Future-Forward Business Insights - w/ Herb Cogliano | Ep. 116

In this podcast episode, David and Gary speak with International Executive Business Coach, Herb Cogliano. Jam packed with scaling insights and growth motivation this is a MUST for any startup, entrepreneur or business owner looking to radically transform their business in 2024 and beyond.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hcogliano/

https://www.aspiregrowthadvisors.com/

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David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

Herb: 0:00

I think at the end of the day for the smart few that continue to navigate, understand their strategy and position themselves to be distinctive and valued. There's always a great year ahead.

David: 0:18

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, and I am joined per usual by Gary Voight. How's it going, man? Happy New Year.

Gary: 0:27

Pretty good, happy New Year to you too.

David: 0:30

And, more importantly, we are joined by Herb Conegliano, who is an entrepreneur and Executive Business Coach, welcome. Happy New Year to you herb.

Herb: 0:40

Yeah. Thank you guys excited for 2024 I think it's going to be even a better year for all of us and looking forward to being on the show.

Gary: 0:50

Well, you're the first one for this year.

David: 0:53

First time, first time, here we go. So you mentioned 2024. Do you think if you put your crystal ball on or hat on or something, you're putting something on someone? Is this better? Or worse? Do you think in general not necessarily for you, I get specific to you if you'd like generally do see 2024 has been better or worse. A year?

Gary: 1:17

For are you asking for like startup funding and stuff like that, or you know, just specifically for

David: 1:21

business in his experience? Sure, wherever he wants to phrase it, I'm not picky.

Herb: 1:25

So Dave is an entrepreneur. I think by nature, I'm an optimist. And there's always the silver lining in any market that good business owners can navigate and take advantage of. As a realist. I know we have an election coming up and we got a bunch of world global economic things that could impact us. So I think at the end of the day for the smart few that continue to navigate, understand their strategy and position themselves to be distinctive and valued. There's always a great year ahead. For those that maybe are not seeing the market dynamics are not willing to pivot or pivoting quick enough. It could be a challenging year, and I hope that's nobody that's listening to your podcast.

David: 2:20

Spoken like a business coach right there. Right. I like it. Gary, what do you think? What do you think this year? I'm gonna I'm gonna put you on the spot because you're gonna be here next year. So what are your good, bad, ugly? I admire your optimism. Yeah.

Gary: 2:34

And I yeah, just like herb. I'm an optimist. And I do believe that some of the weirdness that happened in the tech industry over the last year is kind of panning out in my opinion. And it seems like like all AI thing is getting was getting really weird. But now, it seems to be like it's a little more guided in the direction and all the doomsday predictions of it taking everybody's job is kind of not going to happen, at least in the creative field. I know. Maybe in some other fields. It's eating away at some people's work like copywriters, and whatnot, but overall, I'm excited. And see I am.

David: 3:19

I'm gently Oh, God.

Gary: 3:22

I'm still not going to be able to afford the apple AR glasses though. The Vision Pro.

David: 3:27

So the book, big old goggles are supposed to come maybe

Gary: 3:29

2025.

Herb: 3:31

Just for the email today. Just got the first marketing piece put in your order now. Yeah,

David: 3:37

they're they're starting to get those out there. It's yeah, I am cautiously. I'm optimistic. Not about the I'm not sure about the Apple glasses. I don't know about those yet. But in general, I think I think one part you're wrong on is I think AI is gonna get so much weirder. Here, I think, yeah, I think we are, because they're opening in the next next a little bit, probably by the time this airs. They're opening the store. And you're gonna see what happens when the average programmer just can make their own junk. And you're gonna see just some crazy, crazy things. I believe in the next not even very long, I think you're gonna start to remember like, when the iPhone app store opened up, oh, just got the weirdest. You had the beer app, right that you could drink your beer out of your phone, which sure fart apps were everywhere. AI has not gone through their fart app stage. And I think it's gonna start ahead. I think it's gonna be really weird. I

Gary: 4:36

guess you can call them colleague, someone that I knew through work asked me to design an app for cigars. And I was like, well, what's the premise of it? He's like, I'm gonna buy cigars. I'm going to try them. And then I'm going to rate them. And then everybody's gonna want to download the app to see which ones I think are best. Like, are you going like International? He's like, no, just local ones. Like, yeah, that sounds great. Perfect. It's like new people that are gonna want that app. I'm

David: 5:00

going to be we're gonna have we're gonna have an AI bot of the cigar smoking AI bot that's coming up every kind of AR

Gary: 5:07

I thought I heard he sold that ideas and NFT and made a lot of Bitcoin. So that's probably working out for him pretty well.

David: 5:14

I'm sure he's doing really well then, you know, on that front, I heard a thing a podcast the other day 99.5 I might even be wrong. There might have been another nine in there. Of all NF T's ever made, are worth no money. Nothing. Like who would have thought? Who would have thunk? Okay, more important. Let's talk to her because he is more interesting than NF T's. You are an executive business coach, tell me what that means. In layman's terms.

Herb: 5:46

Yeah. So at my core, I'm an entrepreneur, and I was born into a family business and had loved business my entire life. But our business was helping people get jobs. We're a North American technology staffing provider, we were around 54 years. And then we began with career education to supplement employment, computer training, make people even higher skilled, better potential jobs. But through that whole journey, what I love doing was unleashing people's potential, whether was a candidate getting a more meaningful job, whether it was an employee, developing them into the next level of management, or whether it was a student graduating, going from a low paying job of eight to $10 an hour to finally meaningful wage 15 to $20 an hour. And that was just a pattern my entire life that I always enjoy, helping people see the best in achieve the best part of themselves. So our company's exited around 2018, our portfolio of companies. And I had number one, my father has been my lifelong mentor and a business coach, lifelong entrepreneur. And I also had a gentleman named Bill Chaplin that was a business coach. And I saw the impact that they had on the people around them in the organizations they supported. And when we exit it, I said, out of all the things I could choose to do, I could just open another company and scale it. Or I can help 20 other businesses and their employees in their community scale. And I really want to focus on impact. So my clients are purpose driven business owners, that are looking to scale their company, but in reality, they're really trying to scale and develop their leadership and their people. Because when you scale and develop the leadership team and the people, traditionally the business around it scales with it. And that's where I've gotten my joy. And that's why I do what I do.

David: 8:02

So you is just, you mentioned before we started recording, that most of your clients who bid the businesses you work with, they will double in size in three to five years on average with working with you. Yes. The question I don't understand there is, no matter how good that leader is, and his execution ops team is, how do they find double the clients? Where did those sales come from? I mean, even if you these guys are all, you know, chew and nails, and they're the best of the best. But they're still waiting until someone gives them something to do. Right. How are you? How are they doubling in that regard?

Herb: 8:40

Yeah, so if you think a strategy, it's really about finding the growth opportunities. So maybe the way for one company to double is geographic expansion. Maybe the way for another company to develop is to go into franchising, or maybe joint ventures, or maybe a product extension that they never thought of, quite frankly, some of the clients have too many products in by really focusing the portfolio in finding the real value add, and then driving marketing and sales energy on a fewer products versus spread out over 20 We're able to scale that way. So it's normally the insight behind finding where the growth is being blocked, and then pivoting to enable growth to that next level.

David: 9:35

Okay, that makes sense. Okay, good. Good. Good. So if I were to hire you, is it am I hiring you or do you bring in a team of ninjas? How does how does an an in typical engagement work? Yeah,

Herb: 9:47

no, I am the chief ninja. I have a what I would call a private boutique practice. It's me and my wife. My wife handles all the administrative and I handle all the code Training personally, I deal with scaling up education. I deal with executive coaching, implementing scaling up methodology. And then I deal with facilitated planning, updating quarterly and annual planning to get the right strategy that we're going to go to market with.

David: 10:19

Awesome, awesome. Okay. So if you are at a high level I'm and to be fair, like most of the people listening to here are people who are aspiring to start a business, or they are getting started, or they have been running for a little bit. But at least the way I've been we've been couching this for almost two years now. Wow, that's crazy. Is I, we started this because I didn't want to feel alone anymore. When I was struggling with leadership and stuff like that than I wanted to learn. I realized a lot of other people were in that same boat. And so that's where this podcast came from just flat out. So with that in mind, and that scale in mind, what would you say is the blocking thing for most people, when they're leading their companies, whether they've been in business for a year or a decade

Herb: 11:14

what I hear a lot in see a lot is leadership, sixth session, they become the bottleneck. They know their business, they're brought all the decisions to make, they're very good at it. A lot of times they enjoy it, because they're good at it, and people give them accolades. But when you're trying to scale from, you know, 12 to 2525, to 50 people, and you have to loosen the reins, and then you have to trust and then people are not you, they will never be you. And then they make mistakes. And then you're not able to truly have a succession plan. So you get stuck working in the business, which what I want you to do is spend more time working on it. And that is, Dave, I don't know if you've heard this step before. But out of about 32 million companies in America, less than one half of 1% ever scale over 10 million a year in revenue.

David: 12:21

I can believe that. One

Herb: 12:23

half of 1%. And only 4%. ever make it over 1 million. That's scary. Now, this a lot of lifestyle companies that don't want to be over a million or 10 million, that's great. But there's a lot of people who do, but they just can't break through the complexity. They don't see it. They're hard working, they're smart. They're just not asking themselves the right questions, and going through the decisions in the proper way to scale a company. So

David: 12:58

that that big number 34 million in some of these, does that include like, you know, ladies cooking cookies in their in their kitchens and hanging a shingle out? I mean, so it's all types already?

Herb: 13:10

Yes. Okay.

David: 13:13

One of the things that we say a lot on this podcast is the owner, the CEO, founder, leader, whatever you want to call them, they are have the unique job of giving away their job. It's like the only when you're the owner of a company in particular, you can't get fired, per se. So giving away your entire job. It's backwards, because it's okay, you're allowed to do that. And you still have a job. But I think and this is something Gary, how many times have we talked about this, that I have struggled with is letting go right, exactly what you're talking about. Letting Go and one of the things and I would love your thought on this one of the things that I am currently struggling with is a probably if we listen back to old podcasts, we I've been struggling with it for a long time. But it's the power of my voice being the boss. And how that has unintended consequences. That is something that I am struggling with just for me. Because I will say something I've been, you know, in my head, I'm a dev, I've been a developer for 20 years. That's all I am. I'm nothing special. I just develop and I write code. That's what that's what I am deep down. So I'm talking to another Dev and I'm thinking of us as peers. But we are big enough now that there's a big difference that sometimes two or three levels, technically speaking, that between me and that dev but I don't see that I don't think about that. So I'll say something. And I will find out through the grapevine that I either made their day or I wrecked it in ways I had no idea that was happening at the time. And either I have to apologize or I'm glad I made their day one or the other And that is something that is, there's no, I don't know of a book that talks about that enough. But like, they talked about leadership and all this. I mean, I love leadership, and I love reading about it and, and trying to improve that craft. But that is one of those parts that well, that's not in the handbook. It's, you know, the, the letting go and how to let go. There's some of that, but not enough. Like, I think that's probably where you're you live a lot, if I were to guess, is getting those owners to unclench and let someone else because we have good people, hopefully, right and let them do their jobs. And they want to I think that's what's also anyway, Gary, do you have any thoughts on any of that?

Gary: 15:38

Yeah, I call that the boss man being scenario, where even though you're a dev, and they're devs, and you can relate to them on the same level, in your mind, you're still the one in charge of them getting paid, therefore, your boss, maybe it's of no fault of your own my wife? Well, it doesn't really matter. Doesn't matter.

Herb: 16:04

Dave, I think the biggest thing or the learning curve that that I went through as a CEO, is I was used to always having the answers and I had a pivot to ask more questions. Because they come to you for a lot of decisions they expect, Dave knows the answers, you do know if not all of them, 90 plus percent of them. And so in the beginning, you ended up giving them because that's how you started the company having to make a lot of decisions. And that's how your company grew and got momentum. And now, think of your focus as not growing the company, visa vie revenue profit, think of your position as growing the people in it, who will grow your company. And it's a paradigm shift. And I have to tell you, the biggest epiphany I got is when I started coaching my kids sports, because when you coach someone else's child, you have to act very differently with a five year old that's not yours, than the way you talk to them. The way you build their confidence, the way you let them make mistakes on a drill, the way you build. It's incremental, it's step by step. It taught me so much patience as an entrepreneur that I did not have earlier in my career. I knew what I wanted, I wanted it done, and I want it done now. But that's not how you develop people. And so patience, asking enough questions, giving them time to answer or find answers, and be able to grow from their mistakes, is a really key ingredient to getting this whole thing to work.

David: 17:55

One of my friends who runs a business, I don't know if he made it up, but I'm gonna give him credit. His name is Bob. Hello, Bob. He gave some of the best advice that I've ever gotten and putting into practice. I still not good at this. But he said, you know, encourage people, like people are going to come to you with problems. And they're going to put them on your desk. And the key for business growth and business leadership, is making sure that they take them with them when they leave your office. Yes, that is no longer you're the owner. But that doesn't mean all the problems have to be solved by you. And he off the top of my head, I cannot remember the phrase he uses, but it was pretty good. It was like something like and what are you going to do about this? That's basically just flipping and yes. And I think that that's again, I'm not good at that yet. But I that's in the back of my mind to try to I mean, I am getting to the point where I'm asking a lot more questions. But to to this isn't me, I cannot solve this. Or more importantly, I don't want to solve this, right? Like you're saying, I can't fix it all. So what are you going to do about this and what we actually just promoted internally, one of our guys to be the new director of operations, and that is kind of, there's a lot more of that going on. It's like, this is now your wheelhouse. This is your your baby. You're running ops. That's a lot, right. We're basically an operations company. We built software. And so it's a big, big thing. So but now having to say, Hey, this is yours now. I'm not the solve anymore. And you can see him he's like, okay, he goes and does it right. It's up. Yeah, I totally understand that.

Herb: 19:36

Dave, does your company work with either OKRs or priorities with your team?

David: 19:43

Considering I don't know what that means. I'm gonna go with no. What is okay, our

Herb: 19:47

objective key results. Oh, wow, that

David: 19:51

sounds really cool. We should do that. Gary. Put that on the list. No, don't we have our

Gary: 19:55

got it?

Herb: 19:56

Yeah, like Google, Google and Intel where Big people around. We have company objectives. And then we have key results that we have to make in each objective. Some people use simply the word priority, what are the top priorities for the company this year for the quarter. But what I was going to mention as a potential tip, we want our people to be accountable. And we also want them to be able to predict. I always said, I don't mind bad news. I never like being surprised. Bad news is a reality in life. But don't surprise me with the bad news. If you know it's coming. We should be talking about it before it's coming. If you're managing your business, right, so we just simply said to the managers, you all have priorities for your department. In a 13, week, quarter, in the second week, Dave? What what's the probability that you're going to be 100% on target by the end of the quarter for your priority? And they'll answer me like, Oh, I'm good. I said, No, that's not what I asked on a scale of one to 100. What's your probability in week two, that you're going to finish on target week 13 76%. We make them give me a number because it induces critical thinking, they need to really get focused on coming up with the right number. And then we have a very simple next question. What are you going to do between now and then to put it back on track? And when you start asking that question once a week during the 13 weeks, and their probability and their prediction goes up, and their accountability and problem solving during the quarter starts to get more engaged, and more intense, people get their stuff done. And then I support wherever I can help if they're stuck, if there's a roadblock, a boss, gotta help them, and you will help.

David: 22:09

So where we were, the version of that for us is, if we have a weekly deliverable Little Big whatever. I will ask on Monday, hey, this is what we've got. You know, this, or is this cool? Does this work? Can you get this done? Without overtime without craziness? Yes. Awesome. Cool. All right. Tuesday comes around. How's it going? It's going good. Good. Yep. You're on target. Yes. Okay. Perfect. Wednesday comes around. So on target. Yeah. Thursday comes around. I'm not gonna hit it. You knew that on Tuesday. Right? That Come on. Now. You knew that on Tuesday. And so now, like you're saying, getting surprised, because I've been telling the client because they're asking me the same questions, right? How are we looking for our deliverable? We're looking good. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we're looking good. This is what I'm feeding in. Because this is what I'm receiving. It's going straight through. And Thursday now. Now I look like the idiot either I'm not running my company. Well, or I've been lying to my client. Neither is good. Right? Yeah. And that's where exactly don't surprise me. I said I, if you're off, and you know it on Tuesday, tell me on Tuesday, because I'm really good at putting on my dancing shoes and making the clients understand what we're doing. Right. That's, that's, that's what I'm here for. If I don't know that I need to lace up, man. It's just ugly. And we run into that all the time. And it's part of that software is the sausage of making software has never pretty it's just the nature of the beast. But no, you know, I've been doing this a long, long time now. I'm used to what I know what's coming. I can prep it. I can get the client ready, but I cannot fix what I don't tell them because now on Thursday, come in Hatton hand, yeah, all those things I told you. Yeah, totally wrong. I'm so sorry. There's nothing you can do with that. Nothing. You do that? Yeah.

Christie: 23:56

Big pixel, build world class, custom software and amazing apps. Our team of pros puts passion into every one of our projects. Our design, infused development leans heavily on delivering a great experience for our clients and their clients, from startups to enterprises. We can help craft your ideas into real world products that help your business do better business.

David: 24:21

How did you get your US family business? How did you get to I always like to the origin story, as it were, it's kind of where I'm going. I'm stumbling over myself. But that's the beginning. You took your company because your family business sold that. Awesome. You love the people you love helping the people. But how did you turn that that love of people into a business?

Herb: 24:51

So origin story wide? Imagine we were pioneers in the staffing industry in the early 60s. There was hardly any staffing companies around in the early 60s. So when you're a pioneer and you're in the right market, you're a first mover, life is good. And life was good for our company for a couple of decades. But then the market matured, we were geographically constrained. We are more regional New England, competitors, bigger competitors, manpower, Kelly girls, if you're familiar with any of them, all started coming in our back door, drop in price, commoditization. And we're like what happened? So there was a point, we had navigated 13 Different recessions as a company. That's pretty damn good. So you got to be scrappy to make that through that. But we did. But we weren't growing as quick as we thought we should, we thought the market was evolving faster. And we started to plateau. And quite honestly, that scared the living hell out of me. So somebody gave me a book called Mastering the Rockefeller habits by Vern Harnish. And most small, mid market companies don't have a staff of MBAs who have all done case studies at Harvard at Stanford or Wharton, we didn't. But the book was kind of a framework on how you should look at sequencing and what methodology would help you grow with less drama and more success. And I said, at this point, I'm open minded to try anything. And we started implementing the Rockefeller habits one at a time, in over a time we took once I did it in a startup division, 25 people 30 months, we went from 25 to 150, people went from $200,000, bottom line to $4 million a year in under 30 months. Wow. And I didn't work any harder. I wasn't any smarter, it was the same effort. But I was finally doing the right things in the right order that we needed to do to grow the company. And I just wasn't aware. And when you put the playbook in, and you can get your entire company around it synchronized, aligned and accountable, good things start to happen. And it did. And I never looked back, I would never start any other company in the future without putting that playbook in day one. And there's a lot of well read people that have probably read hundreds, if not 1000s, of books. And I love learning. And I think reading is really important. But you know, the biggest lesson that I learned, what are the few books that you're willing to master, not just read? Are you willing to read the same book 50 times, if that book provides mastery in a thing that's going to change your business to incredible heights, most people don't. But I said, out of all the things I've done in red, it works. Now I need to master it. And if I master it, my business life will be a hundredfold better. It was. And that was just maturity as a CEO kind of understanding, you know, where to lean where to pivot, and I had some wonderful people, I didn't want to let them down, you know, the livelihoods of the people you employ. A and I was concerned about a players because a players want a bigger future. And is your company going to be able to give it to him? Or is it going to be somebody else. Now, even if I created a company that was successful lifestyle, I made a lot of money, I come and go as I want. And please, that's good for me. But it's not good for all the other eight players one year, three year five years down the road. So the only way I know to grow a great company and keep a players is to keep growing a company to have bigger opportunities for all of us. And that's what pushed me over the top to say, I gotta be all in or I gotta be prepared to get out. And I never looked back once I got all in.

David: 29:43

Yeah, I love that. A lot of that resonates with what my business group talks about on a regular basis. One of the things that they I've heard I haven't read the Rockefeller habits, that one is referenced a ton. I have heard that the traction ELLs kind of system is a newer version of those a lot of those same principles. I just read with my new Director of Operations, rocket fuel, which is all about the integrator visionary relationship. And one of the analogies that you mentioned, resonates pretty heavily with that book they were talking about, when you have that relationship, really well established and it's working. You can take it, they use an archery thing, if you fire 50 arrows, but they're all going in different places, you're not going to hit anything. And so a good relationship starts turning those arrows. So they're all pointing to the same place. And again, that sounds very similar to what you're talking about. And that is one of the things I find difficult is in the thick of it, you don't know if you're doing it, right. Right. It's, it's, it's one of those things, you see, you look back, and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see that they see they see this, that we had the synergistic kind of goodies, whatever, the arrows are all pointing to the right spot. But when you're in the thick of it, it still feels like sausage making to me. And that's where I, I'm trying to figure that out? How do you get that distance? To know that you are actually doing that? Does that make sense?

Herb: 31:16

Yeah, have you ever I've heard boxers talk about this. When they're first beginning to learn how to box every punch seems like it's coming out in like a million miles an hour. But the better you get with your technique, the more gears you put in the gym, mastering the different aspects of it, the fight seems to slow down, almost like The Matrix, I would describe the movie. It's the same way with scaling up. If you've been leaning in, in mastering the diagnostics, do you know how to assess the problem in your company, and then do you know the right tool, your business will slow down around you in you'll be able to see and react before others even know what the hell is going on. And it's a matrix type moment for me that I used to think of a problem assess the wrong problem. I thought it was a strategy problem. It was a people problem. But I took a people tool, a people initiative to fix it, and I ended up making it even worse. So it's understanding how to diagnose correctly, and then how to pick the right tool, like a doctor, the right medication once you did diagnose, and that takes years of practice, and understanding and insight to pull off. And when I realized that in put in the work, I saw it actually happen around me. I could talk about it in the beginning. But it took years to really feel it around me happening.

David: 33:10

Everyone has a story, it was a guy talking about fighting. And he says you can always tell someone who knows how to fight versus someone who just wants to hit you. Because when they start swinging someone who knows what they're doing, and Gary's on a lot of martial arts, he's not even for the non non visual people. You see are swinging if you've been swung out before, he's like, that doesn't scare you, you don't freak out and, and start wailing around like I would because I'm an idiot. But he's like, when you really know what you're doing, you just kind of get out of the way and just watch them do their thing. And they you just get him up and the tire themselves out. And then it's it's go time, right. And it's kind of like that's it's kind of funny how those analogy works. Because in the in the midst of it, I guess in my this is my first company, right? And, you know, let our listeners it's their first company. We're going to be flailing because we we've not done this before. We haven't seen this. We don't have that. What are the tricks? I mean, besides 20 years of doing it, which I you know, I don't have that kind of time. Because I've had 20 years I'm I'm already 20 years delay, how do you get that perspective earlier? Or what tips can you do? So that I can fast fast forward that get that knowledge to not to start freaking out? Yeah.

Herb: 34:23

So it's a self serving answer day, but it's the reason why I got a business coach. When I did I self implemented for about 18 months. I thought we were smart. I thought we were hard working. I read the book. I'm like, yeah, we can do this went on, right. And then what I found was I didn't know what I didn't know. So I'm misinterpreting the concept. I'm using the wrong tool or the right tool incorrectly. And I was with a friend at dinner and I'm all excited and I'm talking about this implementation. He goes uh, you phrasing this, what do you mean? He goes, this isn't a hobby. You're talking about your company? Why would you be playing around gambling in your company? Why would you go out and get a person that's been there, done that and you learn off his mistakes, versus you having to spend the next decade making your own mistakes, and then finally catching up? And it hit me right between the eyes. I said, You're absolutely right. And then it was a question of just finding the right coach for you in your company.

David: 35:36

So if you are, I mean, everyone needs a mentor, coach, I'm a big believer in that. But those things cost money, right? Hiring someone like you cost money. So at what stage are mean? Are you saying, if you're at a million in revenue? Or are you saying now you can do it sooner than that, or it should be 5 million in revenue? What is what is a good thing? Where coaches, you know, if you, you're starting out, only 4% get to a million plus. Okay, so that seems like there's room for coaching there clearly. But you're still too new, maybe like, where do you find that that in the mentors is one thing but the coach,

Herb: 36:15

normally under a million is tough, Dave. So if you're under a million, it's tough. But I don't look at it as an all or nothing, all or nothing proposition, I look at it, it's stages. So if I'm a half a million dollar company, or a 300,000, and I'm building, and all I can afford to do is pay 20 bucks and go out and get the book, you're going to be farther ahead than 90% of the other people who never read it. So kudos for you, you're going to get the momentum, you're going to get education after the book. I'm a professor of the Master's course for scaling up education. So after the book, if you can afford the coach, enroll in a scaling up Master's business course, and then get your next level of engagement and adoption. By that point, you should be building up revenue and knowledge and momentum, that you should be able to look at some coaching options. They have leadership team options for bigger companies, with groups, three to five or eight leadership team members. And they have one on one options for smaller companies where it's really just still the CEO. And maybe they're number two in command. That means to get coaching, so think of it as levels of investment based upon where you're at to get you to the next place you want to go to.

David: 37:46

Nice, nice, that's good advice. All right, Gary, do your thing. Well, for

Gary: 37:53

some of the people that don't have that kind of money just yet, haven't bought a book yet. We're hoping you can give them three pieces of advice. What are your top three pieces of advice for a new entrepreneur, new business or a startup?

Herb: 38:08

Keeping it simple. Ask yourself, do you have a growth methodology that you're employing in your company? If you don't have a formal growth methodology, pay 20 bucks and at least learn about one. And mastering the Rockefeller habits is an excellent way to get started dip your toes, Dave, like you, I've read a lot of them. I've studied traction. God this, there's like four or five. But I studied them all. And I want my clients to have the benefit of best practices in all of them. But I just found for my particular journey, scaling up had the most extensive use of tools and methodology. And that was important to me, but start somewhere. Number two. Are you asking yourself the right questions? Because unfortunately, hard working smart people don't always build a six successful company. So the right questions are around the four important decisions and accompany people. Do you have the right people in the right seats? Strategy? Are you differentiated in the market with something that clients value and is distinctive from your competition? Execution? Are all your processes running efficiently? And are you making industry leading bottom lines? And finally is cash do you have enough internal cash to fund the internal growth rate that your company desires? Because if not, You're going to family friends, beg, borrow, steal to get it. And we like to create companies that can internally generate enough cash flow to self fund, and only go outside when necessary. So if you can ask those questions, and you get good answers, you're in the right place. The final thing I would recommend, I think owners and entrepreneur entrepreneurs deserve to run their business, when unfortunately, I find a lot of businesses run their work and wait too many hours. They're way too underpaid. They're taking 100% of the risk. And they're in jeopardy of not leaving a legacy for the reason why they began the company in the first place. So if you're feeling under rewarded, and that the company's running you, you need to take charge and get your company back. And I do believe there are ways to do that with the methodology. So I hope you found that helpful.

David: 41:08

No, that's great. I think those are all unique, very,

Gary: 41:11

very unique and very specific to like the coaching aspect of what we're talking about. So those were right in line. Perfect. Yeah, thank you.

David: 41:20

Well, I'm really enjoyed that.

Gary: 41:23

Oh, sorry.

David: 41:23

Get Shut. Shut up. Man. I was talking. I was doing good stuff. Now, I was just saying, Thank you so much for joining us. This has been really, really great. Alright, Gary, do your thing.

Gary: 41:34

Now, if anybody wants to learn more about you or your company, how can they find you?

Herb: 41:39

Yeah, simply go to my website, Aspire growth advisors.com. You can also look me up on LinkedIn, but aspire growth advisors.com is the easiest way to do it. If you want to know the readiness of your company to scale, we have a very simple assessment to help you determine your current readiness. If you want to know your readiness. As a leader, we have a high impact leader assessment, which will give you a sense of how you're developing on your leadership and how your business is developing for further scaling growth. So please take advantage and I thank you guys for your time. It was a pleasure.

Gary: 42:29

Awesome, thank you so much. Nice to meet you. We're gonna put those links in our show notes as well. So there'll be available for anybody.

David: 42:37

Well, with that we are out. Thank you again for joining us, and I appreciate your time.

Herb: 42:42

Happy New Year to both you.

Gary: 42:45

Thank you Happy New Year and Happy New Year to everybody listening.

Christie: 42:49

Hi, I'm Christie Bronto. Content Marketing Director here at Big pixel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the biz dev podcast. We'd love to hear from you shoot us an email Hello at dub big pixel.net the biz dev podcast is produced and presented by big pixel. See you next week. Until then follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook threads, YouTube and LinkedIn