Author: Jeffrey Hayzlett

You always hear about business being an ‘old boys club.’ While that is changing, it is still the case in venture capital.  

While the number of women-led venture funds grew 15x in the last decade, women-run just 5.6 percent of funds in the U.S., according to a 2020 study from Women in VC. You don’t have to be a math major to see the discrepancy in the numbers. 

“I think it’s a big issue,” Gayatri Sakar said. “All this old finance, even the venture capital money, they’re basically a broke(n) club, and they are guarded by males. So, we want more women to be a part of this venture capital private equity communities so that we can bring much more opportunity for amazing talented women.” 

Gayatri runs She-VC, a fund that bills itself as a “story-telling platform of women and diverse GPs (General Partners) (and) LPs (Limited Partners).” 

Statistics like the ones she mentioned above were just a few of the insights she made during a recent C-Suite Network private community event.  

Women are not only in the minority running VC firms. Gayatri says women with business ideas don’t have a lot of luck when it comes to funding. She says it’s a symptom of the current climate. 

“I think one of the biggest issues is that there are not many women who are writing checks. So, it kind of starts from there,” Gayatri said. “When you see there are not many women who are running funds, there are not many women who are decision-makers. That’s when you find that it is much more difficult to bring capital allocation to women-run businesses if you’re carrying your idea about certain women-related products in a group of men, they don’t understand it.” 

Baked in Biases of Pitching 

While Gayatri outlined many of the obstacles women face in the VC industry during our conversation, one that blew me away was the biases of the representatives in the room when the hopefuls are pitching. She says women can have the best slide deck in the world, but that doesn’t earn them the respect they deserve.  

“I’ve heard from my friends when they’re going and pitching, to their LPs or to their investors, and these are women who have run amazing businesses, they started their own funds,” Gayatri said. “The LPs are not taking them seriously. They’re thinking, ‘Oh, you must be an assistant to the partner,’ and they’re like ‘No, I’m the boss, this is my fund.’ There is a shift. Not just changing the mindset, but there’s a there’s a big paradigm shift that is required to understand that we need to stop judging women based on their performances because men have been judged by their potential.” 

There’s another bias Gayatri says that not only happens in the VC pitch rooms but in business overall that she says create a double standard. 

“We need to stop judging what’s going to happen to your fund or what’s going to happen to your business if you have a kid (or) are a single woman who’s going to get married. You are not asking those questions to a man,” she said. 

It’s easy to categorize those types of questions as sexist, but those questions aren’t always from men, Gayatri says. Women entrepreneurs can also be guilty of asking those questions. She believes this type of questioning, while well-intended, are holding society back and stopping it from making progress. 

“I think that is where we think that we can do better if we can show that these are the amazing women, who have been working non-stop being whether they’re orphaned at birth or being a single mother, and they’re still pushing the barriers,”  emphasized. “You have to believe in them. You have to take a chance on (them). Once you take a chance, they can prove themselves.” 

Be a Mentor 

One of the ways Gayatri says women can help each other out is through mentoring. I like to say that if you make it to the top, be sure to send the elevator back down, and she agrees, but she holds everyone accountable. 

“I think people don’t do a good job in mentorship. I have always seen that men, white guys, they want to mentor another white guy, that’s not helping bring much more diversity (to) your mentorship table,” Gayatri said. “It’s also a situation where I think people have to bring themselves out of their comfort zone because they’re not just taking a chance on a female entrepreneur or a diverse entrepreneur, they’re taking a chance on themselves.” 

Redefining Diversity 

While our society wrestles with diversity overall, the business world is no different. With this in mind, Gayatri has a challenge for corporate America. 

“Diversity has always been a part of philanthropy or an extension of philanthropy, and that’s a big problem, (diversity) is a mainstream issue. You cannot just put it as a part of philanthropy or charity that can fix it,” Gayatri says. “This has to be fixed through capital allocation. That’s the only way. You cannot fix it through throw(ing) some money at the charity, and that can be done. This was the biggest problem when the COVID-19 situation happened. What happened is that a lot of the diversity programs got canceled because they did not have enough money.” 

Gayatri also points out VCs will generally send women looking for venture capital to the diversity team, which aren’t always the best-funded, equaling less money for women. She points out it’s just another example of the inequities in the current VC system. 

My conversation with Gayatri was eye-opening, and her insight were certainly a reality check for the good old boy’s club. If you’d like to hear more from her, listen to the full discussion here. That’s just a sample of our conversation.

If you’d like to be a part of the complete discussion, consider joining the C-Suite Network. For less than the cost of a business lunch a month, the C-Suite Network gives you access to an exclusive community of leaders and provide you with the content you need to become the most strategic person in any room. Click here to learn more.  

Anyone who listens to business podcasts has likely heard of John Lee Dumas. JLD, as he’s known, hosts Entrepreneurs on Fire, one of the top podcasts in the category.  

Before podcasting, John Lee Dumas was a tank commander in the U.S. Army, serving time in Iraq and Kuwait. 

“We called it riding the thunderbolt,” JLD recalled. “When you stand up out of the turret, and you fire the actual weapon, it feels like you got punched in the face. Your eyes start streaming, but you’re just like, ‘Wow. That was real.’” 

After his stint in the military, JLD may have felt the business world was punching him in the face. He tried many career paths, including financial services, real estate, even law school. None of them stuck. During that time, he listened to many business podcasts but couldn’t find a daily show that focused on conversations with business leaders.  

So, he started one himself. And “Entrepreneurs on Fire” was born. 

Niche your way to the top 

With more than 2 million shows listed on Apple Podcasts, you might think it’s hard to stand out. At C-Suite Radio, we believe you need to forget the old media model of casting a big net to the broadest audience. Business is constantly changing and doing things a certain way, just because that’s how it was done in the past is a fast ticket to obscurity. Our team believes there are riches in the niches and JLD agrees. 

“One of the biggest things I say when people start their business is, ‘hey, you gotta decide what’s your big idea. Then within that, discover the niche within that big idea that’s not being served.’ You may need to niche down and niche down again until you look around and you’re saying, ‘you know what? There’s either weak competition here, or there’s no competition,’ and dominate that niche,” JLD said. 

He continued, “I always ask people all the time, ‘so what problem is your podcast solving?’ and they have some vague ‘it’s solving the lack of inspiration in the world’ it’s like ‘no, everybody can do that.’ I want you to have the best solution to one specific problem, a real pain point than you could win.”   

A Steady Pace Wins the Podcast Race 

While John Lee Dumas is widely known by his initials, it didn’t start that way. He was just a guy with a podcast.  

“In the podcast world, the online business world, now (JLD) means something. I didn’t eight years ago, six years ago,” he remembers. 

Remember, JLD says he started out by filling a niche because he couldn’t find a daily leadership business podcast.  

“I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to follow Gandhi’s advice and be the change you wish to see in the world.’ That day I decided I’m going to launch the first daily podcast interviewing successful entrepreneurs,” JLD remembers. “That day that I launched, I was the best business podcasting interviewing entrepreneurs seven days a week. I was the worst daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. I was the only game in town.” 

His story runs against conventional podcast wisdom.  

While headlines focus on all the money being thrown at podcasters, you might be surprised to learn that for every Joe Rogan out there, there are thousands of podcasters with a fraction of his audience.  

Does that make them any less successful? 

No. 

It’s all about serving a specific audience.  

“I would niche my face off. I would find one major problem that exists in the world that I can provide the best solution,” JLD said. 

Beware of False Profits 

Since podcasting has become such a booming business, many give the illusion of success but are they really successful? 

Like any other up-and-coming industry, those acting in good faith want to genuinely help, while others are what I like to call false prophets offering false profits. 

JLD sees this too.  

Like any relationship, business or personal, it’s all about trust. 

During our conversation, JLD talked about the radical transparency behind his company, the parallels between entrepreneurs and soldiers, and more. 

Listen here for the full interview. 

If you’re looking to start a podcast or have one already, contact the solutions team at C-Suite Radio. We are the world’s largest and fastest-growing business podcast network. We’ll help you scale your show to the next level or find your niche.  

The pandemic slowed down a lot of industries, but not real estate.

News headlines are filled with stories about how housing stock is not keeping up with demand, driving up prices in most of the country.  Creating bidding wars in desirable neighborhoods and keeping relators across the country busy. Even if you’re looking to build, contractors are backed up adding to the pain of a national lumber shortage.

“Working with buyers nowadays, it’s a bloodbath honestly,” Tim Harris co-owner of Tim and Julie Harris Real Estate Coaching said. “Working the buyer’s side of a transaction right now is the biggest pain point with all of our customers.”

“Sellers have the same problems, in a lot of cases. They put their house for sale, but they don’t have a house to move into,” Tim went on to say. “This lack of inventory problem is on both sides.”

I recently had the pleasure of hosting both Tim and Julie during a recent C-Suite Network Digital Discussion. Besides running a successful coaching firm, they’re active participants of our C-Suite community, best-selling authors, and have a top real estate podcast on C-Suite Radio. Needless to say, this married dynamic duo, know a lot about real estate, and they are true subject matter experts.

Record low inventory

One thing Julie mentioned during our talk is that with record low inventory across the country, realtors really have to hustle to get listings. When they do find a seller, they aren’t using the usual channels to get the word out.

“They can’t find a house period. We have record low inventory virtually everywhere except parts of Miami and New York,” Julie said. “We have a lot of agents that are so addicted to only having the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). When in fact there’s so many transactions that never hit the MLS. They’re not supposed to be pocket listings, but they are pocket listings. (Realtors) are exchanging property amongst their own past clients.”

There’s an old saying among realtors “you got to list to last” and Tim says that’s especially true in this hot market. He says many realtors became too buyer focused over the last few years and that could be costly.

“If you’re not working with sellers in this market. If that’s not your primary focus, it always should have been,” Tim said. “If you’re not focusing all your best energies on going after listings right now, you run the risk of becoming obsolete.”

Like everything else in business, the entire process is moving virtual.

Transitioning to Virtual

“I can’t remember the statistic,” Julie said. “Between 30-40% of recent closings were found online and closed online. A huge percent were not even seen physically by the buyer.”

She continued, “It’s (due to) COVID. It’s comfort level. It’s also technology. Some of the tours that are out there, you can fly around inside the house. You can turn your camera around. You can use Google Earth and see what the neighborhood looks like. That comfort level is there, and it wasn’t so much pre-COVID.”

While you can have a lot of success in real estate right now, the industry still sees a lot of turnover. Tim said the average new broker lasts about 24 months. Why? They waste money that could be spent elsewhere buying leads and not honing other skills.

“It’s an interesting fact that the lowest quality lead you can buy is one that you buy from the internet, because they’re the least motivated,” Tim said. “You’ve got to be focusing on going after the sellers. Learning how to actually, proactively go after the sellers and be of service to them.”

Do what you don’t want to do.

Another key to success is doing the things, you don’t want to do. I like to call it, the hard stuff.

“It’s proactive to do what you don’t want to do — which is a lot of things in business, right? When you don’t want to do it, which is virtually all the time, and you have to do it at a high level,” Julie said. “You’re not just going to dabble. Try it out. Sample some things and then be “judgy” about it. You have to actually invest in it. You have to have that energy and enthusiasm about what you’re trying to do and hone your skill. Do it at the highest level. Don’t just play around.”

Many times, the hard stuff doesn’t seem fun, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s designed to build your business and make money.

What’s one of those “hard things” young sales professionals don’t like to do?

“Answer your phone.” Julie said. “We joke that like there’s this really new, cool app out there and it’s right there on your phone and it’s called…it’s called the answer button. And what you do, it’s super-secret, there’s a lot of coaching involved in this. You talk into it when it rings.” 

While Julie is having some fun with that statement, there’s some truth there too. She adds that while everyone has “elaborate workarounds, landing pages, callback systems, and drip systems” it’s being available when the phone rings what brings the clients she coaches double-digit year-to-year growth. 

I learned a thing or two during our conversation about the hyper-aggressive real estate business. If you want to hear our complete conversation addressing why Tim and Julie think we’re going avoid a housing bubble like we did in 2008 and how their podcast helped build their business, listen with the player below. 

There’s an old Spanish proverb “The belly rules the mind.” While we can almost all agree that is true, sometimes we should think more about what we’re putting in our bellies, the process, as well as people behind our food. 

Last year, Chef Andrew Zimmern enlightened me on the way our food supply chain works, and the inequities built into it. For me, our conversation was a real eye-opener. I think our All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett listeners agreed as the episode was easily one of the most listened to of 2020.   

I wanted to connect and catch up with Andrew again to talk about his work helping out restaurant workers during nationwide shutdowns, the trends he’s seeing in the industry, and his sobriety. Andrew also previewed his new TV show, Family Dinner now Streaming on Discovery+ and debuting in 2022 on Chip and Joanna Gaines’ new venture Magnolia Network, which he talked about as in idea during our conversation last year.  

There’s no doubt the restaurant industry as a whole has been hit very hard by the pandemic. With each state having different rules and regulations, it’s been tough for the big chains, but even more so for the ‘mom and pop’ shops. Andrew is one of the voices behind the Independent Restaurant Coalition, a group dedicated to saving independent restaurants and bars affected by COVID-19. Even in Andrew’s adoptive hometown of Minneapolis, MN, 7% of restaurants have closed for good and more could be coming.  

“The restaurant community, especially independent restaurant communities, the most creative and vibrant source of phenomenal-ness that I know of,” Andrew said. “No other industry was asked to pivot 17 different times in every state in the union.” 

“We (the restaurant industry) did get $28.6 billion from the American Rescue Plan. That funding is absolutely crucial to folks. It’s grant support for restaurants hit hardest by the pandemic and they can be used alongside the PPP and EIDL and the employee retention tax credit so that vulnerable business can survive the remainder of this crisis.” 

While it’s been a tough year for restaurants, Andrew is bullish on the industry’s future. With warmer weather and states lifting COVID restrictions, the future looks bright for those that endured.  

One way many restaurants of all sizes pivoted to survive was through ghost kitchens. Professional restaurants offering delivery or take-out only service. Some are new. Others are spinoffs of brands you know. Most offer limited menus. Andrew sees the ghost kitchen trend as a footnote in restaurant history. 

“Ghost kitchens, by their very nature, are not transparent. It’s a little bit of smoke and mirrors. I mean no one’s lying or fibbing. You know…you know that there’s not a physical space, it’s an aggregated kitchen,” Andrew said. Quite frankly, as a customer I don’t care — if the food is good, the food is good. I just think this ghost kitchen thing may be one of those deals, kind of like Blu-Ray players, is popular for a year or two and then goes into the dustbin of history.” 

Through the centuries, there has been plenty of family history sprinkled in the food we eat and the tapestry has been woven at every dinner table around the world. That’s the idea behind Andrew’s new show Family Dinner. You can catch the entire first season streaming now on Discovery+.   

“I run around the country and have dinner with families and tell their stories.” Andrew said. “The stories we tell, these families are so fantastic. It is the perfect time, as we’re heading into the spring after this horrific year, to be celebrating American families after we spend so much time with our own. It’s nice to see other families and get inspired from them.” 

One thing I find inspiring about Andrew is his candor. While we’ve only technically met twice over Zoom, he is a very thoughtful, caring, and open person. During this chat we talked about his 29 years of sobriety and how it helped him become the person he is today. 

Andrew says his parents helped expose him to “all the right ideas” growing up, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he fell into what he called “a horrific hellhole of addiction and alcoholism.” 

“When I got sober, I didn’t know how to stay sober,” Andrew recalls. “I could stay sober for a day but didn’t know who I was going to do it for any longer than that.” 

“Some of my mentors in recovery and 12 step groups taught me that the secret was doing things for other people.” 

“Doing things for other people is the secret of happiness. It creates empathy. You ask anyone out there. I’m not thinking about my own problems when I’m doing stuff for other people. So, on one hand, there’s a little bit of selfishness involved here. On the other hand, I do have a deep and abiding faith that I’m going to be OK. I don’t have certainty, but I have an abiding faith that I will be taken care of.” 

I enjoyed my time with Andrew, again. If he ever makes his way to Sioux Falls, he’s got a spot at my next family dinner. 

Andrew had great insights why it’s not just the food that makes a restaurant great, how technology could be the biggest disruptive force in the hospitality industry, and how he’s navigating the changing entertainment landscape. Listen to our complete interview here.  

In a world where cable TV is shedding subscribers, streaming is all the rage — and nobody’s sure if movie theaters will make a post-pandemic comeback, there’s one entertainment option you’re probably not thinking about: DVDs and Blu-Rays.  

Redbox is, and CEO Galen Smith says that’s not going to change anytime soon. 

“We think it’s you know, a 10-to-15-year tail where consumers are going to continue to do it,” Galen said during a recent interview on All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett. “Our ability to serve a customer with a low-cost DVD is the cheapest way for any consumer to watch that movie outside of piracy.” 

While renting a DVD may bring back visions of video stores on a Friday night, Galen brought up several good points of why he sees the rental business as a viable option into the future. 

One is delivering value, at scale. Redbox has 40,000 kiosks across the country. To put that into perspective, that’s more Redboxes than McDonalds, Starbucks, and even movie theaters combined. Galen says renting movies at $2 or less a night serve “a very value conscious consumer.” 

He adds that value conscious consumer was especially valuable over the last year, with movie theaters closed, Hollywood studios had few options for its 2020 new releases. 

“(Movie) studios started to (open) up new windows,” Galen said. “You have this premium video on demand that came out where it was a $20 rental. Now, that may still be a great deal, relative to taking your family to the movie theater, but it’s not a great deal to be thinking about a $2 rental.” 

The other is access to broadband. 

“We’re able to serve a market where (consumers) don’t have high-speed internet to be able to bring them that content that they’re going to love,” Galen said.  

Don’t think of Redbox as being in a ‘buggy whip situation,’ putting all of its faith in outdated technology. It’s getting into streaming as well, and the timing couldn’t have been better. 

“We pivoted in February, not knowing we’re going to face a global pandemic. We launched a free live TV service, and so we gave consumers the ability to, watch at the time about 30 channels,” Galen said. “We’ve now expanded that to over 95 channels where they can tune in and watch. There’s no cost to the consumer. It’s ad-supported and we’re bringing them some really great content.” 

Galen knows the headwinds are in his favor launching a free streaming service. All the big pay TV companies have shed millions of subscribers over the past few years and the pandemic is accelerating the trend. Cord cutting has become so common that the number of households ditching traditional pay tv could reach 46 million by 2024.  

While you might think Redbox might be late to the streaming video party, Galen believes his company has an advantage. 

“We’ve got 40 million customers right (now) and we want to introduce them to new entertainment options,” Galen says. “In late 2017 or 2018, we launched a digital transactional video on demand service. As you can imagine, we saw a ridiculous amount of growth. Our digital version, digital service grew 125% year over year last year, despite the fact there wasn’t a lot of content that was coming out.” 

He continued, “We’re probably at the first or second inning of this. Long term we think it will have a huge impact to our bottom line, but today, it’s really about making investments.” 

One thing Redbox is investing in is content. It’s not just about renting or streaming movies, Redbox is making movies of their own and distributing others. Galen says they’ve been partnering with Hollywood producers and the company has an acquisition department looking for content.  

“We have been around for 18 years. We have a lot of information about movies and actors that our consumers want or like,” Galen said.  

“The way we think about (content) is we just want to make sure there’s great movies for Redbox. We love making money, right? So, we’re agnostic about releasing in other windows.” 

To provide some content, a window is the schedule in which a movie is released. For a movie, it usually goes to the theater first, then DVD/Blu-ray, streaming, and TV. Those windows have been shrinking, especially during the pandemic. For example, with theaters closed, Disney made headlines in 2020 when it released several movies on its streaming platform Disney+ for $30. Warner Bros. decided to release its 2020 movies in both theaters and HBO Max. Now many film fans and industry observers are curious how the studio/theater relationship will take shape post-pandemic.  

 For some insight on what Redbox’s “agnostic” release strategy will look like, Galen offered up the example of Shadow in the Cloud. The film won the Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto Film Festival in 2020, urging Redbox to buy the rights to distribute the movie in the United States. With theaters closed, Redbox offered to stream it on demand platforms like Amazon Prime Video for $20 in January. A month later, it was in the Redbox kiosks for $2 and you can rent it on several streaming platforms for just $3, and it’s also free for Hulu subscribers. Galen said at some point it will be streaming on ad-supported Redbox TV. 

“We’re really excited about building this library and this offering,” Galen said. “It allows us to be a little bit more opportunistic and invest in these projects to really put together stuff that’s going to work for consumers.” 

Galen is setting Redbox up for success by branching out without sacrificing its core business.  

We had a great conversation, and this post barely scratches the surface. If you want to hear how Redbox was born out of disruption and how a finance guy ended up running an entertainment company, click here.  

If you have never heard of Robert Kiyosaki, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. After its release more than 20 years ago, it became an international best seller, boasting more than 30 million copies sold in over 90 countries and has been translated into dozens of languages. 

Robert and his wife Kim have spun the success of Rich Dad into a global empire including more books, coaching, and the most popular podcast on C-Suite Radio just to name a few, but did you know it all started with a board game? It’s called CashFlowⓇ and it’s all about business. 

“The two most important words in money and business are cash flow,” Robert said during a recent interview on All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett. “For most people the cash is flowing out and what entrepreneurs have the ability to do is turn the cash flow in.”  

“Financial intelligence and financial IQ is ‘can you redirect the flow of your cash in or out?’ The average person without a financial education, the cash is flowing out faster than it’s coming in,” Robert said. 

“CashFlow” became a phenomenon in its own right back in the mid-1990s. People around the U.S. formed clubs to play the game and, in the process, learn financial education.  

“I always ask people the same question, ‘What does school teach you about money?’ For most people, it goes flat line after that. What they’ve been programmed with is go to school, get a job, work hard, and give your money to Wall Street.” Robert said. “That worked for a while, but it’s not working today.” 

Part of the marketing of the game was a brochure that evolved into the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. 

“My whole concern was on financial education and the story of my rich dad, poor dad,” Robert said. “My poor dad was an academic genius, graduate from university in two years, Ph.D. at Stanford, University of Chicago, and Northwestern. But as you know, they don’t know much about money.” 

“My rich dad was a guy who was an entrepreneur, who never went to school, but because his father died when he was 13 and he took over the family business, I became an apprentice to my rich dad.” 

He continued, “The education is completely different, it’s the opposite of academics. So, I go home and catch hell (for) not doing my homework. Then I would go to my rich dad, and he never spoke about homework. It’s a couple of different worlds.” 

Some of the lessons Robert learned from his rich dad, you won’t find in textbooks. 

Robert shared with me his story of returning from the Vietnam War and asking his rich dad what “else” he needed to learn. 

“He (rich dad) says you have to learn how employees steal from you,” Robert said. 

Robert couldn’t believe what he heard. Employees steal? 

To learn this lesson, he got a job at a bar where he offered up this challenge “if you can figure out how the bartenders steal from us, you’ll be a rich man.” 

“I sat there for two years, I still can’t figure out how they stole that money,” Robert recalled. 

Lessons like that one from the bar, inspired Robert to expand the brochure into the book. Rich Dad, Poor Dad sold well in the business community. Then in 2000, it even caught Oprah Winfrey’s attention. 

“I was in Australia and (Oprah) called,” Robert remembered. “My wife took the call in Phoenix. She says ‘get home now!’ I had to fly all the way from Australia to Chicago. I didn’t know who Oprah is because as Marines, we don’t watch Oprah.” 

Robert said he went from being a complete unknown to an overnight success after being on The Oprah Winfrey Show. While the segment is more than 20 years old now, you can find it on YouTube, and plenty of the topics Robert and Oprah covered are still relevant today. 

“We just talked about the philosophy of being entrepreneurs, managing money, and not needing a paycheck,” Robert said. “My poor dad was an academic Ph.D, but he couldn’t live without a paycheck or a pension. My rich dad says, one of the goals of being an entrepreneur is you’ll never need a paycheck and a pension.  

With all this talk of the power, freedom, and hard work of becoming an entrepreneur, I had to know his advice for those looking to strike out on their own. 

“The hardest thing is putting that team around you,” Robert said. “You’ve gotta have great accountants, great attorneys, and it takes a while to find those guys. Because everyone is kind of self-interested if you know what I mean. They’re interested in your money. But today one of the greatest assets I have is my team, you know, my accountants, my stock guys, my real estate guys. It’s a team sport.”   

Robert and I talked about his favorite investments, what he thinks of cryptocurrency, and the details of his next book. He also offered up plenty of unprompted political takes. Robert’s not afraid to tell you what he’s thinking, that’s for sure.  

Click the player below to listen to our full conversation. 

News is everywhere. 

What used to be limited to newspapers, TV, and radio has morphed to social media feeds, cable news, and podcasts. While the delivery methods have changed, we are still consuming news.  

Americans spend 7.5 hours a day engaging with media, from traditional to new. Of that, we only spend about 14 percent of that time looking at news, according to a study published earlier this year.   

Study after study shows that local TV is still the preferred method of getting the news – 4 out of 5 adults, or 83 percent, trust their local news stations over national network news (78 percent) and cable news channels (71 percent).

Also, newspapers remain a steady source for news, but there’s no question the landscape continues to change. According to a Pew Research survey, 10 percent of U.S. adults receive their news from a print source often, and 22 percent claim they sometimes get their news from a newspaper. While 60 percent of respondents get their news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet.

With the industry in such turmoil, smaller newspapers have closed, and many of the larger chains have sold, gone bankrupt, or consolidated over the last decade.

Despite this outlook, there are rays of hope in the industry. Local newspaper website traffic continues to rise and 73% of US adults trust their local newspapers, according to Poynter.

“Investing in local journalism, that to me is the bedrock of success for the future,” said Tony Hunter, CEO of McClatchy, one of the larger local newspaper publishers in the country. McClatchy runs news websites and newspapers in 29 cities and staffs a news bureau in Washington D.C.

Tony is an industry veteran and knows plenty about newspapers and comeback stories. He helped what is now known as Tribune Publishing through the 2008 recession. That’s when I met him. He was a CEO with a positive attitude and big ideas. While times have changed, Tony’s leadership style hasn’t.

“This year my motto is ‘expect to win’,” Tony said during a recent C-Suite Network Digital Discussion. “You got to believe you can win and we’re having some successes. But I think getting our folks to come to work expecting to win is so important.”

Tony admits it can be a tall order. McClatchy filed for bankruptcy last year and eventually  purchased by hedge fund Chatham Asset Management.

“We’ve been through bankruptcy, we’ve got the headwinds,” Tony said. “We’ve got all this ‘poor us’ coming from the media as well about our sector. A big part of being a good leader, I think, is going down the path of winning.”

Despite the sunny outlook, Tony knows McClatchy doesn’t have a lot of time to waste “turning that battleship.”

“I could have taken more time, but I didn’t because of the circumstances. Because of my experience frankly graduating from the school of hard knocks. I know what not to do,” Tony said. “What I’ve learned is action is better than talk. So, let’s get started and pivot along the way.”

Tony said while the media landscape is constantly changing, he is calling on his time at Tribune to help at McClatchy. Through the wisdom of experience, he “pulled out his transformation handbook” and got to work in building a business plan and while getting his senior executives on board.

I like to call it getting everyone drinking the Kool-Aid. Tony takes a more business-like approach – in that they started acting like a small company. He says the larger you are the more that fight for everyday survival disappears. Large companies get complacent and aren’t as nimble, allowing for disruptors to come and shake up the industry.

“(small) Companies fight like hell to survive. I think that’s the kind of fight we need to have in our companies,” Tony said. “The larger you are the more that disappears.”

“We’re seeing some good results early,” Tony said. “We’re in the early innings. It’s a long game, but we’re off to a good start.”

Tony credits McClatchy’s move from being a publicly traded company to going private, helping speed up the process.

“We’re not chasing the next quarter. We’re really focused on how to reestablish ourselves in those 30 communities and become the preeminent media player in those markets,” Tony said. “That’s where the value is created. So, so in those 29 cities and Washington D.C., our goal is to create journalism that our consumers value and are willing to pay for.”

Tony and I talked a lot about what it takes to turn around a company and the type of  leadership needed to accomplish that throughout the interview. He’s a talented guy who’s led a successful turnaround during one of the biggest economic downturns yet and I’m sure he’s going to succeed again.

If you want to hear our entire conversation and the insightful Q & A from our members, listen to the complete episode of All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett with the player below.