room to serve that solopreneur, you know, with a simpler version. And I love that. So where would you tell folks, of course, we talk about you every episode, but if that touched a nerve right there,

how can they get the best solution or the best service right out of the gate to find out, Is this the right fit for them? Yeah, well, they can just go to infusionsoft.com and you can see the different solutions that we have when you call us up and talk to us, tell us that you're with Andrele leadership. We love hearing that. And it also helps us to kind of understand, okay, here's where you are, here's how we can best serve you. So you can just go to Infusionsoft.com. We've got other resources.

I'm sure you'll give some other things out, but certainly they can go to our main domain name, our main website. And I've got to mention that Clayt is coming to us from their offices in the awesome Phoenix, Arizona area. We've got a great presence out there through Ramsey Solutions with the Dave Ramsey Show. I've been out to their headquarters. It's one of the coolest headquarters I've ever seen before. So tell them you're coming. Go out there. If you're using their products, go out there and see them. It's just a great, great organization. You know, just tell them you're coming ahead of time or at least be patient with the receptionist. But it's such a great place, man. So you're okay with

me telling people to come out there and see it. Absolutely. You bet. We do tours all the time to help people kind of see how we run the company, our culture, the way we do stuff, and just our passion for helping small businesses grow. So you bet. Come on out. All right. So I got to tell people, Clay, the broadcast of Entree Leadership is growing exponentially. And so when I was out there a couple years ago, I went nuts about it on the broadcast. I talked about it. But it's been a while. So I want to tell people that when they come in there and they get a tour, they're going to see a, I think it's a 50-yard football field. Is it 50 yards? Is it that long? I think it's about 30 or 40. I don't know.

Okay. It doesn't matter. It's a football field right in the middle of the lobby. And then just to the left of the football field is the biggest cereal bar. Now, folks, I'm talking like a buffet line. And it's like a library of cereal boxes and enough milk to absolutely, you know, it's blow your mind. And it's just there for all the team to come have cereal. And I think that's the coolest thing. It does are just a couple of cool culture elements that I've always admired about you guys.

So anyway, I just had to give a plug for the headquarters because I think you've done a great job. Thanks, Ken. Appreciate that. Come have a bowl of cereal with us, folks. Absolutely. All right, he is Clayte Mask, the CEO and co-founder of InfusionSoft. Again, folks, we use their services. They're great folks.

That's why they're the only outside organization we talk about regularly on this broadcast. Infusionsoft.com. Hey, Clay, this was good. It was really good. We need to have you back a little bit sooner this time, some more content, because this is helpful stuff. So if you're cool with that, let's do it. Absolutely. Love it. Hey, to help emphasize what Clay talked about, we've got a report for you from InfusionSoft. That's going to help you define and achieve small business success. So this is a great report.

It's going to come to you and you can read through it a lot or a lot of good stuff. You're going to re-hit the stages of small businesses that I touched on and Clay touched on. And we're going to talk about some of the challenges. And then coaching and education, all important stuff to help you the small businessman or woman really succeed. So make sure you get that infusionsoft.com slash small business report. So it wasn't too long ago that I, well, I went off the script. And I like to go off the script as much as I possibly can. Sometimes it's just to make Eric the producer a little bit nervous.

But I put out a call. I said, listen, I would love for you to send me not the electronic mail for Ken's electronic mail. What if we just get some old-fashioned mail? I mean, you write something on a. card, a letter, you lick a stamp. I don't even think you have to lick stamps anymore. I think they just come with the sticky on the back of them, as I recall. But I put this out there, and I was having a little bit of fun. Well, lo and behold, you people, you took it serious. And I'm glad you did, because we've gotten so many handwritten notes, and we appreciate you all so much.

To get feedback is so great. In fact, I look at Eric, the producer right now, he's got a handful of letters. And it's really fantastic. So I want to read a note to you. It comes from a young guy by the name of Dan. And Dan writes in, he says, Ken, Eric, and Will. He says, thank you for bringing an excellent podcast that is a mentor to me, even though I've never met you. I'm a year and a half since graduating from veterinary school and still very much a rookie. However, these lessons you are sharing, principals you're teaching, are helping me grow every single day. And I could see in my industry eight months ago, there were a lot of bad news items. But after listening, listening to Pat and Jocko, Lou and Zorro, and all the others, my lens has changed.

Now I see challenges and opportunity like never before. God bless you guys, mightily Dan. Well, God bless you, Dan. You got to love that. You got to love, the one line there that I really grab onto is his lens has been changed. And I once heard a preacher kind of preach on that, the idea of when you change the way you view things, it's like literally putting on a different set of glasses. And I really like that. I think that's a great metaphor for all of us. We need to constantly be making sure that we're having the healthy view, the right view, a clear view. So good stuff. Hey, if you would like to send us a letter, well, you can get the address in the show notes at entreleadership.com. Click on podcast. And of course, if you want to send us a digital

email, we like to call it electronic mail, you can do that at podcast at ontraeleadership.com. moving right along. How about another CEO? I mean, my goodness, two CEOs, one episode. This is why you people come back every week right here. You're really going to love this conversation as well. Bobby Brennan is the founder and CEO of Camado Joe. Now, if you're not familiar with Camado Joe, number one, you need to be. Number two, this is a guy who was very, very successful. You're going to hear this in his story. But I love that he was a user of the big green egg. The guy loved to grill. and he's not trying to be unkind. He's not trying to be vicious,

but he's looking at this, he's using it, and he's going, this could be better. And all the great entrepreneurial ventures in the history of the world are defined by somebody going, huh, I think there's a solution here, and I think, yeah, I might be the solution. And so Bobby Brennan founds Camato Joe Grill.

And oh my goodness, we had a grill literally sitting between us as we had our conversation here in our Entree Leadership Studio. And I got to tell you, I was trying as hard as I've ever tried to pay attention to my guest, not because I was losing focus, but because I was imagining some meat on the grill. You're going to learn a lot from Bobby Brennan. Here it is. Well, this is a great treat to have Bobby Brennan here with us in the studio.

And it's even better to have an actual Camado Joe grill right there. We've got the charcoal. It's really distracting because I'm envisioning something going. on that great right there and eat a little bit later, but excited to have you with us, man. Pleasure's all mine. Thank you, Kim. So, Entree leadership is all about stories like Camado Joe and, you know, an idea, and, okay, we're going to go after it, and we're going to take on a giant. So let's start there, because, you know, you guys are a relatively young brand.

My notes tell me that you're about nine years old, and now you've got 44 team members, $30 million company. You're growing at 40 percent each year. But you took on the big green egg. Yes, sir. Why? What led to this? What's going on in your head? I owned a green egg.

Okay. I loved it. I thought it was a great product. You know, truth be told, I was a corporate guy. I probably spent 17 or 18 years in the corporate world with two companies. I spent my first 12 years with GE in Europe and the United States. and then switch sides and went to work for their European competitor, Siemens. That's how I moved to Atlanta.

Green egg is in Atlanta. That's where they own the market share in Atlanta. That's where they were, I think, started about 45 years ago. Wow. But I was that guy in the neighborhood that bought a green egg and convinced all of my neighbors to buy one. I convinced all my colleagues at work. You know, truth be told, I probably have sold two or three hundred green eggs over the years. so ironic. Yeah, so I mean,

great product. I loved it not only because it cooks great food, but I just love the whole experience of cooking with fire and been out on the deck on a Saturday. You know, good Saturday morning for me is putting on the baseball cap and going to the butcher shop and having a 42-minute.

I love grilling breakfast for the family on Saturday. On several weekends, my grill never cools down. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I kind of reached a point in my corporate career where I just, I wanted to do something different. Entrepreneurship, I don't come from an entrepreneurial family, but I always wanted to own my own business.

And probably the best piece of advice I got from a business broker I hired one time. He said, listen, Bobby, if you're going to start your own business or do your own thing, he said, do something you're passionate about. That's right. You know, he said, don't be analytical about it. Don't do something because of the return on the investment. If you're going to be successful at something, you know, prerequisite to that. is you have to be passionate.

I agree. And I remember he telling me, I tried to buy a few businesses in Metro Atlanta, both fell through for different reasons. One of the owners got cancer and asked for a timeout. The other guy just had second thoughts. And so I was kind of disappointed. And he said, why don't you start your own company?

And I said, I don't know how to do that. I mean, I kind of know how to run a business. I had a pretty good career. with both GE and Siemens, but he said, look, you know, if you just pick something you're passionate about, you'll figure it out. I had this thought that the green egg at the time had about 90% market share, that everybody that I talked to about it went out and bought one. I'd have friends over on a Saturday night for dinner and I'd get the call on Monday morning or Tuesday saying, hey, I bought one of those grills. So I knew it was a great product, but I just felt

I could, you know, make it better. I had issues. They always took care of it. Great customer service, but I felt like there's a way to, you know, improve the user experience and fix some of the issues. Yeah. My background was in manufacturing. So throughout my corporate career, I had built factories, clothes factories, move factories.

That's kind of what I did for GE. So I wasn't scared of that part. And so I had a business partner at Siemens. I was the president and general manager of the division. was my CFO partner. He was wanting to do something on his own as well. So, I mean, it wasn't any more complicated than one day I suggested to him that we started our own grill company. Wow. And where does that start? I mean, do you have to immediately go, okay, what would a prototype look like? I mean, how complicated is that? I'm an engineer by degree. I do have an MBA,

but I'm not the best engineer in the world, should be told. So I hired an engineering company, or Kerry and I hired an engineering company. And they designed our first product. And I was on a plane to China to the birthplace of ceramics. And we found a guy over there that knew how to make them but didn't have any money. So we kind of financed, you know, a new building for him. Okay. I think he started with four or five employees.

Wow. Because you understood manufacturing. Yeah. So that was in October of 2008. Wow. Yeah. Unbelievable. long before the first launched the product after you started?

I remember going to a trade show in March of 2009, and we had, I think, four prototype grills. It was the only four grills we had in the entire world. And we went to that trade show. I think it was in Reno, Nevada, in March of 2009. That was the first time we were open the doors for sale. I want to go back to something you said earlier, because I think there's a lot of people that are facing a scenario that you mentioned. That is, the green egg was 90% market share. Yeah.

Was that intimidating to you, or did you look at it and go, this is actually a monster opportunity? I saw it as an opportunity. You know, when you work for a big corporation, you get coaching every year about what you can and can't talk about. You certainly can't talk about pricing. Your coach not to talk about market share, especially if you're a publicly trade company. Right. Especially if you're the, you know, the president and gentleman. of that company. I found it when you read a green egg, you know, a printed piece on them or a trade advertisement on them, they were openly talking about, you know, having 90%, or sometimes

it's phrased that nine of every 10 ceramic grill sold in the world as a big green egg. I saw it as a huge opportunity. There were competitors in the industry back then. There was at least two or three, but I didn't see, you know, we did a little bit of marketing research, and we didn't think they were, you know, giving the green egg any competition. So I saw an opportunity. So why do you think that you looked at it that way? Because I think some people might look at 90% and they look at the giant and they go, why in the world what I want to take on Goliath?

You know, there's disadvantages to being Goliath. You know, they're slow. They're not responsive. And so, you know, part of the challenge of being a, a small company and a startup is you've got to be nimble, you've got to think on your feet, you've got to be able to react quickly, and seize the moment, sees the opportunity. And so, you know, I just saw it as opportunity. Yeah.

I want people to hear that because they need to know that your size really should not affect the dream. Because you felt like, hey, here's an opportunity here. We're going to see if we can exploit the giant. There's lots of disadvantages to the incumbent market share leader. You know, they've already determined what their go-to-market strategy is. to a certain extent, you know, they're stuck in how they go to market. It's not easy for them to wake up one day and say, hey, you know what, I'm going to give up on my two-step distribution strategy.

I'm going to go to focus on different sales channels. So there's some inertia associated with, you know, changing business strategies. And so I think as the new market entrant, you've got to take advantage of that. What are some practical questions that these David's out there that are listening need to be asking about the giant that they are thinking about taking on or that they are taking them on? What are some of those things that they can ask? It's your traditional business school. What does the giant do well? What do they not do well?

What do they focus on? I mean, it's not that difficult to discern what the strategy is of the market share leader. And you've got to understand, you know, understand, you know, when you're not. where the opportunity exists in their weaknesses. Back when I started, the green egg did a particularly good job of if you sold the green egg in Franklin, Tennessee, you pretty much had the whole county to yourself. You know, certainly a five or 10 mile radius,

nobody else in Franklin could sell the product. That was a tremendous opportunity. Yes. There were six other people in Franklin that wanted to sell the green egg, but couldn't. Because the green egg was loyal to that, dealer that had set up shop with them, you know, three, four, five years earlier. And that was just all opportunity for us.

So when we went to our very first trade show, there were so many dealers that wanted to sell the green egg that couldn't. There were so many distributors that wanted to be distributors for the green egg that couldn't. They just, we left that first trade show. I want to say we had $700,000 or $800,000 worth of new business. Unbelievable. Yeah. With the four prototypes.

With the four prototypes. I love that. We didn't tell them that at the time. Of course not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's now a great story that we can share, but that's really great. So I want to continue to learn from your story so that entrepreneurs out there can take some encouragement away and some real things that will equip them.

So take us from that first trade show, four grills. You've got the deal in China. You help build the warehouse, essentially, or the operations of the guy can manufacture. Yeah. You walk away with $7,800,000 for the business. walk us through the next couple years. What was the growth like? What were the challenges?

We started with two employees. It was just Kerry and I. And had you left the Siemens? Yeah, we both quit Siemens. Okay. And we started Camado Joe. Okay. Hired an engineering firm, hard a marketing firm.

All right. Had a factory in China. Went to a trade show. Rented a warehouse space in Atlanta, small. I think it was the first warehouse was seven or eight thousand square feet. Wow. And, you know, I got on a plane after the trade show, went to China, firmed up the design, and said, go make, you know, 10 containers a product.

We had all sorts of issues with the first several shipments, you know, not being, you know, made correctly that we had to think on our feet. Yeah. Unassemble, reassemble, get parts repainted in the U.S. I mean, it's not without bumps in the road. Right. But it's all learning experiences. You know, we invited our Chinese guys over to the U.S.

and explained to them what the American consumer wanted and expected, and finally got the quality issues ironed out. And we had a number of advantages to that first product over the incumbent green egg. I mean, it was fully assembled. You know, we had used better metal. We galvanized our metal. You know, we had thicker metal, thicker ceramics, better gaskets, better top vents. So it was coming out of the gate, you know, we had a little bit of innovation in our,

in our products. But we quickly went from two employees to three to four to five. I would tell you, you know, as you scale your business from, you know, being a $1 million company in year one to being a $3 million company in year two, you have to think about really three things. You have to think about the people, the systems, and the processes that you need to be successful. And you always got to be, I think as a small business owner, you always got to be thinking ahead to, you know, how you get worked on in a $5 million business is very different from how you get worked on in a $1 million business. And so you've got to scale your organization, you've got to scale your people, and you've got to scale your systems. And so, you know, you start out with QuickBooks, but, you know, you'll soon realize that a $10 million manufacturing business can't run it on QuickBooks Enterprise. So you got to start thinking about ERP systems.

You know, very quickly you realize that the business can't revolve around Bobby Brennan. You need talent. You need smart people. And you've got to hire people, you know, right now we're a $30 million business. You know, we're hiring people, you know, that I think are capable of taking our business to be $100 million. You know, we're hiring people from, you know, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, KPMG. These are smart people that you've probably not typical of a $30 million business. But as a small business owner, you've got to say, well, you know, this is the team that's got to take us to $100 million.

Yeah. That really is an investment, isn't it? It's huge. It's huge. But I've got to tell you, it's a lot of fun not been the smartest person in the room anymore. Yeah. It's one of my lessons learned is make sure you hire the right people. Right.

Why is it fun? I love that you said. I think that's a healthy perspective. And I think some people will go, what do you mean it's fun? because, boy, that's a big deal when the co-founder goes, it's fun, not being the smartest person in the room. Why? Why is it fun? Just to be able to sit back at a meeting and see people that you've hired, people that you've motivated. Yeah, that's so healthy. It's energizing to me. Yeah. It's really energizing to me. And I think that's probably, you know, I do have friends that are at different stages of their entrepreneurial journey. Some are 10 years ahead of me, some are five years behind me. But I would see. to you that the number one mistake that we all make is we spend too much time in the trenches

in the weeds and not understanding the big picture. We don't hire quickly enough the right talent. I got three or four guys in my business today that if I left for a month, they wouldn't miss me a bit. Boy, that's interesting. There are some things I don't want to delegate, you know, such as, you know, I like engaging with consumers. I like having my finger on how. how we're doing in the market with our customers, but there are better salespeople than Bobby Brown out there. There are better marketing people than Bobby Brown out there.

There are better product development people. And so I have a lot of fun. GE trained me really well. I mean, I spent 13 years with GE during the Jack Wells years. Okay. Jack's been a guest on this show. Has he really? Yeah, absolutely.

Big shoes to film. I love Jack. Huge fan myself. But he was very instrumental in my leadership training. and kind of drilled it into anybody who was coming off through the management ranks at the time, the importance of having talented people working for you. That's so rich.

All right, you said people, systems, and processes. Those were the big three. I think we understand people. We spent a good time on people just there. I love this because I'm a big sports fan. And so I've always been enamored by high school football coaches. And our audience has heard me talk about this before, that win year after year in a public school situation where they're not recruiting.

Correct. But they've got a local feeder system, right, with the local football teams. And these guys that have been there 30 years and they win championship after championship after championship. And it's because they got the system. These kids know how to run these plays before they ever sniff junior varsity. And so I believe in that so much because I see it with champions and sport. Systems and processes. what's the difference in how you use those words?

Because you clearly mentioned, what's the difference between a system and a process? When I think of a system, I'm thinking of IT. I'm thinking of being on the leading edge of using whatever tools that are out there. A process for me is just the X's and O's of how we're going to get this job done. And so there's a supply chain process. There's a manufacturing process. There's a quality control. process. There's a financial planning process, financial closing process. But it's really important

to automate and systematize using, you know, latest software, later latest techniques. But we're big on having a defined process and a defined system. I love that. Okay, so that leads me to the marriage between processes and culture. Culture is a buzzword. Some people don't even know what real culture is. But processes and culture are so intertwined. I've talked about this on this show. So you're from Atlanta.

Correct. So that's Chick-fil-A headquarters as well. Absolutely. All right. So Dan, Kathy's a friend. When you go into a Chick-fil-A here in Franklin and you order something tonight, and then you go to the one near your house tomorrow morning and get breakfast, and you say to the young kid behind the desk,

hey, thank you. What is that kid going to say to you? My pleasure. Is that a process or is that a culture thing? It's a culture thing. Yes, but what drove it? The process. Yes.

See, that's what I love. To me, culture is very simple. Yeah. You know, it's if you do something repeatedly, that's it. It becomes part of the culture. People ask me, how do you change the culture? You just change what you do and change.

It's what you say. Yes. And it just culture is a byproduct. That's it. The process is somewhere at some point, every kid that gets hired there goes, listen, I don't care how many times the customer says, thank you. You have to say my pleasure. Yeah.

And then I feel as a customer, I feel like a million dollars. That's right. That's right. And so I love that. I set you up. I knew how were you going to answer. No. It's really truth, isn't it?

Absolutely. No, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you. So what are the processes? So open up, open up the old curtain here. And what are some processes? that you, Bobby, are still super passionate about making sure that these are alive and well at Camano Joe.

We have a process for innovating. Okay. You know, I think if you were to ask our customer base, what do we do particularly well? I think they would tell you that what is our culture, I would say the words they would use is they would say we're probably innovative, transparent, probably developed a good reputation for customer service over the years. So let's talk about innovation. We don't have an all-employee meeting.

We don't have a weekly email that we don't, where we're not talking about new product development. It's just, it's ingrained in our organization, but it's ingrained in our organization because we make it a topic at every meeting and we talk about it. Culture becomes what you make important in an organization, in my opinion. And so we have a process, you know, where we already know what the products are for, you know, 2018.

We know what the products are for 2019, 2020. We have a product development roadmap that, you know, everybody clearly understands. I even talk about it online. You know, I get customer feedback. We're very open. We're very transparent with internally and externally about that. But definitely our culture is one of,

what can we do better to improve the product and improve the experience. You model the way on that because I have read and I've got to hear my notes that you actually have a little bit of back and forth. We won't call it arguing with marketing agencies that you've hired because you, you are in the weeds on a good thing when it comes to real people that are buying your product. You like to engage with them. Is this over the phone? I heard it's on Facebook. I mean, how personal are you? I make it a priority, to be honest with you. I think it's so easy now for a business owner to engage with their customers. You know, social media has enabled that.

I think it's a tool that you have to use. But I make it a priority. I set some realistic goals. You know, I'm not, you know, but I try to answer the phone five times a day. I try to reach out to a consumer personally one time a day. Now, when you say answer the phone, I want to make sure we don't slide by that. You mean you answer like the main line that's coming in on customer service? Correct.

Yeah. How does that freak people out? Not at all? I would say 18 times out of 20. Most people, you know, don't know who I am. Well, that's true because you're not saying, hey, this is Bobby. I'm the CEO. But there's at least once every third day. Is this Bobby?

Is this the owner? And we usually, you know, usually a 30-minute conversation transpires. But it's a great opportunity for me to ask them, hey, what am I doing well? What can we do better? Yeah. What's been your experience with customer service? Why are you calling? I think it's really important not to delegate that as a business owner.

That's great. Have you ever taken a call where the voice and the information on the other end of the line gave you a real stomachache? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you've got to be thick-skinned. How do you react to that? You hang that phone up. If it's a problem and it's really your problem, I'm imagining somebody's getting a quick call and we're solving it.

Well, you know, you got to answer the phone with that. You got to understand the situation that your consumer's in. I mean, people are spending $1,000 on my product. That's right. It's not a small amount of money. That's right. You know, I tell my customer service team, hey, look, I probably make four or five times the national average in income.

But for me to go out and spend $4,500 on a golf club is a big deal. Sure it is. I'm going to ask my wife permission to do it. That's right. I'm going to go test it three or four times. So think about a customer, you know, a guy who's making $40,000, $60,000, $60,000 a year, spending $1,200 on a grill. Yeah.

If something goes wrong in his fourth month of ownership, there's anxiety involved. Yes, there is. And your job is to make sure that that anxiety is dissipated in three seconds. They need to know that they're in good hands. Yes. And that we're going to stand behind the product. And we're going to do whatever it takes. We're going to move heaven and earth to take care of the situation.

And so I tell my folks, as a business owner, you know, one of the things I do, is I try to decide on how we spend time and money. It's not any more complicated than that. You get two types of resources, time and dollars. Every day you have opportunities across your desk. Do I spend money on this or not? Do I spend time on this or not? If I had a choice to take care of 1,000 customers,

you know, for $100 a piece, warranty issues or customer service issues, $100,000 on that, versus $100,000 on a new product versus $100,000 on some marketing campaign. Every day of the week, I'm going to take care of your existing customers. That's right. They are your brand ambassadors. Every single one of them that is delighted by your customer service experience is going to tell 50 other people about your product and how wonderful you are to work.

So true. So true. So customer service and innovation, I think, are ingrained in our culture because it's what we talk about every single day. What is the internal communication like at your organization? Because what's amazing is you only have 44 team members. That strikes me as kind of unbelievable because I see you as a national brand and all this. And here at Ramsey's Solutions, we're like 600 and counting. What's the communication like among the 44?

It's very transparent. So we share business goals. We share business results. There's no secrets. Everyone knows what the goal is for the month, whether it's a sales goal or a market. marketing goal, social media goal. We publish those daily. Everyone has access to it.

But at the end of the month, we have an all-employee meeting or telecasts where everyone calls in, even the remote employees. We share how we did for the month from a sales, profitability, what the business priorities are for the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. So it's very transparent. You know, emails, you know, I love what you're doing in the lobby here in terms of sharing goals with all your employees. That's the best practice. So I actually took a picture of some of your monitors. That's great. We're going to incorporate some of that into our... You know, it's the

law of the scoreboard, right? I just think people want to know where they stand. You know, the other thing, too, is it's not my business. It's our business. That's right. It's our customer's business. And transparency is big to me. It builds trust in your organization. You know, we're not big on office politics. We just, you know, here's the problem. Let's wrestle it. Everyone's got an opinion that's valued. But no, we're very transparent in our communication and our business results. Everyone knows how we're doing, good, bad, or indifferent. What is the model for you all versus what I mean by that is the sales model.

Is it dealer-driven? Is it direct-to-consumer where they're buying direct from you online? What's that breakdown? About 75% of our sales is North American. Okay. 25% of it is international. So in international, it's very simple. We go through distributors.

Okay. In North America, we go through, we have our own sales force. Okay. So we invested in, we have four warehouses in North America, two in Canada, two in the U.S. We go direct to dealers with our own, you know, W-2 employees. Gotcha. And we like that because we can control the message. There's advantages and disadvantages.

You know, some might argue you could scale quicker if you use distributors or independent reps, but we have 16 salespeople now covering North America for us roughly. But, you know, we bring them all together for national sales meetings. We just had one a few weeks ago in Atlanta, typically a three-day meeting where we talk about, you know, here's the skills you need, here's the mindset you need, you know, to produce the results that we want. And so we bring in guest speakers, give them a little bit of coaching. But no, we go to market on our own with our own sales force in the U.S. and Canada. How involved were you over time with the unique selling proposition, right?

That's kind of a business school term. And I think it's a little silly sometimes to kind of just focus on that. To me, it's about a narrative. But what is the narrative that your salespeople, if you were in the room with them right now and I got to eavesdrop, this is what we want you saying to the customer or the dealer? What's the differentiator? I'm going to give you a very honest answer. I like that.

Marketing has never been my strong suit. I think every entrepreneur will tell you that they're functionally strong in certain areas and they're functionally weak in others. I think the first five or six years, we didn't have clarity on what those differentiating factors were and what our value proposition was, either to a dealer or a consumer. And I would tell you that we evolved almost by accident into a narrative that says that focuses on innovation. You know, in our opinion, this is a lifestyle product. Right.

It's very experiential. We are going to put the best product we possibly can on the field. We're not going to compromise. We're not going to cut corners. If there's a better way to do it, we will do it. And we will go to all four corners of the earth to find the right supplier or the right material or the right solution. But if there's a way to improve the experience, we're going to do it. Well, what happens when I buy, I buy one this year and three years from now, you come up with a newer

model that's got even more great, exciting innovation, but I've already chucked out $1,200 for what's an already great product. How do you, and again, that's not a real problem in my mind, But I am bringing it up because how do you keep that narrative going with the customer? That's a great question. And there's some frustration out there, you know, to a person who spends $1,200 today to buy this grill only to wake up 18 months from now to realize, wow. But if grilling is your thing, if that's how you like to unwind and that's your passion, and that's how you, you know, you love having family and friends over for, you know, six, eight times. a year it's no different than your golf club or your cell phone if there's better technology out there if you can get three four years out of a product

you're gonna you're gonna trade up and buy the latest grill we have customers who you know bought a grill from us seven years ago right and they're already on their third grill now they they may pass it down to their son or their son-in-law give it to their dad but grilling's your thing right you you're gonna want to grill on the Ferrari yeah the reason I asked that question is because Andy Andrews is a mutual friend of ours and he knew that I was going to be hanging out with you today and so he called me about three or four days ago he was just telling me all these great things about the company I mean the guy you know this he's a

brand ambassador he speaks for your company he's very invested in you guys in his in his time and he's a classic example he's got two of our large grills at home he walked into one of our dealers in Sand Dollar Lifestyle in down on Orange Beach on the wharf there and saw our new product for the first time he had to have it yeah there's nothing wrong with the two grills he has, but he says, Bobby, what you've done, you know, is remarkable. I'm going to lean on him now that I know he has some extras and tell him to ship one to me. But here's where I'm going with that. The reality is, is when you made that comparison to the iPhone or to other things, but this is a lifelong product.

Andy was telling me that this thing, whatever iteration you have, it's going to last you for life. So in some ways, it becomes something that a diehard fan keeps up. upgrading because he's the hero or she's the hero by passing on their older version to somebody else. That's correct. Isn't that the real payoff in making something that's so high quality? Absolutely. We hear stories all the time. Now, we're, you know, the green egg is 44, 45 years old. I didn't know that. There are products out there that have been passed down from father to son. They're on their second or third generation. We expect the same, you know, thing with Camado Joe. But they will last a lifetime. And that is the difference.

Like, I think my daughter's, she's eight, and I gave her about a year ago like a four or five-year-old iPhone. Yeah. And just no interest at all. No. But that's not the case with this product. And, boy, that's huge. And again, I'm drawing all this out. But you know, you know what's interesting, though.

I mean, I do engage with our consumer community on Facebook and all the social media platforms. I try to make a habit of, you know, spending at least four or five hours on a Saturday morning just, you know, engaging with them. That's great. And even some of our most passionate fans. and consumers, they want us to come out with new products. Of course. You know, even though they spent $1,200 two years ago or $1,500 on a Big Joe, they're as passionate as we are and give us suggestions on what we can do better and how we can make the product

better. You know, as much as possible, we try to make the older products upgradable with some of the new, some of the new features. Yeah. Boy, that takes vision, doesn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's exhausting, you know, because I'm not an engineer mind.

So to think, how do you make something that well done and then make it to wear, well, we can add this and add this? I mean, that really blows my mind. Yeah, I mean, there's been a few exceptions, but I would say most of the improvements we've made, you know, the person who purchased the product two or three years ago can go out and buy an upgrade. Now, this is a fun question for me, relatively young company, eight years old. So you really just get going.

Yeah. And you've already kind of foreshadowed. you've got some talent in the place right now that can really just blow the top off of this thing. The temptation to diversify too much outside of this main product. I'm assuming that you get opportunities or ideas that come across your desk all the time. What's a good process for making sure that you don't get distracted from the main thing? I wake up every morning thinking about grills. there's some other guy out there that wakes up every morning thinking about accessories or thinking about

pizza ovens. Right, right. You know, I really can't compete with that. I can only be, I can only be passionate about one thing. So I think you got to stick to your knitting a little bit. I do get opportunities and you've got to be very disciplined to know when to say no. Yeah. We have, you know, our product development,

the scope of our, what we're trying to do is if there's an accessory or a feature that somehow improves the versatility or functionality of the grill, we want to do it. If it doesn't, we don't. Yeah. It's very simple. That's so good. And so how do I make that grill more usable, more functionalable, and how do I give my consumer a better user experience? If it doesn't fit into that, we just have to have the discipline to say no. So how do you avoid becoming or avoid what green egg has happened with you, which, you know, again, you can't stop competition. That's what I love about America. You can't stop somebody from competing, and competing makes you better.

But how do you make sure, as you grow, that you aren't susceptible to maybe what green egg was susceptible to? I think you've got to welcome the competition. I mean, you just said it. Competition is better for the manufacturer. It's better for the retailer, and ultimately it's better for the consumer. You know, at the end of the day, you know, every end of the, or every product category needs four or five good competitors, just to keep everyone honest and keep pushing everybody,

you just can't rest on your laurels. You've got to have this insatiable desire to continuously do better. It's a never-ending process. That's right. When you think you're done improving the product, something always happens. We say, oh, that would be good. Yeah.

And so we're working on things. I mean, you know, I probably, you alluded to it earlier, you know, my marketing company thinks I'm too open and transparent with our consumers. But we are working on some things, you know, two, three years out that are pretty remarkable. I think we'll, you know, game changers in a way for, you know, the charcoal grilling industry. But you've got to have vision, you've got to have foresight. Yeah. And have the perspective that innovation is never going to stop. I mean, you think there's not going to be.

be an iPhone 13 in 2020. That's right. In 2020. Of course. Yeah. You do something that I think is the ultimate competitive advantage. I'm going to brag on you. I know you're humble guy, but I don't run companies, but I've been blessed to sit down with people that I don't belong in the same room with. You are one of them. But the thing that I've observed about really successful business people, successful coaches, successful general success. You pick the role. is that they never lose an insatiable curiosity. You said insatiable a minute ago, right? This insatiable desire.

But you have an insatiable curiosity. It's why you spend four or five hours on a Saturday when you don't have to. You could be at the country club, you know, playing golf. There's some great golf courses in Atlanta. I live there for 13 years. There's a lot you could be doing with your time. Sure. The insatiable curiosity, Bobby, is what I think makes you really, I don't want to say bulletproof

because I don't know if that exists, but it sure does protect you because you're always learning from the customer, and that is what fuels everything else you just said. That's what I admire about you. Oh, thank you. But it is a little frustrating at times. You'd love to be able to switch it off every now and again. I know. But it's...

Keeps your ear to the ground. I don't know what it is, but I think if you show me a successful small business owner, they all have that ability and that insatiable appetite to continuously do better. That's right. The minute you rest on your laurels, you're dead. It's game set and match. That's right. It's game set and match. It's over. You may not know it, but it's over. You know, I'm 50 next year. I mean, I'm not old. Oh, no. And I'm not young, but I don't know, but I still have, my energy level hasn't waned one bit. Yeah. I think it hasn't all been, been smooth for eight years. I mean, there's been some lessons learned along the way. Any small

business owner's got to be tenacious. They've got to have an insatiable desire to continuously improve their process, their systems, and their people. And if you do that and wake up other products, you'll be fine. Yeah. Well, great stuff and really excited about the growth of this company and learning about it. And again, Andy Andrews, just who our audience knows so well, just thinks so highly of you. And boy, this is exciting to see how you have begun this journey and where you're at now and where you're going. Thanks for being here. I know that there's a lot of small business people who are better for you being here today. So thank you. Thank you so much, Ken. I appreciate you having me. Thank you. Thanks to Bobby Brennan and his team for allowing his access. And I've got to

tell you something. I always get inspired by hearing stories like this. You know, who would have ever thought, you know, that you could take on somebody like the Big Green Egg? And you can. And you can do it and do it well. And they are doing it well. And I got to tell you, if you didn't take anything else, away from Bobby, the idea of him being intimately connected to his customers. He's got his ear to the ground. His finger is on the pulse. You need to wake up and smell the meat on the grill if you're not doing it because you are totally walking blind. All right, Entree Leadership got a great tool for you. It's called the Entree Leaders Guide to Delegation. Now, you heard Bobby talk a little bit about delegation. In this resource, we walk you through the 10 basics of delegation.

We've got a chart in this tool called the Entree Leader Time Tracker. So what it does is it helps you lay your week out in 30-minute increments per day. So you write down every activity. And then you also label that activity. Is it important? Is it less important? Is it a time waster? Or do you hate it?

And by the end of the week, what's going to happen is you have an indisputable chart of how you're spending your time. Unless you're in there doctoring it later. and I know you people aren't going to do that. And give this a try because what it's going to do is it's like journaling, your eating habits. And it just gives you a very clear picture of what you're actually doing with your time. Where do you need to be delegating? That's the whole point of this. What is the work that only you should be doing?

So to get this, you can text the word delegation to 33444. That's delegation to 33444. Or you can get the link in this episode. Show notes at Antre Leadership. com. On behalf of Eric the producer, engineers Will Rutter and Jim Bab and the entire Entree Leadership team, thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.