The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Ken Paskins, Founder of GCE Strategic Consulting and The Shift Spot

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Ken Paskins, Founder of GCE Strategic Consulting and The Shift Spot Theshiftspot.com GCEstrategicconsulting.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com, the chrisvossshow.com. Welcome big show my family and friends we really appreciate you guys coming by i don't know uh where i put the uh sound bite for the clapping but thank you thank

you thank you everyone sit down shut up uh thanks for coming by the show folks we've got some uh amazing uh brilliant minds on the show and none of them are me that's why you have guests on the show after 14 years i ran an iq points i don't know like about five or ten years ago uh by the way we're pumping out two to three podcasts a day simon schuster and penguin random house are killing my schedule because they decided they wanted to auto book all their brilliant authors on the show and i went oh sure that seemed like a good idea at the time. And now I'm contractually obligated to it. There's no contract. Um,

but, uh, uh, there's a lot of shows and if you're not listening to them, I want you to lose sleep at night in guilt over the fact that listen to all the shows. I'm just kidding. You can do whatever the hell you want.

It's it's a, but if you're not listening to shows, you're losing out. You're just losing out in your life. You're going to get to the end of your life and be like, you know, one of the things I regret is not listening to more shows than the Chris Voss show. And in the meantime, too, refer the show to your family, friends,

and relatives. The stuff I make up at the beginning of the show on The Ramble. Refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives because that's the other regret you'll have when you're on your deathbed. Don't, don't go to your deathbed. Just avoid that place. Uh, but, uh, send them to youtube.com for just Christmas. Goodreads.com for just Christmas.

LinkedIn.com for just Christmas. The big LinkedIn newsletter. That thing is huge over there. It grows like a, uh, grows like a weed. Only it's smarter than a weed. I don't know what's smarter than a weed. I don't know. It's not a politician. Uh, anyway, check that out that out in TikTok. We're trying to be cool over there as

well. He is an amazing gentleman. He has come by the show with us today to talk about everything he does and how he does it. Ken Paskins is on the show with us today. He is the founder of GCE, Strategic Consulting and the Shift Spot. He's an accomplished CEO and COO of an executive coach as well. He brings a broad range of leadership experience, including operations, sales, acquisitions, strategic planning, and P&L. I believe that stands for profit and loss management. That's correct. Up to five. See, I may have flunked

second grade, but I do know what a P&L is. I've seen it, and it has seen me. Well, leading teams north of 400 people across North America and Europe for Fortune 100 companies, such as Oracle. He was raised in Noblesville, Indianaiana we won't hold it against him and i i'm sure noblesville indiana is a wonderful place i'm just kidding around people don't write me and he's a graduate of purdue university uh can grow up in a hope and pray entrepreneurial family meaning this family lived in uh either a boom or a bus state depending upon

which idea made it and which one ended up with the lights being turned off. We'll have to find out more about what that's about. He watched his father and grandfather try to make business work while trying to learn on the job and not having experience, needing to truly know how to run a successful business. This is interesting. Sounds like my father. So he decided there must be a better way and worked his way up the corporate ladder and skills needed to run a business in the right way. Wait, is there anything in Indiana other than corn? Welcome to the show, Ken. How are you?

Doing well, Chris. Thanks so much. And by the way, there's not. Good, good. That's my thought. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and no slight to the cornfields because I love corn. I love my favorite My favorite corn being made

is Mexican lote. I've got a lote. Oh, dude, you've got to have a lote. Oh, boy, that's good. They basically take an ear of corn, they cook it, they butter it, and they smear it with mayonnaise and parmesan, and then they sprinkle

some hot Mexican stuff. I might have to break for a meal, you know, some hot Mexican stuff. I might have to break for a meal. I know what it is, actually. I just didn't know the name. Yeah, anything you smear with mayonnaise and Parmesan probably is going to be a good thing. Yeah, yeah. So there you go.

So, Ken, give us your.com so people can find you on the internet. Yeah, theshiftspot.com, and you can come check me out at the shift spot.com forward slash kin as well there you go so uh give us a little bit of an overview a 30,000 foot view on what you do and how you do it yeah so i mean it really started uh go back to my childhood a little bit is what really kind of started my career trajectory and why i do what i do today so that's usually where everything starts too. Yeah, it does. Fortunately or unfortunately. Right. So, um, you know, literally Chris, I mean, you talk about the cornfields. I started working in the darn cornfields in Indiana when I was eight years old and that breaks every labor law, but there is, but when you're bored and you

want money and your dad knows a bunch of farmers, you work in the cornfields, right? There you go. So I grew up, you know, with a strong work ethic and I grew up, you know, with my parents putting all their money on either red 32 and saw a lot of boom and bust and saw them make some big mistakes. And, you know, I remember as a kid going to bail and, you know, wear my little clip on tie and everything and eat lobster and life was great. And then literally, Chris, you look roughly my age. I'm not going to say that's good or bad. 36? Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Do you remember the restaurant by the name of Chi-Chi's, by chance? I think I do, yeah. Yeah, yeah. My dad owned a Mexican restaurant called Pancho Villa. Did you have a lot there? Yeah, Chi-Chi's moves in, puts my dad out of business. Oh, wow. So I remember my mom coming in and borrowing some money from me.

And I remember. Wait, your mom borrowed money from you? She came and took me to the bank. I had to withdraw some money. Wow. So we could go pay the phone bill. Right. Wow.

So I saw a lot of ups and downs. And previous three generations were entrepreneurs. And I decided I wanted to do something different. So I went to corporate America to start. There you go. And kind of learned there. And now you're an entrepreneur. Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, yeah. That's correct. Yeah. See, that's where you came full circle. Well, it sounds like your father and your grandfather, according to your bio, try to make business work and it just wasn't working for him. Did you kind of learn from maybe some of the mistakes or things that we're doing? I, I, I did my, my father, he was one of those individuals that first of all, overly trusted

everyone and that's not going to work. Yeah. And he made a lot of, now, fortunately, he's turned out. I finally raised him right. He's grown up and everything now. Does he pay you for consulting? No, he's done very well. I mean, unfortunately, more of those bets have paid off than failure, right?

But, you know, he made a lot of mistakes, right. And, and you may or may not know it, but 50% of CEOs and business owners actually learn in their company teaching themselves. Right. And my dad was one of those. So he taught himself everything about leadership, everything about finance, everything about operations. And, and you think about it, I mean, that that's one of the reasons why 50 percent of businesses fail after five years is a lot of people actually teach themselves yeah i mean i i i uh i i i tried teaching myself through second grade and failed yeah great callback joke i love it um there's somebody i'm sure in the audience going he failed second grade um why are we

listening to this idiot um because we have great guests on the show really smart see how that works yeah um so uh you know the other thing about entrepreneurs and this is an important entrepreneur discussion is you fail a lot yeah like my first company was success by mistake partially because i learned the work from my father helping him in the summers in the stucco business for subcontracting so that was that was a trade uh that you know it was hard to fail on yeah until winter came and then i found out cement doesn't mix well in winter and stick the walls very well yeah um by the way it's my fiance's name oh there you go there you go uh and uh but there was a series of you know uh test runs that i did once i got the entrepreneur bug and and a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs go through that cycle of failing and learning and failing and then and then if you're lucky you

know some one of these days that ball you keep swinging for the fences and that ball connects with the baseball bat and you hit a home run. Right, right. Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, when they fail, they just need to keep swinging for the fence and educate yourself and get better and stuff like that. Yeah. So it sounds like you went to the corporate side. You mentioned companies like Oracle. And what was your

origin story your journey through through that yeah it's a great question so my my career actually started to take off believe it or not right at 9-11 oh really yeah so um the only trophy i've ever kept my entire life and i have it here just to show you. So it's a giant bat. It's the biggest deal ever. And it was closed November 2001. And I was with a software company by the name of BEA Systems and they closed a $40 million software deal with Quest Communications.

I was young at that point. I was in my late 20s and I was very cocky, as you can imagine. Wait, you're 36 now, you said? Yeah, exactly. Chris, come on, don't call me out on my age. Maybe I said that. We both screwed that up. But I wasn't humble and it was a billion dollar publicly traded software company and I demanded that they put me in their executive track and they did. And I was the only bag carrying sales guy in their executive track and they

invested in me. So I rose through the ranks there and then went over, you know, worked at some other big software companies, like you said, Oracle. And, and I was groomed and learned a lot of, you know, from some of the best out there. So they wouldn't go make the same mistakes that my father did, but that was my trajectory. There you go. And it's good to learn the business side of things. You know, you get that kind of MBA sort of experience or get it from college and stuff like that. And, you know, my, my father was, I often say about my father, I love my father and he did the best he could, but, uh, he was a very trusting man, he also uh he he kind of wanted he had a get rich quick uh schemes that he adopted very early on the late 760s and uh silver and coins and you know it i remember going through and but he had a lot of great stuff in his library but i had to

manage it but he he would get involved with these MLMs, and everything was about, you know, in three months, Chris, I'll be able to retire. I'll have to write again. I saw that too as a kid. That's tough. Did you? Did you? Yeah.

Yeah. And it was hard. You know, at one point I said to him, you know, we were living in Utah at the time, and I said to him, I says, you know, you've joined so many MLMs and cycled out of them that I think at this point, anytime someone has to start a new MLM, they have to appoint you, you know, some sort of honorary directorship. Yeah. Because you've been in every one that's known to man. Yeah. I think he rejoined Amway back and forth two or three times.

And what it taught me by antithesis was do the work, man. Do the hard work. Do the long haul. Don't try and get rich quick. And I still failed. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

I grew up in that similar environment. My parents were always looking for that get rich quick and put all the money on and take these big gambles. And like I said, fortunately, later on in life, I was scared to death they would have to come live with me, and it paid off. But they made a lot of mistakes. Yeah, and I think learning the corporate road and the long ball uh is is really important i mean it was it was always you know i would every two weeks it was like hey i just joined another mlm like didn't you you didn't get the last one distance uh i'm telling you this one it's gonna work but this one you don't know man this one's the one yeah yeah yeah i get that when i live in vegas with

the gamblers they're like no i have the right this math thing's gonna work so i just need to loan me a grand and i'm gonna make a million like you said that last time yeah so uh but yeah this this importance of being an entrepreneur and seeing the long ball yeah and just do the freaking work uh can make all the difference. So how did you cycle out of that and end up doing what you're doing now? Yeah. So right after corporate, I dropped out. I mean, literally, I was traveling 150,000 miles a year, sat down with my admin and she's like, Ken, you're busy because you have 52 pre-planned hours of meetings every single week. Okay. You know, without fires and other stuff. And I figured I did not want to

do that anymore. So for some time, I formed a consulting firm, which you mentioned earlier, but for some time, I was a fractional CEO, COO, and a fixer, as people call them. And business owners would hire me when they just they, they were stuck, they didn't know what was how to get to the next level hey i'm at 10 million can't break it i'm at 20 million can't break it i continually turn over my staff and i can't figure it out so they'd hire me to come in and fix those problems and i did that for some time and quite honestly i wanted i wanted to be able to impact more and help more and thus form this community called the shift spot so where

where business owners come together in a coaching and peer advisory community to make radical shifts in their life in their business there you go so what is what is the key word there the shift spot yeah what does that mean and what does it mean to you and why do you think that's uh really important yeah like yeah yeah i'm i'm not a marketer so my other business gce stands for gabriel chloe and emma my three daughters but uh and i formed that one and started that brilliant so not a brilliant marketing mind at all no but it's an honor to your daughter it's an honor to my daughters yes they're going to sell it off anyway you know they want nothing to do with it chris you know kids are but uh the shift spot you know my partner came up with that name and it was meant to be for hey where do business owners go to make those shifts hey i'm i'm stuck

where do i make those changes there you go that's that's it there you go so how to shift your perception how to shift your uh your thinking maybe your strategy for business that is correct so so it it's a community right and we believe that community help helps you navigate rapid change build best practices pursue results and transformation and we work in all the basic business areas, such as leadership and management, people issues or human capital, systems and process finance. And, you know, one of the things that we do is very unique compared to anything else out there is we have this element of balance, because we believe to be the best owner and CEO out there, you got to have balance, you got to have the right mind,

the right body, the right soul and everything, and be good with yourself to be able to really achieve your vision. Really? A good soul? Maybe not a good soul all the time. I sold mine a long time ago, man. That's how I got all these companies. There you go. I sold my soul, man. But no, it's good to have a soul because if you're going to be a good leader, you've got to have good morals and different things along those lines. So you've built a community here. I noticed Explorer membership is on the website. Become a member. Tell us about – there's one thing I want to touch on.

Sure. You mentioned you save companies from whatever they're stuck on. Yeah. One of the things – I talked about this in my book is one of the things i did was i would go in and uh we'd we'd offer loans to companies that were in trouble and needed and usually facing bankruptcy um and then we go in and assess them and see if we could white knight them or fold them into what we had and the one thing that was always interesting to me was I would meet with business owners and they were clearly, you know, heading right for bankruptcy and they couldn't really see

it, but they could cause they were running out of funds. Right. But I would just be able to look at them and go, you're six to nine months, three months away from hitting the wall and you're burning fast. Right. And so, you know, usually the problem was, was the wall. Yeah. And you're burning fast. Right. And so, you know, usually the problem was the entrepreneur. Yeah. It typically is, unfortunately.

Right. I mean, it is. And when I've gotten engaged with businesses all the time, fortunately, the first step to working with us is you got to accept you have a problem. And you want to make a change, right? And, you know, most of the times they will say, if I'm the problem, let me know. But you're right though, Chris. Yeah.

That's what they also tell me, excepting I have a problem with the methadone clinic. Don't take methadone or heroin, people. But no, and the funny thing was is you talk to them and you go, hey, look, we can take over your company. We'll give you some walking money, but you're the problem. And then half your family is working here. Right, right. And I've seen that movie. But you got to go because you need to go to McDonald's or go someplace where someone can tell you what to do for a while because you don't get it.

And what was interesting to me is they always would have this model of their whatever their business model was and sometimes that model had worked sometimes it had worked for five years three years and then all of a sudden start working because the market changes happen and then other times you know they just had plenty of money so they're just burning through money until right but trying to get them to shift as your company is called their thinking and that model was like pulling teeth yeah and they would drive that mother into the ground and i would give them a first right of refusal thanks if they wouldn't let us take them more because sometimes the bad part was sometimes they get excited be like well if well, if this kid, he'd see something good. There must be something here.

Yeah. There's not. Cause the problem is you. Right. And I, I would tell it to people. I was really mean at getting across to him. Cause I was trying to save him.

Exactly. I'm going to save your marriage, your credit. I'm going to save all this shit for you. Right. And, uh, yeah,

it's painful. You got to give up on your dream, but you suck at this dream. Yep. And, uh, and so they would, and I'd be like, don't call me a week before bankruptcy. Don't do it. You need to do it now. Don't call me a week before bankruptcy.

You know, when they always called bankruptcy. Yeah. Chris, you got any money? And I'm like, let me guess. You kept running that same model. So I like the term of your company shift because you really have to shift your mindset let's get into the membership portion how does that work at your guys's thing what's the membership like there in this peer advisory

community yeah so i mean the the onboarding process we'll call it, is first of all, you do a thing that we call a gap analysis, right? And actually, I want to offer this up to your listeners as well as a free thing that is, honestly, it's a $5,000 value. And it creates a lot of work on us, to be quite honest, but it'll give you a taste. And if they go to the shift spot forward slash gap and put in boss, you can fill it out. And basically, you know, it helps, they fill out this questionnaire and it goes for sales and IT and marketing and operations and, you know,

human capital systems and process, all this stuff, right? And it's wonderful because it gives them insights into the areas that they're stuck in and the areas of opportunity to improve on. Right. So that they can start to focus on those things and scale their company. So that that is a very first step in the program. Then they're assigned an accountability coach. Right. The accountability coach works with them on a weekly basis right and then they just drop into the we have 144 events through the year right uh they drop in and some of those events are you know an issues resolution event and if you can kind of envision a bunch of

ceos sitting around and they they have an issue right a top issue top issue, like, hey, I've got to fire my CFO, and I've never fired a critical person like that. We'll help them come up with a solution that's professionally facilitated. Yeah. You can call me. I'll just show up with that baseball bat. I think passing second grade is a requirement, though, Chris. Oh, okay.

I see. Yeah, but every month we drop in an expert as well around human capital, marketing, or finance. Our goal is to surround them with peers and experts to help them break through, get past

things, and get to the next level. Do most people in your community are entrepreneurs or they work for big companies and stuff? This is purely for CEOs, business owners. Our sweet spot is 100 employees and below. And it's generally a CEO that has 10 years or less of experience. So they've got a good model, but they know something's missing and they don't know what it is and they

need some help. Jeez. I wish I would've had you guys, um, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Seriously though. I mean like,

you know, one of my problems back in the day with brick and mortar businesses is, you know, about the only person you could go to for advice was attorneys. Yeah. Uh, and they're expensive. Yeah.

I've seen that movie. And usually they're pretty smart, but even then they usually weren't entrepreneurs. And back in brick and mortar days, I mean, you know, you went to see them CEO. You're like,

Hey, can you help me? They're like, you know, off with that. I don't need any more competitors. Yeah. And you know,

pretty much my friends, we just surround ourselves with employees. And one of the things I talked about in my book was about how I created the virtual board after my business partner left of 22 years. And, and, uh, so this is kind of like a virtual board as it were, where only you have smart people on it instead of me you know it's like a great it's it's a little similar right so i really i looked at all the different ways out there that that owners can get help and one of those would be hiring a an expensive fractional guy like i used to do right and to drop in another is a coach another is a board of advisors right uh You know, there's all different ways, right? But our idea was to basically surround them with the experts and meet them where they are, wherever in their journey, right? And allow them to access the information, jump in, get as deeply engaged as they want. So I think it's definitely, you know, it's much more than a board can offer because of, you know, how we surround them.

Yeah. Plus the board is going to vote you and kick you out of the session. There you go. So there's that. They're just advisors and they don't have voting chairs. There you go. You don't want to give up. That's one of the reasons I created the virtual board. But yeah, and the biggest problem is having that mind meld, that mind treasure,

resource, whatever you want to call it, to be able to delve and be able to call on your problems. Like you say, hey, how do I deal with this issue? Some things. And a lot of, you know, that's one of the challenges of building successful organizations, especially if they scale, is you you're gonna have all sorts of different things like I remember the first time my vice president walked in my office said we got our first sexual harassment issue got to deal with and I'm like I like who is it he named two of our male employees yeah I was like I was like wait I was expecting this to be like a female male thing,

but we have one of our LGBTQ employees and another gentleman wasn't getting along for reasons outside the business. But that was our first thing. And we were just like, how do we do with this? Like, I didn't see this one coming. I wasn't talk this. No, I,

I know how to do the other thing, but, uh, I did not, this was not in the movie. Uh, you know, pick your movie.

I think there was an old Michael Douglas movie back then about sexual harassment or something in the 90s. I know what you're talking about and I can't place it, but yeah. Yeah. I, that's what I thought it would be. I'm like, yeah,

it's going to be some guy who says some stupid shit to him and but no it was two guys there was lots of events through the thing so being able to have access to this the accountability guide is a big thing too having people that you can help be accountable is really important

and I found out the hard way that just owing money to the mob is not a good accountability guide uh monsters all right yeah so don't do that people um i'm still trying to get my left leg to work right um where did that joke come from i have no idea i don't know that's that's the beauty of the show we just make shit up as we go along i mean i mean i flunked third grade too but don't tell anyone. Yeah, it was kindergarten as well, but no one likes that joke.

I don't know why. I think everyone's offended by the kindergarten. I like the kindergarten one. I do, too, but I got to vote. I'm scarred from kindergarten, though, so don't ask me why. I had a really nice kindergarten teacher. She was like a second mother, yeah and uh and then all the other ones hated me yeah i mean seriously i can't blame him but accountability guides are really

important uh i use those for my book and uh and that's how i got done actually it was you know i was competing with other people and having those other people that can kind of help you push you to your limits they're like a coach. They're like that military sergeant, you know, who barks at you every now and then, you know, and tells you to. You think about it. Every pro out there, right? I mean, look at Tom Brady. I don't care what you think about Tom Brady.

I'm not a Tom Brady fan. But he has people surrounding him to make him better. That's true. I mean, there's not a seasoned professional out there and no matter what you do, that doesn't do that. So, so. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, except for Giselle, I guess. That's a Tom Brady joke there. Yeah. Welcome to the show folks. The,

that, that turned out bad, but no, I mean, every, every high performance coach needs somebody to motivate them and keep them interested. I remember, I can't remember who the jazz coach was, but I was 12 years old and I delivered these coupon papers. It was one of my first big jobs other than mowing lawns.

And I forget who it was of the Utah Jazz. I don't think it was Sloan, but it was one of the Utah Jazz coaches. I think it was before that. And he came to us and he talked to us about being a coach. And he says, you know, the funniest thing about a coach is these guys get paid millions and millions of dollars.

And you would think that that would just automatically motivate them, right? They'd just be like, yeah, I get $50 million this year. I'm motivated. He's like, no. He goes, no, you've got to go out and you've got to coach them and you've got to consult with them and you've got to motivate them and you've got to help them be

better players. Can you imagine being the coach for Michael Jordan? No, I couldn't imagine that one. Great movie, by the way, if you haven't seen that. I know there's a true story. I never saw seen that so i i know there's a true story i never saw the movie but i know there's a true story where i think it was the the famous lakers coach was with him and i believe he was with the bulls uh maybe it was the bulls um coach and he's

with them at the olympics and michael jordan goes out like the first half and scores like a billion points yeah like some unreal number of points and he's like what do you tell michael jordan to go next level for the next quarter you know half two billion yeah and he's like he went in and told michael he's like you need to pass the ball more michael's like yeah whatever yeah but you know you've you've got to have that so that's really important to people um and i guess can they network inside of the community and stuff? Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's an online virtual community, right? Fill out their profile. Uh, they can connect with if you're an attorney or a CPA, or it doesn't matter, connect with folks that are, are in your industry as well and share best

practices. So that's all there too. There you go. There you go. And you said that the link for the Voss stuff was on GAP, G-A-P? So the shift spot forward slash GAP, and then just use the code VOSS to get access to it. And they fill it out and then we'll give them some input and, hey, here's some holes in your business, right? By the way, you have no financial controls. By the way, you're misclassifying all of your employees. You're going to get sued because you're in California. So we'll give them some clarity and help them understand some of the areas of opportunity.

There you go. I love that. A $5,000 value, folks. Free gap analysis. You can figure out how to fix your business faster, scale with ease. It shows your blind spots in half the time. Some people call those scotomas. The blind spots. That was the biggest challenge I had with my business. I'd be like, where are my blind spots? They're like, right behind you.

Yeah. And it's easier for others to see it you know it is right so it's easy for all of us to point and go did you see this no i didn't thanks right yeah because you're so immersed in it and you know you're living it 24 7 and then of course you're surrounded by fires and yeah and all the other you know things you're going to have to deal with on a daily basis. My CEO used to be an incredible innovator. And he taught me a very simple kind of mindset way of looking at things and thinking outside the box, which is a big deal for me. And we would be working on something for like two or three weeks or sometimes months trying to figure out whatever project you want us to build and try and get it to work right and we'd just be like just mucking through it and trying to you know just when we couldn't work we were running

experiments of course ab testing abcdfg all the way through pretty much testing yeah and he would walk into our damn office and i'd want to murder him not for walking in the office what do you do next uh but uh and he would we'd he'd be like how's it going with the little project there eh and we'd be like yeah we're just trying to resolve these and here's uh so let me see what you're doing uh you're doing this you know he goes uh yeah you need to do that right there and that that'll fix it, and then it'll work. And then he'd just leave smugly. We'd just be like, damn you. We've been here for months, and you just walk in and know what we're doing?

Yeah, it's a difference of working in the business versus on the business and elevating yourself and seeing the force of the truth. There you go. Work in the business or work on the business or do both actually probably yeah but yeah having that second uh pair of eyes you know i i used to walk around my employees and be like you know what am i missing what are what what how what haven't i seen you know right uh i learned i learned very early on yeah through a lot of money that I am not the arbiter of every great idea and business concept.

In fact, I flunked second grade. I forgot. Where'd you hear that? I forget. It's probably somewhere. It's probably on Google. In fact, that's the title of my next book. He flunked second grade. That might be a great book next book. He flunked second grade.

Actually, that might, that might, people would be like, let's read what this idiot has. It's kind of like 14 years of the show. Yeah. So what have we talked about that you guys do over there at the shift spot?

And what have we covered? Well, I mean, we've, we've covered a great deal. I mean, so it, you know,

the community, the experts are coaching the accountability, the, the, the gap, I mean, we've covered a great deal. I mean, so it, you know, the community, the experts, the coaching, the accountability, the gap, you know, we could talk about some of the success stories if you want, but take any angle you want, Chris. Sure. Let's touch on these events you guys do. Let's fill that in a little bit. Yeah. Looks like you guys have some upcoming events and and they're targeted towards certain aspects of your business yeah yeah that's correct so every month uh as i'd say we've got a targeted area and we'll work on it so for example in may was marketing right and you know that marketing

is really tough as a matter of fact it's a thing that i think honestly owners hate the most because it's so tough to put accountability in marketers sometimes to be quite honest you know it's a thing that I think, honestly, owners hate the most because it's so tough to put accountability on marketers sometimes, to be quite honest. You know, it's like, what's my return? You know, but anyways, we had this great CMO come in and created the Jingle 1877 Cash Now. Do you know that? Oh, yeah. So he was a marketing expert and walked the community through, here's all the ways to make investments. Here's how to get your return. Here's actually how to change your brand,

how to attract new employees and things of that nature. And then next month is going to be human capital. And every month there's just, there's a concentrated effort and focus on that. So you have the other events piled in to help you from an accountability perspective, solving your problems and your issues. But every month is focused on some of the core areas, finance, human capital, sales, marketing, operations and systems to help basically just surround the owner and the CEO

to help elevate them so that they can achieve their vision. There you go. There you go. Now, one of the things you noted here is why do you believe 50% of companies fail after year five? I'm really curious about that. Yeah. I mean, I have some thoughts. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's honestly, you go back to my conversation with my father, right, earlier, right? You look at 50% of all owners actually learn on the job, right? So I've got, the stories I've got, Chris, are amazing. So I spoke to these two VAs recently. They're looking to join the community.

And one started in sales, and the other started as a virtual assistant, and they've got a $2 million company and they're, but their hair is on fire, right? And the things you hear is like, our people are a bunch of babies. We don't understand our finances. We don't understand how to automate things. We don't know how to fix these things. And we're thinking of just quitting, right? And bagging it, right? So, but they're teaching themselves on the job like my dad did, right? So they're teaching themselves all this stuff, which is complicated, right?

And I'll be honest, I think that a lot of times that's why companies end up failing, right? Because you're learning. You don't, a lot of times they don't understand how to failing right because you're learning you you don't a lot of times they don't understand how to make those shifts or make those adjustments so we believe that you know with a community like ours that we can help you punch through that five-year plan there you go uh what are some of the same repetitive problems that you see most companies below 100 people have other than you getting to the five-year mark and failing yeah and I'm sure I'm sure with your experiences they're the exact same thing but honestly not

knowing how to hire correctly oh bringing in the wrong talent retaining people too long yeah um throwing bodies at problems rather than systemizing and putting you know operations and systems in place I got in trouble just for throwing bodies. There you go. There you go. That goes back to the sexual harassment thing. I can't do that anymore. Yeah. But, and honestly,

I mean, a lot of owners making decisions on emotions and gut versus facts and data. That's, that's a big thing, but they're, they're just there. I don't, I mean,

look, I've worked while I've been in a fractional HVAC, mechanical they're, they're just, they're, I don't, I mean, look, I've worked while I've been in a fractional role, HVAC, mechanical, uh, CPAs, law firms, SAS business, online, you name it. And it doesn't matter what industry it is. They're all the same movies that play over and over again. And painfully, if we put ourselves around the right people and get the right help, we can avoid some of those nightmares. There you go. Yeah. That was our thing in business. Our business contracts started from one sheet to being like these, these manuals that were starting to get corporate level and, uh, hiring was, was a big thing that we were making mistakes on. You cited, you know, holding onto people too long. That was another big thing that we were making mistakes on. You cited holding onto people too long.

That was another big thing that we were bad at. We're like, well, we don't want to fire them because that's mean. And then I just learned to enjoy firing people that were bad people at their jobs. I don't like firing people that they've done their job and maybe economies, whatever. If you hold onto somebody too long, you're hurting your other employees. That's what people get. Especially if they're toxic. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, you've got to focus on the greater good. And if you're keeping an employee that brings down the rest of the staff, are you really serving your clients, your company, and your employees? You're probably not. Plus, it's fun to fire toxic people too as well. Toxic people deserve it. They do. They do.

I mean, usually they're bringing everybody down. They're what we used to call in the day tubing everybody. They're bringing them down, depressing everybody, spreading a lot of rumor and innuendo. They just ruin everybody's dream. But hiring well is, God, one of the most important things I ever found. We went to three and four interviews and different people interviewing

and teaching my people to shut up and not sell the job and just listen to what the person says. Don't sell the job. Yeah, don't sell the job. The job sells itself. But shutting up and listening to people, I mean, we would have people by the third interview, they would show up in their pajamas and

flip-flops and have their feet up on the thing they'd be telling us about their prison stories and shit and we're just like wow you've gotten really comfortable thinking you have this job at a third or fourth thing and yeah you just told us everything that uh we missed yeah yeah and uh yeah so hiring well I mean that just, we had, we, we would have so many problems with toxic employees. And then once we started,

you know, just putting in the work up front, just saved us such a nightmare on the back. But, uh, you know, it's one of those things that you just, you learn the hard way,

sadly. And so by having stuff like with what you're doing with your community and stuff makes a difference. Uh, let's get a plug in here. You got a free ebook as well. People like free stuff. So yeah, yeah.

Check out the chefspot.com and we've got an ebook on there, how to scale with ease. And it gets a lot of tips and tricks and things that I've picked up over the decades and things that we talk about within the community as well. But download that as well. And obviously download and check out the gap to get some advice. So, and that gap is something that I use for extensive engagements when I was a fractional CEO, COO, when I would start out there. So we'll offer that up to your, your listeners. Yeah. Check that out guys. You know, any more advice, any advice you can get for yourself to go to the next level and avoid the

pitfalls. That's one of the reasons you hire a coach too. He's like, hey, you're going to fall in that pit if you do what you're doing or you keep doing what you're doing. It's going to be bad. It's going to hurt. You're like, hey, that's a good idea. We should avoid that. Hiring people that have more experience and can see things before you can make all the difference. Anything, Ken, more that we can touch on or tease out that you want to do? Well, you know, one thing, I mean, you just hit something right there, actually.

A lot of times, look, I don't know if a lot of CEOs and owners know that their staff tells them what they want to hear, what they need to hear as well. So joining with something like us and hearing that transparency and getting that direct feedback is of extreme value, right, to course correct. And I don't think a lot of us surround ourselves and take advantage of those sort of things. But you got to. You got to have somebody that's going to call you out. Yeah. And that's the nice thing.

I mean, the people in your community don't have to kiss the person's butt. You can be straight with them, be honest with them, and give them the hard truth. I learned that with my last CEO that I had worked with before I really started hitting home runs for companies. And I said to him, I said, you know, the one guy on the board, we'll just call him Bob because that's the callback we always use. I'm like, Bob is always like negative. He's a negative Nancy. He's always like, you know, whatever the idea is, Bob is like really, you know, he's really just ruining everyone's vibe. And he's always like, you know, you guarantee whatever would work.

You're like, well, we're going to go to right. Bob's going to choose left. Right, right. And I said that with my CEO friend, and I said, what's with Bob, man? Can't we just get rid of Bob? And he goes, Chris, you got to have somebody on your board that doesn't kiss your ass that isn't a yes man don't surround yourself with yes man because that when bob's bob's wrong a lot of times because he's just a negative nancy but when bob's on and he's right you're gonna save millions of

dollars yeah yeah yeah but look it can, you know this. It can be lonely at the top, man. You need friends at the top to help you persevere and get to where you need to go. Well, that's probably my problem. No one likes me. So I don't have any friends. There you go.

Even my dogs like, seriously. We're over you, man. Well, this has been a great, fun conversation, Ken. Give us your.com so we can find you on the interweb, just please. Yeah, the shiftspot.com, really simple. And you can find all of our handles and everything right there. And like I said, the shiftspot.com forward slash gap for your listeners and use the code advice and fill that out. And we'll give you some insights so you can get

crystal clarity in some of the areas of opportunity to improve on. There you go. And there'll be a link for that on the Chris Voss show with some advisory. So if you lose track of that, folks, go look it up. Well, thank you very much, Ken, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Likewise. Appreciate it. All right. There you go. Thank you. All right. Sounds good. And to my audience,

thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreese.com, Fortress Chris Voss, youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss,reese.com, FortressCruzFoss, youtube.com, FortressCruzFoss, linkedin.com, FortressCruzFoss. All those great places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.