Author: Jeffrey Hayzlett

 

What do you think is the most requested item is at homeless shelters? 

 

Shoes? No. 

 

Pants? No. 

 

Underwear? Close. It’s the second most requested. 

 

Give up?  

 

It’s socks. 

 

That surprised me. 

 

It also surprised David Heath so much, he built a business around it. 

 

You might not recognize David’s name, but I’m sure you’ve heard of the company he co-founded, Bombas. You can’t listen to a podcast or go anywhere on the internet without seeing their ads and products featured.  

 

David is quite the entrepreneur, with two successful exits prior to launching his current company.  In fact, he was working another job when he stumbled upon the idea for Bombas on social media. 

 

“I was scrolling Facebook one day while I was at work and I came across this post on my feed that said socks are the most requested clothing items at homeless shelters,” David said. “I thought ‘huh, I didn’t know that.’ I would have thought it was coats or jeans or sneakers.” 

“Here’s an item of clothing I never spend more than a few seconds a day thinking about and it’s perceived as a luxury item for over 600,000 people living right here in the U.S. I just couldn’t shake it.” 

 

He is not far off with the numbers. According to the 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment report to Congress, there are 580,466 people that have experienced homelessness in the U.S. on a single night in 2020.

 

This is when David decided Bombas would be a part of the one-for-one movement — a business model where pro-profit companies have built in philanthropy. For Bombas, it was to give away a pair of socks for every pair sold.  

 

To date, Bombas has donated over 50 million pairs of socks through more than 3,500 giving partners scattered across all 50 states.  

 

All this business and community success comes from a product most of us don’t normally think twice about. Even David admits, he didn’t think much about the undergarments industry until starting Bombas, but one thing he did know was the existing brands weren’t exciting.  

 

“We see ourselves as being the Starbucks of the basics, inner wear category,” David says. “As Starbucks is to Maxwell House, we are to Hanes. Yes, it costs two to three times more per product, but the product and experience are so much better than what you’d expect from one of those other brands.”  

 

This even led to a very successful and clever marketing campaign for the “greatest sock never sold” touting the Bombas donation sock.  

 

“Why would you go out with a marketing campaign, spend money talking about a sock you don’t sell?” David asked. 

 

While that question seems obvious to anyone in business, David says the groundwork leading up to the campaign started with a promise that, let’s just say was about to be written in permanent ink.  

 

“Before we even launched the company, I remember sitting across the table from Randy (Goldberg), who’s one of our co-founders and I said ‘you know what? If we ever donate a million pairs of socks, I will tattoo the Bombas logo on me,” David said. “I kind of said it as a lark. A million pairs? We hadn’t sold one! I thought people would forget about it. We did it in two years.” 

 

A good business never misses an opportunity for great promotion. In 2016 to capitalize on million pair goal, Bombas created a viral video campaign centered around David’s tattoo – which kicked off a personal trend for David. 

 

“I didn’t have any tattoos and here I am seven years later, I got the bug and I’ve got 10 or 11. It is a slippery slope once you get one,” he said. 

 

Trips to the tattoo parlor aside, that campaign lead the company decided to celebrate other million sock milestones. 

 

“We did five million pairs. When we got to ten million, we decided that we can’t keep telling the same story,” David said. “We decided ‘Okay, what if we talk about our donation sock’?” 

 

When Bombas started, it was donating the same socks you or I would buy. However, they kept hearing from the organizations they worked with that homeless people had different sock needs. The team at Bombas went to the drawing board and re-engineered their signature socks. They came up with a sock in darker colors to cover up wear, designed them with thicker seams so they last longer and added a special anti-microbial coating. 

 

Bombas was following a tried-and-true rule of business: responding to customer needs — even if we’re not talking about customers in the traditional sense. 

 

David says Bombas isn’t stopping at just socks. They expanded its product lines to offering underwear and t-shirts, keeping with the one-for-one philosophy. Soon, Bombas is planning to commission an independent study to see how many homeless shelters there are in the United States and find out which items are in demand.  

 

“We don’t really have the sense (of what’s needed) at what volume. Is it 50 million? 100 million? 500 million?” David said. “We want something where we can measure our impact and say we’re delivering 50% or 10% (of what’s needed). We want to know where we stand in that paradigm. So, as we grow our business, we will know what’s the 4^th most, the 5^th most, 7^th most, 12^th most (in demand item) and start to build a strategy around our giving.”   

 

Bombas is a company with the right strategy. A great mix of capitalism and compassion that corporate America could use more of in my opinion. They’ve made strides in that direction, but those who can, should.

 

David and I talked about a lot more than just Bombas’ mission during our discussion. We cover a lot about the business and what’s next. 

 

Listen to our full conversation here.  

 

Are you a natural born leader? According to Gallup, only 1 in 10 people are, the rest of us just have to work a little harder at it.  Writing a book or posting a YouTube video about leadership doesn’t make anyone an expert. You need to back it up with experience. 

 

Keith Krach does. He is definitely a natural-born leader.

 

Not only has he lead multi-billion dollar companies like Ariba and DocuSign and was the youngest vice president in General Motors history, he just finished a stint as Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment for the United States.  

 

That’s quite an impressive resume.

 

Keith took time out of his busy schedule to join the C-Suite Network for our Digital Discussion Leadership Series.  

 

Besides his business’s undeniable success, Keith’s wisdom is well-known. On his website, he has a section full of “Krachisms” which he defines as a personal mantra to live by, a cross between excellent business advice and personal affirmations to lift the spirit of one’s thinking. 

 

Let me tell you, Keith dropped plenty of those during our conversation and Q&A session with our C-Suite community. Here are just a few: 
 

(Note: these quotes may be edited for brevity and accuracy. To hear them unedited listen to the episode of All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett below) 

On Transformational Leadership: 

 

“The definition of a transformational leader would be a leader who challenges the status quo and inspires, mobilizes, energizes, and unifies a high-performance team to achieve a noble goal that will leave a profound and long-lasting impact. As long as you have a noble cause in your heart, anybody can be a transformational leader.” 

 

Dealing with challenging problems: 

 

“If somebody will bring me a problem, it’s like ‘Hey, bring me a solution with it!’”  

 

“Every now and then, a problem arrives on your desk that there’s no answer for. The mere fact that it arrived on your desk and you have a great team working for you. It just means that there’s only a probability of success in the solution. What do you do when you get one of those on your desk? I follow a three-step method. First: I assemble the best experts I can find. Second: make sure that (the experts have) different temperaments, talents, and convictions, so they have (a) diversity of thought in terms of functional expertise so where they’re coming from. Then the third step is to suppress the egos and have them focus on the problem. Then you listen. So, when you go to bed at night, you can sleep and say, ‘I know that I had the best brains focused on it, and it was diverse, and there’s only a probability of success.’ You can’t dwell on it.”  

The three things you need to scale a business: 

 

“I always say there are three big things in terms of getting that team to build a high-performance team. The first one is a noble mission. This is what we’re after, and it’s going to mean a lot if we accomplish it. The second is you need an enemy. If you don’t have one, make it up. That stops the water cooler talk. Let’s go get ‘em, you know. The only thing that’s funner than winning the deal is ripping the esophagus out of your competition. To be honest with you, I never said that, but maybe some people have. 

 

Then the third thing you need is a plan. That’s where the playbook comes in and the playbook has been a framework that I’ve used with every company I’ve built.  

 

That’s your vision, your mission, your values, your team rules, your long-term goals, your strategy all boil down to execution.” 

 

On building a best executive team: 

 

“As CEO, your most important responsibility is building a high-performance team. I believe the company with the best team wins. Every quarter I would look around my executive team, and I would say, can I upgrade one of these roles and, by the way, the key is to keep that executive.” 

 

On serving his time as Under Secretary of State:  

 

“We have so much to be grateful for, particularly in this country. If there’s anything that I learned (from) my time out in Washington is the value of freedom and the value of democracy. Democracy is an experiment. The United States, it’s 200 and some years old, and it goes against all the laws of physics, that you know the natural state of things, the bad King, the dictator, and the Emperor. You got to fight every day for that. So, to be thankful that we can live in such a great country.” 

Those words of wisdom are just a sampling of the key insights Keith offered during the discussion. To say he’s a natural born leader is an understatement. Keith and I have been friends for some time now and the wisdom he has acquired is unparalleled. To hear them all, plus a great story about how DocuSign took on Adobe head-on and eventually dominated the category, click here. 

 

If you’d like to be a part of these Digital Discussions and participate in our Q&A sessions, consider joining the C-Suite Network. For less than the cost of a business lunch a month, you can be a part of a growing community and get the tools you need to become the most strategic person in the room. Click here to learn more.  

 

 

We’re all tired of hearing about COVID. Believe me, I am too. However, the impact it left on businesses – of all sizes, and how it shifted the landscape cannot be denied. With every crisis, there is opportunity, and one of the things that boomed in the last year was podcasting.

Prior to 2020, podcasting was already on the rise. According to Convince and Convert, at the start of last year, the numbers were up 10 percent year over year. That momentum has only grown during and post-pandemic, as podcast familiarity has grown amongst the American population to 78 percent, up from 75 percent a year ago.

However, despite its growth, podcasting is still a medium in its infancy. If podcasting was a person, you could say it’s a teenager. The growth spurt isn’t over yet, but it’s also far from mature.

There are currently an estimated 1.75 million podcasts worldwide, totaling more than 43 million episodes. While that seems like a big number, only 850,000 are active. Many of those shows may still be listed on Apple (by far the largest podcast directory) but have podfaded away. It’s a topic that I have addressed on my podcast as well.

However, if you think the market is saturated, it’s not. There is a great audience for podcasting ripe for the taking. Edison Research recently released its latest Infinite Dial survey, one of the most trusted in the industry. Take a look at the numbers below:

 162 million have listened to a podcast (57% of the U.S. total population)

 116 million listen monthly (41%)

 80 million listen weekly (28%)

 More women are listening than ever before

 Age 55+ is one of the fastest-growing groups

 The average person listens to 8 podcast episodes a week from 5 shows

 

Why should businesses care about podcasting? Because it’s an effective way to disseminate the message you want to convey to not only existing customers but attract new ones. In 2019, 68 percent of the 25 largest Fortune 500 companies hosted their own podcasts on their own corporate websites. Also, 40 percent of small business owners listen to podcasts, while 72 percent of business owners with between 100-500 employees do, too.

Podcast listeners are your customers and their circle(s). Your goal with a podcast shouldn’t be to become rich doing it – very few do. Instead, it should be a strategic way to enhance your brand, add credibility, and learn from your guests who are subject matter experts. A podcast is an audio blog post you can use to show clients what you do. You can also use your podcast interviews to get in front of people you want to connect with and become your clients.

Podcasting is a win-win situation for everyone involved.

The barriers to entry and benchmarks of success aren’t as high as you might think. Consider this: the average podcast sees between 100 to 140 downloads in the first 30 days. It doesn’t take much to beat half of the podcasters out there, build an audience, and become a go-to expert in your field.

Podcast ad revenue is also growing. This is yet another inexpensive way to get brand recognition and despite competing with media dollars, it remains fairly inexpensive. According to AdvertiseCast, a 10-second ad CPM (or Cost Per Mille – or cost per 1,000 listeners) is $15. For a 30-second ad CPM, it’s $18 and a 60-second ad will cost you $25. Podcast advertising is expected to surpass the $1 billion mark by the end of the year.

Now is the time for you to start a podcast. Just don’t do it alone. Everyone – from Fortune 500 companies, to small business owners, has found value in creating their own podcast because they’re effective, inexpensive, and has fast-scaling reach.

I have given you plenty of reasons why you, as a business owner, should care about having a podcast. Numbers don’t lie. Get in the game or risk getting left behind.

If you already have a podcast, we can help you grow. The power of affiliation is tangible. C-Suite Radio is the world’s #1 business podcast network, we are growing, and you don’t want to miss out on the momentum.

Click here to learn more and start turning the volume up on business.

 

is everything in business, but can you control it? 

 

That idea came up during my recent conversation with Mark Schaefer, Chief Operating Officer at B Squared Media on All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett. 

 

Mark not only spent years with Alcoa, but he also teaches at the university level, is a keynote speaker, and wrote nine best-selling books. His latest work, Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for your Ideas, Business, and Life Against All Odds, which answers a pressing question in marketing today, ‘how can we be heard?’ 

 

Mark said for this book, he went beyond the usual “here’s what I’ve learned.” There’s more to growing a brand and building a business than blind faith, grit, and determination. Cumulative Advantage tackles the science of momentum. 

 

“I went back into this sociological research that started in the 50s about momentum and that really excited (me) about it because it sort of cracks the code, but it’s never been applied in a practical way to real people and real businesses,” Mark said.  

 

He continued, “I guarantee anybody that reads this book; you will not see the world the same. You will start seeing these patterns of momentum.”  

 

While momentum is excellent in business, it can be hard to quantify. However, you have to be able to sustain it and adjust accordingly in order to take full advantage of it. 

 

“Momentum is sort of like American football. We have two teams face to face against strength. The coaches they’re actually looking at this: looking at the game from above the field, trying to find an opportunity. Trying to find a seam,” Mark related. “Is someone overmatched, is someone tired, how can we burst through this seam and go as far as we can. Get that momentum going, but then they’re also looking (at) what’s next. What’s next what’s next for our momentum. It is a continuous process.” 

 

The football analogy is a good one because when Mark talks about a seam, he’s not just talking about an opening in a play. Zooming out, he says it’s a fracture in the status quo. COVID-19, ironically enough, became one of those seams of opportunity. While many businesses failed, Mark says the number of start-ups has boomed over the last year. In 2020, over 4 million new companies started worldwide – that’s 26.9 percent, the highest increase startups have seen in the last decade.

 

While that is taking advantage of the situation in front of you, there is value to your momentum being organic. 

 

“The cool thing is that most initial advantage, most momentum, you don’t need a million dollars. You don’t have to have a Harvard education. Most initial advantage happens through random events,” Mark said. “An idea, someone you meet—inspiration from a book, or perhaps from your show that leads to an idea. Then you need to pursue it, test it against the seam.”  

 

“Once you’re building momentum, you need awareness. In the book, I talk about this thing called a sonic boom. What I present here is some new research about how ideas really go viral, and it’s not exactly like you think. The basic idea is instead of thinking about a year-long plan or a two-year plan, you need to think of a very concentrated period of time and aim for ubiquity. So that people are hearing about you so many times, in so many places, it starts to build that momentum.” 

 

Now that your brand or product is building awareness, it’s time to take another step towards success. Mark calls it the “helping hand.” In his mind, it’s all about redefining mentorship but this new way of mentoring is not about building a long-term relationship. 

 

“Today, mentorship is an occasional relationship with someone who can open up new doors, make introductions, create new opportunities for you to get to that next level,” Mark said. “That’s one of the fastest ways to build momentum.” 

 

That’s not all. Once the momentum starts, you need to surround yourself with good people and avoid the “doom loop.” 

 

“When you have a new business or new idea, things are always going to go wrong,” Mark stated. “You can’t panic and forget what started your momentum in the first place. It’s consistency, constancy of purpose, and discipline.” 

 

Anyone who’s spent time in business realizes a lot of this comes down to timing. Mark adds you can use all this and figure out what you can and can’t control to influence that timing. 

 

“You need to look at your ideas through certain filters of worthiness,” Mark said. “Is this really worthy of a customer right now? Is it worthy of a market? What can you do in terms of research? Is it worthy of your time? Is it worthy of sacrifice? Is it a worthy battle because you’re going to have to battle to get it going. Give yourself the best chance.” 

 

Mark says you can trace these ideas to almost every successful business or person, including himself. Back in the 1990s, he was working for a Fortune 100 company but felt stuck. About the same time, a young company called AOL was offering dial-up internet for $9/month. Mark signed up and was able to talk his boss into expensing his account.  

 

“A couple of years later, Alcoa wakes up and says ‘we need to have an e-commerce department. Who shall we get to run it? Oh, this Schaefer guy. He’s spent more time on the internet than anybody else. He was the first person in our company on the internet,'” Mark remembered. “Now It was (through) that random conversation I lead this global business department, started my own business, wrote the books, speak, consult, here I am.” 

 

 It was a pleasure to sit down with a best-in-class marketer like Mark. If you want to hear more about where marketing is going, why marketers are losing the human connection, and Mark’s state fair winning honey, listen to the complete episode here.  

 

The future of business is always a hot topic, especially the way the last year has upended entire industries. You can talk about specific trends accelerating during the pandemic all you want, but one trend that continually changes is consumer behavior. Today’s buyers aren’t content with a catchy jingle or colorful packaging. They want more! It’s about the promises delivered by the brand to extend beyond a quality product. Consumers want assurances that the product they’re buying has a reputation that goes well beyond the store shelf.

With that in mind, I was looking forward to interviewing Richard Steel, CEO of Parsec Ventures and the author of Elevated Economics: How Conscious Consumers Will Fuel the Future of Business on my “All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett” show.

“Elevated Economics is not an opinion piece. It’s not what I believe. It’s based on the numbers and trends,” Richard said.

In the book, Richard expands bout ESGs, and he does a great job explaining what that stands for.

“(ESGs) are a growing category of investment choices that blend environmental, social, and governance factors,” Richard said.

“For Environmental, obviously air emissions, air quality. If you’re a business leader thinking about those things. Your energy use, waste management, stuff like that.” He continued, “On the social side, what are your labor standards, production quality and safety issues, your local community impact.”

“On the governance side, how your business behaves, ethical business practices, voting rights, board independence, board diversity, accounting, and transparency.”

“That’s the overview of ESGs, you might hear that term used interchangeably with socially responsible investing or sustainable investing,” he concluded.

No matter what you call it, those are values I stressed in my latest best-selling book, The Hero Factor. Let’s be clear. This isn’t a company masquerading as environmentally friendly only to make millions with no real conscience. We tend to think that there’s a trade-off between high returns and sustainability. Richard says investors need to change their mindset. 

 

“It turns out there are lots and lots of studies that show that financial returns can actually be better, and there’s actually no trade-off whatsoever when you’re investing sustainably,” Richard said. “Morgan Stanley did a research poll of about 11,000 mutual funds, and they found there’s no financial trade-off in the returns of sustainable funds compared to traditional funds.” 

 

Not only is this shift in running a company good for investors, but it’s good for businesses as well.  

 

“The companies that practice sustainability are much more likely to be purpose-driven companies. If you’re a purpose-driven company, you can attract better talent. You can reduce churn and turnover as well, which, in turn, reduces costs,” Richard related. 

 

One of the companies Richard mentioned that is doing this right now is Method Products. If you’re unfamiliar, Method makes sustainable cleaning products found at Target and other retailers. Not only are Method’s products climate-conscious, animal friendly, and sourced ethically, Richard says its CEO Drew Fraser “walks the walk.” 

 

When it came time for Method to build a state-of-the-art factory in 2015, they could have gone anywhere. Instead of shipping the jobs overseas or building in the suburbs, the company made the conscious decision to build on a former brownfield site (an EPA designation meaning it could be contaminated) on Chicago’s South Side. 

 

“(Method) decided to actually revitalize a neighborhood,” Richard said. “Build their plant (in Chicago), hire local folks. Some people who had never had bank accounts before. On the first day, they helped them set up bank accounts and really became a partner in the community and have done tremendously well. (Method) is giving a mission and a purpose and some style quite frankly to a category that hasn’t had it in the past. Cleaning products (are a) pretty bland and boring category, but they’re doing amazing things.” 

 

Richard says he interviewed Drew for Elevated Economics, going deep into how Method’s sustainable practices created not only a successful business but tremendous brand loyalty as well.  

 

According to Richard, companies like Method are part of a larger generational shift in investing and consumer habits. For example, while working on Elevated Economics, the Business Roundtable made headlines worldwide for its 2019 statement redefining the purpose of a corporation. Now, leaders of some of America’s largest corporations say their main goal isn’t just to create a dividend for shareholders but “lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders.” 

 

“(The Business Roundtable CEOs) are all the people saying, ‘profits aren’t everything.’ Let’s dig into that. If profits aren’t everything, what is the new purpose of a corporation according to them? They break it down into five ways,” Richard said. “Delivering values to customers is first, investing in their employees is second. Dealing fairly and ethically with their suppliers, third. Supporting the communities in which we work, that’s number four. Lastly, generating long-term value for shareholders. Not short-term value, long-term value.” 

 

“When we talk about this paradigm shift, it starts with consumers. They’ve expanded their definition of what is in their own self-interest, their communities, the environment, those other considerations,” Richard said.  

 

This idea all goes back to one of my favorite sayings, “adapt, change or die.” Elevated economics is proof that businesses need to adapt to these new consumer demands, change the way they do business, or they’ll be a footnote in business history. 

 

This post is just a sampling of our conversation. We also addressed why there’s more to being environmentally conscious than saying you’re ‘going green,’ how a rafting trip inspired Elevated Economics, and how companies can use all this change to their advantage. If you’d like to hear our complete conversation, click here.  

 

We’ve all heard the cliché about seeing the world through the eyes of a child and the value of maintaining a childlike curiosity – even as adults.

While that may sound like a strange concept for many business leaders, Jeff Hoffman says it’s not.

Jeff’s name is well known throughout corporate America and the entrepreneurial world. You might also recognize some the companies he has worked with. He was one of the earliest employees at Priceline.com and has worked with other well-known successful startups, such as uBid.com and more.

Today, Jeff is the Chairman of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, a group operating in 180 countries to make it easier for anyone to start a business. The C-Suite Network recently hosted Jeff as a part of its Digital Discussion Leadership Series and what a conversation it was.

Through his years of business experience, Jeff believes we’ve all lost our childlike wonder. Adults, he says, tend to get too narrowly focused on our industries to see what’s happening in the world around us.  

 

He came to this conclusion a few years ago after taking care of a 5-year-old for one day. 

 

“I was going to stay home with her, and I suddenly realized I left some work at the office to work on at home. So, I said to her, ‘Get in the car, we got to run to the office,'” Jeff recalled. “The five-year-old starts walking. She’s shuffling her feet. She’s looking down.” 

 

“She goes, ‘Hey! How do they make carpet?‘ I said, ‘Who the hell cares how they make carpet? My company doesn’t make carpet. I’m not in that business. Get in the car!'” 

 

“She said, ‘I just wonder how they make carpet.’ I said, ‘I don’t. just go!’ She said, ‘Do you not know? You’re an adult!’ I said, ‘They don’t teach you carpet when you become an adult.’ She shook her head in disgust.” 

 

Jeff said this exchange continued as they made their way to the car. The five-year-old girl asked about the car windows and other car parts, including the strip that sits between the back passenger and the driver-side window.  

 

“I said ‘Oh, my God. Seriously?!? Just get in the car! That doesn’t have a name,'” Jeff recalls. 

 

Years later, after telling that story during a speech in Detroit, Jeff says he now knows that part is called a B-pole. All thanks to a 5-year-old.

   

While the story is cute and good for a laugh now, it got Jeff thinking. 

 

“What else do I not know? She wondered about everything,” Jeff said. “I started realizing that when I paid attention to the world’s most creative leaders, they actually take the time to go research something they’ve wondered about periodically — that is not in their line of sight.” 

 

Jeff even has a name for this practice. He calls it “info sponging.” Every day he takes 10 minutes to learn a new thing he really didn’t need to know. 

 

For example, after the girl’s question about car windows, Jeff did some research. He ended up on the Corning company website. Most people know corning for its cookware and coffee pots, but what you don’t know is Corning is using technology to make glass better. He ended up visiting the Corning Innovation Center, ultimately partnering with the glassmaker on two smart glass projects that came to fruition as a result of his research. 

 

“I would have never gotten involved in the creating of smart glass and smart windows for buildings if a five-year-old hadn’t wondered how they make glass,” Jeff said. “Wondering about the world around you, spending 10 minutes a day to learn one new thing a day you don’t need to know is where all the good ideas I have come from.” 

 

Jeff’s adventure with the five-year-old didn’t end at the car. When they got into the office, she saw two machines in the lobby and wondered what they were. Much to his dismay, he didn’t know and neither did the office manager. After asking around the office, the CFO figured out what they were.  

 

“(The CFO) says, ‘I’ve got some good news and bad news,'” Jeff recounted. “The good news, I know what they are. In the days before PowerPoint, we used to print our presentations and bind them in these three-ringed binders. The bad news is we’re still leasing those.” 

  

If you’re keeping track of Jeff’s story so far, the five-year-old not only helped him uncover a new business opportunity through curiosity, she also saved the company he was working for at the time money. 

 

It sounds like we need more five-year-olds at the office!  

 

All joking aside, Jeff took what he learned from the five-year-old and made it a part of his company’s culture. 

 

“I started, something that we do twice a year, we call it ‘Five-Year-Old Day,’” Jeff said. ”I asked everybody in my company to wander through our entire business and operation and act like a five-year-old. Question everything we do and keep asking why until we either know why we’re still doing that, or we simply stop doing it.”   

 

He continued, “It’s just simply inertia, and a five-year-old’s idea helps us literally redesign the company.” 

 

Holding an annual Five-Year-Old Day is a great idea and just one highlight from my interview with Jeff. We also discussed his current work helping entrepreneurs, his thoughts on a perceived talent versus a resource gap in business today, why business owners need to get out of their own way to help their companies succeed, and why COVID-19 is an alarm clock for entrepreneurs.  

 

There were so many great insights and relevant takeaways that you’ll have to listen for yourself here. If you want to gain access to some of the best minds in business, join our Digital Discussions and consider joining the C-Suite Network. For half the cost of a business lunch a month, we offer the best-in-class networking and content to help make you the most strategic person in any room. Click here for more details.  

 

 

The fitness industry is one of the most lucrative worldwide with revenues of $87 billion – about $30 million in the U.S. alone.

COVID-19 not only changed business. It changed us, too. We’ve all had to accommodate to new demands and implement new business models.

With isolation and everything closing down, we became more sedentary, and our waistlines expanded. I actually lost weight during that time span, but it wasn’t because I had an exercise regimen I followed.

While many gave up their fitness routines, gym owners across the country have struggled to keep their doors open. In fact, many fitness facilities were part of the first wave of shutdowns in many states, costing the industry $13.9 billion from mid-March to August of last year.

“We were all kind of surprised to hear that,” Ben Midgley said. “We’ve never been faced with (a shutdown), so we had to get past that one hurdle before we could even think about opening new clubs again.”

Ben was the featured guest during a recent C-Suite Network Digital Discussion. He’s CEO of Crunch Fitness Franchise, a gym franchisor with more than 350 locations in almost 40 states and six different countries.

Despite the grim reality, Ben says his team was up for the challenge. The first order of business was keeping employees safe and then communicating to almost 2 million customers their new standards. With each state having different procedures and protocols, it became imperative to address all the concerns pertaining to safety, billing, installing air filtration systems, and more.

“We’re the health and fitness industry. The top priority is we’re here to help members improve their health,” Ben said. “If you can’t operate safely, then that you’re not really supporting that.”

He says it goes beyond supporting customers. He also had to look out for his employees as well and the lessons he learned during this time go beyond business.

“I think the importance of empathy and understanding and listening more to everybody a little more deeply, a little more intently,” Ben emphasized. “That wasn’t there in the workplace before, but I think everything that happened, honestly, made every everything about business a little bit more human, because we’re all in the same boat. We’re all doing the same things,” he added.

Even though teams that were once under one roof now found themselves working from home, Ben says there was an unexpected upside: his corporate team is now closer.

He says changing from an office environment to working from home was a real eye-opener for him.

“I’ve always been one of those believers that if you have a nice tight sort of office environment, you get those quick sidebar conversations. ‘What happened over here? What about this club?’ We had to get away from that,” Ben recalled. “You have to get used to this different form of communication, and you can’t approach business any differently than you did before. Right? And you’ve had; in fact, you have to be that much more supportive of your employees and the choices that they need to make for their own well-being and their own balance. You’ve got to keep them, feeling good, in order to keep the business running productively.”

The uncertainty of the pandemic created opportunities for Crunch. Ben says he’s seen more real estate open up for new locations and the pandemic isn’t the only reason. The trend of brick-and-mortar retail stores shuttering hasn’t stopped, and that’s brought with it new potential for new clubs in new locations.

“(Opportunities) are coming up left and right. We’re getting opportunities for sites that before turned us down or were impossible to get into,” Ben said. “We’re going to be getting more opportunities to have spaces and better malls or strip (malls) to get better traffic.”

Ben says Crunch Franchise has opened several new gyms during the pandemic, and with that success, it paints a bright picture for Crunch and the overall industry.

I’d like to thank Ben for his honesty, leadership, and insight into a multi-billion-dollar industry many of us don’t know much about. Listen to the complete conversation here.

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Adapt, change, or die. It’s a sign of the times.

If there’s one person who knows the sign business inside out, is my friend Catherine Monson, the President and CEO of FASTSIGNS. She’s been their CEO since 2009, but our paths crossed a few decades prior.

Like many businesses, FASTSIGNS had to move fast when COVID-19 hit. As a network of more than 700 independent franchisees worldwide, they dominate the business-to-business sign and visual communication space. Before the pandemic, Catherine said stores rarely sold directly to consumers. When COVID-19 started shutting things down in March, corporate saw a lot of opportunity for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Graduation. The corporate headquarters knew they had to act quickly to help their franchisees out.

“We started telling our franchisees and showing them how, and creating the artwork, to call and school districts and schools,” Catherine said. ”And franchisees were getting $30,000,  $40,000, $50,000 orders to do custom signs. Congratulating the graduate with their name and their photo and even delivering them sometimes to the houses and putting them in the yards of the graduates. Some very quick pivots.”

FASTSIGNS franchisees also found a niche they never thought they’d find themselves in: healthcare. It turns out the same equipment used to cut plastic signage can be used to cut materials to make intubation shields and intubation boxes. 

 

“We made thousands and thousands of our franchisees (make) intubation shields and intubation boxes in the April, May, June timeframe to help keep healthcare workers safe,” Catherine said. “Who would have ever thought that we would be actually making a healthcare product?” 

 

Catherine says both the graduation signs and intubation supplies are great examples of how listening to the market’s needs, leveraging your connections, keeping an open mind, and being nimble can set you up for opportunities you never thought possible.  

Catherine says this situation is an excellent endorsement for the franchise model. While big-time restaurants like McDonald’s are top of mind for most people when they think of franchises. McDonald’s ranks on most lists as the top franchise worldwide; however, the sector provides much more opportunity than fast-food restaurants. There were 770,000 franchise businesses in the U.S. in 2019, pumping about $880 billion into the economy. 

 

“With a franchise, you not only have the brainpower of the corporate office, but you have the brainpower of every single franchisee,” Catherine said. “When one franchisee in our network found out that there was a market for X. They told us, we told everybody.” 

 

That is a great example of the power of community. What we do as the C-Suite Network is make lasting connections that propel businesses forward. Same with FASTSIGNS – the connectivity between all franchisees did its job and they did it well.

 

While business success is never guaranteed, Catherine says the franchise model is better equipped to help set you for long-term success, more so than going at it alone because of the tools and resources available at the corporate level. 

 

“There is usually a marketing person team that is always thinking and always looking. There’s usually a franchise advisory council or franchisee advertising council always thinking. Always looking, always brainstorming on how to get better,” Catherine related. “That’s just an inherent benefit of the model.” 

 

She continued, “That business owner franchisee doesn’t have to think about, ‘I got to create marketing materials. I got to create training materials for my employees.’ They have more time for work on implementation.” “That’s when a new marketing idea comes down. They can quickly implement it rather than having to think about all the other things that an independent business owner does. And it’s just inherently the strength of the of the franchise business model.” 

 

Another key elements franchises offer is brand recognition almost instantly.  

 

Catherine is a big supporter of the franchise model. She’s the Chair of the trade group IFA – International Franchise Association.  

 

During our Q&A with C-Suite Network community, Catherine also recommended resources for people with businesses who are looking to franchise their idea. She even went into detail about some of the labor issues facing the franchise industry. 

    

The conversation wasn’t all about business either, we had some fun, too. Catherine and I go way back, we reminisced about a Halloween-related business deal involving Boy Scout and witch costumes. Listen here for some great wisdom, business acumen, and even a few opinions about the future of the industry.

 

Everyone wants to be successful. 

 

Our society is so success-driven, you can find someone happy to sell you a book, online course, or multi-day seminar dedicated to helping you find success just about everywhere. 

 

Recently, I had the pleasure of talking to the creator of The Secret Knock and my friend, Greg Reid, award-winning author of more than 100 books — thirty-two alone were best-sellers in 45 different languages. He also travels the world meeting some of the most powerful and influential people alive and writes about their success so the rest of us can implement their methods in our daily lives.  

“Not a bad gig (for a guy) with dyslexia,” Greg says.  

 

Not a bad gig at all, I have to say. Since Greg has talked to so many people across the success spectrum, I had to ask him what’s the one thing people need to achieve a high level of success.  

 

His answer: CPC. Clues, patterns, and choices. 

 

“Looking back in life, If I were to learn this one technique would have changed many things, Greg said. “It works like this: accountability and responsibility for every single thing that happens. Stop blaming other people. It’s your fault.” 

 

To illustrate his point, Greg used the example of a first date. 

 

“Let’s say I go on a first date, and the woman happens to be 20 minutes late. Anything could have happened, but there’s a little red flag. It’s a clue. But if I go on the fifth, sixth, and seventh date. Every time she’s 20 minutes late that forms the P, the pattern. And now it’s my C, choice whether I deal with it. Yell at her. Break up with (her), but it’s not her fault. She’s just late. Stop trying to change people to fit in your little own paradigm box,” Greg said. 

 

CPCs are applicable to business relationships as well. Often, we work with people who have bad reputations but you think you’ll be the one to break that pattern and things will be different with you. Inevitably, things go wrong, and you wonder why. 

 

“It’s like seeing a rattlesnake rattle. Bite your kid sister, you go to pet it, get bit, and you’re mad at the snake,” Greg said. “Looking back in life, we’re never angry at the relationships that didn’t go good or the business practices. We’re angry that we stayed in too long because we saw the clue. We saw the pattern, but we made our choices a little bit too late.” 

We also talked about wealth as it relates to success. Greg and I both agree that the age-old advice of following your passion and prosperity will follow is bad advice. I can’t think of one person who says they have a passion for garbage, yet people have made millions in waste management. Greg says he came to this revelation after asking a multi-billionaire a simple question: Why are you wealthy and I’m not?  

 

“Because you believe all the BS lie is that you’re spreading to the world,” the billionaire told him.  

“(The billionaire) pulled out his cell phone, and it had a meme that I put out there that said ‘follow your passion and not a paycheck,'” Greg recalled. “(The billionaire) said, ‘and you wonder why you’re broke, you idiot.’ The richest people that were millionaires and lost all their money 100% of them did that, following their passion. (The billionaire) said ‘no one that’s a wealthy billionaire ever lost their money because what they’re doing is constantly looking for opportunities, and they use that wealth and prosperity to finance their passions.'”  

 

This billionaire also told Greg, “We own the stadiums and the football teams that people following their passion are giving their brain matter on the field for just a few million bucks. It’s just a different perspective. You can be rich, or you can be wealthy. It’s up to you.” 

  

Before you eventually earn your wealth, Greg says you should prepare for your success. He admits it sounds weird, but it can pay off.  

 

“When (success) comes, it’s going to come so fast and furious. You better be prepared for it. It’s like a slingshot. It’s been pulled back, pulled back, pulled back. Well, when that lets go and goes forward, I’m telling you, I want to be sitting on that train ready to rock and roll,” Greg says. “All I’ve been doing is setting myself and positioning myself for success. I did not over pivot like everyone saying, what I did is I hunker down and I stayed true to my core values.” 

 

Staying true to your core, or what I call walk away values, is essential. You should draw that line in the sand early. Then you’ll be better prepared for what’s next. 

 

Greg and I spoke during a private C-Suite Network event. We turned part of our conversation into an episode of my podcast, All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett. When you become part of the C-Suite Network, you immediately gain access to unique content, like this networking event, with some of the brightest minds in business. For half the cost of a business lunch, we can help you become the most strategic person in the room. Click here to learn more.  

 

 

Reinvention is becoming the overriding theme of COVID-19. Everyone has figured out a way to re-invent their business model — from small businesses to schools, pivoting has become a necessity.  

 

One could argue many of these changes have been boiling under the surface for years; in fact, COVID has become an accelerator. While others are finding themselves in foreign lands, basically trying to learn a new language and customs on the fly. 

 

One thing is for sure. We need to retire the phrase ‘business as normal.’ If we’ve learned anything over the past year, business was never normal, and it won’t be normal ever again. 

Keith Ferrazzi and I see eye-to-eye on that.  If you don’t know Keith, at the age of 32, he became the youngest CMO of a Fortune 500. He’s authored two best-selling business books and recently released his third, Leading Without Authority,  where he introduces us all to the idea of co-elevation in business.  

 

“(Leading Without Authority) is to me the culmination of 20 years of coaching,” Keith said during a recent C-Suite Network event. “To really understand, what does it take for you as a leader to be transformative in your industries? Not just come up with the strategies, but how do you truly do what I call ‘teaming out?’ How do you redefine even who your team is? To reinvent who you are.” 

 

He continued, “This is an inflection point, to leap forward, and we’ve been given a great gift, a blessing, to push a remote reboot to the world, and you know this is a guidebook for you to do that.” 

 

Simply put, co-elevation is the group’s shared mission and the commitment of the people in that group to each other.  

 

Co-elevation isn’t the “top-down” leadership style most people are used to. Keith says we need to break out of our respective silos and embrace each other’s success. Instead of your team going to you with all their problems, you have to empower everyone to give direction and feedback. This not only helps your team, but it frees up your bandwidth for more important tasks – what I refer to as working ON the business, rather than IN the business. 

 

Keith also cautions leaders not to fall into a common trap. “Please don’t ever use the word I,” he said. “You are not going to do anything. The creation of the future of your vision is a co-creation with a set of individuals.” 

Keith admits this can be hard for some business leaders to grasp and wrap their heads around. However, with all the turbulence of the past year, things may be changing.  

 

“I tend to find the smaller organizations; the leaders take on way too much responsibility and sense of self to get stuff done,” Keith said. “Stop thinking that way in a remote world.” 

 

Change can be overwhelming for anyone, whether in business or life. Thankfully, Keith has some ideas on how to overcome that paralysis that can affect us all from time to time. He says to start with redesigning your business and workforce models. To accomplish that, you need to embrace something he calls inclusion. 

 

“Inclusion means you need to have a team creating your future,” he said.  

 

He also advises to not limit your team to those who work for you. The team becomes anyone who can help you achieve your goals – or what Keith calls, “loose partners or tight partners, that’s up for us to figure out.”  

 

“If you’re really trying to transform your organization remotely, virtual has some really unique assets,” Keith said. “You can invite anybody you want into your team for 10 minutes, five minutes, a half-hour.” 

 

One of the ways Keith believes your team can be successful is through openness and candor.  

 

“Only 20% of teams claim that they can speak and challenge each other openly in a room. Which means 80% of your teams are conflict avoidant, and they talk behind each other’s backs and think that’s acceptable. It’s not acceptable,” Keith emphasized. 

 

That’s good advice. I always encourage the team to be honest with me, and everyone else. We believe in radical transparency and that is one of the values we live by. I know honesty sometimes means you step on someone’s toes, but overall, we’re better for it.

 

I’d like to thank Keith for his time and insights. We covered a lot during our informal chat on leadership, coaching, and the story of a young doctor who saw the ER’s inefficacies and tried to do something about it.  

 

It’s worth a listen. 

 

If you’d like to attend our next event, become part of the C-Suite Network community. For less than half the price of a business lunch, you get access to one-of-a-kind content and insights from c-level executives and other great business leaders. All this makes you the most strategic person in the room. Click here to learn more.