0:00:00 - Alex
He did my own mind All right. Welcome to an exciting episode of Experience Focus Leaders. I'm delighted to introduce you to RJ Grimsha, who is an expert in business leadership, particularly focused on entrepreneurship, but RJ is also a CEO of a high growth company. Unify Equipment Finance grew from 13 million to 120 million in revenue in six years, and we'd love to hear from RJ both on how you lead a business and innovate within an established business. Rj, welcome to the pod.
0:00:46 - RJ
Thanks, I'm glad to be here and I absolutely love talking about entrepreneurship as well as entrepreneurship, because they really do run parallel to each other.
0:00:55 - Alex
Yeah, and I love having you on because I think before becoming an entrepreneur myself, I definitely felt like an itch right, like that.
I needed to go and do something. People used to call me maverick because I would just try to kind of do things within larger organizations that were way beyond my title or my level of responsibility and was in larger companies where success fighters were eventually grew to be sold to SAP. I would kind of switch roles every couple of years to try to do some new initiatives, and so I felt strong affinity was that term of entrepreneur, but not everybody that's entrepreneur needs to go and then eventually start their own business. So let's talk about what is the impact that these very special people inside the enterprise, what's sort of the most common career path for them? Because they don't necessarily always fit in the traditional path and to me they're like some of the most special people in our customer. So I want to make sure I help them and make their life rewarding when we collaborate with them. So describe to us the term and who are the people that are thriving in that role?
0:02:13 - RJ
Sure, Well, the definition of entrepreneurship is when an employee with an entrepreneurial spirit works within the confines of another business. Think of it as a business within a business. The term typically originally appeared in the early 1980s when management consultants Gifford and Elizabeth Pina published the book Entrepreneurine, which is the Bible of entrepreneurship. And let me provide some insight in terms of when customers utilize this type of culture. We call it the iOS and not to rip off the real iOS, but iOS is the entrepreneurial operating system and what we did at Unify with that mentality was what drove the growth. It wasn't RJ, it was the team and allowing the team or certain individuals within the organization to really take calculator risks, and that's one of the characteristics of an entrepreneur. Now, speaking of the individual, I would not be sitting here as a CEO, president of Unify If I did not have that mentality in.
My journey is quite different than yours, alex. I actually started as an entrepreneur at a very young age. I was 23 years old, just got out of the Air Force, and my dad, who was a very successful entrepreneur his business plan actually hangs behind me that he handwritten with two other partners in 1983. And they took this business plan from a plan to $50 million in revenue. So again, my journey was opposite, where I owned my own first business at a young age and then I fell into corporate America when I turned 30, by accident, and really it was just an easy transition and I never identified myself as an entrepreneur until probably early 2000s when I heard the term and I self identified and I said, yeah, this is what makes me successful and I need to continue to fuel that fire in my belly to do that.
So I went from an individual contributor carrying a sales bag and a sales rep and then, within 13 years, multiple changes, like you just mentioned. When I was with key equipment finance, for eight years I went from carrying a bag to running a banking team, which I had no experience running a bank lending. However, when I asked the district president why did he select me for that position, primarily it was because of my entrepreneurship mentality, in terms of just the behaviors that I did so. And keep in mind the other thing is an entrepreneur, I have zero risk other than my time. I'm not out laying any of my capital. So when you really truly look at the ROI of entrepreneur and entrepreneur, you really would have to mess up as an entrepreneur and not be successful, because you're going to learn knowledge from being an entrepreneur, to have those experiences that you can take on the rest of your career with you.
0:05:07 - Alex
Yeah, and I want to build on that because it almost feels like there's this huge innovation wave in the smaller, you know, younger companies, right, and in our company it relates to we call it, we're a company of founders so my co-founder ran his own startup beforehand, was the CEO, and then we just kept attracting other entrepreneurs To the team to build that spirit that you're describing. But it's a little bit easier, probably, to find that in the startup ecosystem. But I think for our customers, you know that are kind of taking a risk, they're ultimately taking a bet, they're trying to do something new. They are not a blasé about their work. They feel like it means something. They feel like they want to do, make a difference, make an impact, and so that's fundamentally human, that's the best of human characteristic.
And so if you can do, risk some of that, but there's some risk, right, like you, you're taking on a new initiative. It might fail, right, it might be you might, you know you may, you may still keep your job, but it's, it's there. There is some risk, but it's, as you said, relatively de-risk. But I almost feel, more importantly, it's it gives your life more meaning. If you're, if you're, a entrepreneur, you're not going to be able to do that.
0:06:25 - RJ
If you're, if you're creating something right, you're a part of the creator economy and that proves out in engagement surveys that we do within our that run on the iOS, you see the level of engagement go up almost 15% and right now so many companies are struggling with just the engagement of employees and team members. So when we do work with larger companies to deploy this again, you see the discretionary effort, you see the engagement go up tremendously. And the reason why there's simple reason. Why is that? These entrepreneurs and the team members of the team feel valued because their voices heard. They feel that they're adding value to the organization. So there has to be alignment there between the entrepreneur and the mission vision of that founder and if that aligns, it becomes extremely special.
0:07:14 - Alex
And I guess in a small organization you could ask people to select out right. So we kind of have like, if you're especially if you're relatively junior candidate, we give you a challenging task to figure out and work something out like that. Use a little bit unstructured, require some resourcefulness, signals that this is not a place where you're just gonna skate and put something in a ryazumai right, and I think we even called it like in the echo of intrapreneur term. As I was telling you earlier, we have a role. We call it intern-preneur, and it's one of the best things that we've come up with because it allows people that are either career changers, by the way, or folks that are kind of very early in their career, go and feel ownership or what they do. Some take a lot, some are kind of realizing that they need more structure, but it's also a good discovery. But at least they're drawn to that right. They wouldn't apply to this if they felt like this was they just wanna kind of put something in the ryazumai and move on.
0:08:25 - RJ
So I like that question. Do you actually advertise that term on your job descriptions in terms of-.
0:08:31 - Alex
That's right. Yeah, for the role, we do it and it's. And sometimes we forget and we say, oh, an intern. And I kind of keep reminding the team, no, no, no, they're intern-preneurs. Because it actually means a lot. It means that they can go and develop for themselves. First and foremost, take an ownership mindset, kind of deliver something, deliver value quickly, but like we want, like I told you, hey, zuckerberg started Facebook, he was in college, doesn't matter, right. Like think like that. Why wouldn't you think like that? And if you go and build something better afterwards, a hundred times bigger than what we're building, then I already feel, like as a CEO, that I've actually had positive impact. You know, even if you don't stay in our company and move on and explore, that's not a fit for you, because you've been endowed with that idea right.
0:09:23 - RJ
And I would assume that that probably gives you more sense of purpose than anything else that when you see someone come through under your toolage and then become successful in the future down the line.
0:09:35 - Alex
Well, you know, it differs in the business. So I'd say we've been pretty privileged to work on a very mission-driven company itself and I think, as you're pointing out the way you do, it is just as important as the mission and, ideally, the tool line. Our mission, you know, and we talked about it a little bit we're reimagining the book, right. So this is like a, you know, civilizational project, and so I think I could get excited, I could be an asshole, and some people say sometimes I am right.
And still like be pretty fired up and still, with people, would love to work on this, you know. Now I think, to try to manage that part of me, you know, and I create in a, you know, more challenging and inspiring environment. That's not like that and sort of allows other people to step up and not be the thing, but like if your mission is worthy, you know you don't want to mess it up with your execution around it right and alien people from the mission, and I think there are a lot competing among different platforms, right, some of which are well coating to your teeth.
0:10:42 - RJ
I'd say that being actively improving is really important for people to get involved with the leadership that needs listen.
0:10:52 - Alex
But I'm looking, who knows what's important?
So I would be happy if you would take on the challenge of living the Birna Green individuals and then roots out of aived.
Totally, the combination of that and a pretty strict execution requirements sort of weeds out, like I think there's a lot of people that aspire to be entrepreneurs, especially in their early their career, right, and if you have a, for example, let's say you have a part-time thing, you're doing something in school and you're, you're, you know, you're doing something with us, and we've noticed that some people kind of are optimistic about their ability to execute or their ability to ramp up or their ability to juggle a few balls effectively, and so I think it does get people.
But some of them, you know, they either they can't commit, you know, or or they just just can't execute rapidly enough. So I think there's, there's, but it's very quickly. We can figure that out very quickly. That's the beauty of it, right, like you don't need to wait for, you know, for weeks you kind of like hey, can't get stuff done, you know. Great, this is a good, good lesson for you, right, like the, the in the, in the operating environment that's high demanding you. Either you need to bring you know, bring points, points on board quickly.
0:12:14 - RJ
It's a dose of reality, especially if they're still in university and college. You know it's a reality, the way that the real world works in terms of you have to deliver value to the organization that you're joining.
0:12:24 - Alex
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think there's some and you know, I think that's a lesson that somebody's got to give out and I actually, interestingly, there's somebody that you know we we've been running this for a few years, so there's somebody that basically we exited and they came back to me in a gentle way for, like, explaining the rationale and everything. But it's like they came back to me later. They kind of stayed, stayed a fan of what we're doing and they, like they clearly took on some of this messages and adapted their career. So I don't know what you're finding, but, like, when you're bringing people that kind of their sense of themselves is a bit higher than the reality in their how do you, how do you help them grow Right, like, like is it? Was it you make this grow within your organization? You know, do you feel like, okay, you know you're not quite ready to be real entrepreneur, entrepreneur, you know, here's what you need to grow Like, I'm sure it's a ladder of some kind, right.
0:13:26 - RJ
I would. I would expand on this and I this is a true story that happened within Unify. We had a gentleman who clearly was an entrepreneur. Clearly, he had all the signs and characteristics, the behaviors, of being an entrepreneur. If you don't mind, I like to define those real quick for your audience to so, please find a self identify within their organization.
There's really five things to look for in an enterpreneur. From a basic high level perspective, it's really an ownership mentality of their responsibilities, which means they're held accountable and they're fine with that. They're a life learner. They're a person that's always trying to learn on a daily basis. They're passionate about life. It's just they don't just show up, go through the motions, but they're passionate outside of work. They're passionate inside of work. They take calculated risks. Okay, so they are, they will take the risk, but it's going to be very calculated, and then they have a drive to spark change. It could be innovation, it could be improvement. A lot of the customers or companies that we work with, they want to start with innovation first, because that's a catchy buzzword innovate, innovate, innovate. A lot of times we say let's start with improvement.
Let's have a, have a plan and program set up where ideas can be shared by the people in the trenches, because close to 38% of all employees feel they have great ideas to share, so you need to set up that mechanism. However, I also want to say and make sure people are aware of this you cannot, alex, have a company of 100% entrepreneurs within your company. It won't work Right.
0:14:57 - Alex
And what we do is all these new projects that never get completed.
0:15:01 - RJ
There's absolutely no execution at all. It wasn't for the whiteboard all day just drawing and dreaming and envisioning.
So what we do is is we have a principle, the you know the 80-20 principle, and we define it as you need 80% of your team members or employees within your organization is functional. Okay, that's a level one employee. They show up every day, follow process, they have a good attitude, but you're never, ever, they're never going to do anything more. As you transition to level two, they show signs of becoming a vital employee and can create process ones asked. However, they're never going to take that ownership mentality.
And then the holy grail is what we call the vital level three. They show all the signs of an entrepreneur and they understand the inputs and the outputs to create systems and they solve problems to scale across departments. So there's a three. There's definitely a three different behaviors of those three different types of employees. And if I'm a founder in a startup and I'm going all in on this I want to identify a level three to join me in my mission and what we call that is commissioning, because, at the end of the day, the biggest investment we all make is in the people that we're surrounding ourselves with.
0:16:12 - Alex
Yeah, yeah, and I think ultimately, the sign of a great founder or entrepreneur is that the ownership mindset will make them complete things and get it done, but they can only do it for a period of time.
At some point they need that functional team to go and scale it, because it's also non-scalable. If I can execute, I can follow up with every customer and prospect, but at some point there's got to be a sales organization that picks up on that or a marketing organization that nurtures that. That approach seems to be missing because oftentimes in the startup literature it's all about a myth of the founder and everybody's a founder, blah, blah, blah blah. But I really like what you've said. You've got to have a complementary team, but there's probably shared values. That is what. When you're starting to describe some of the values, like lifelong learning, I think that's exciting, that you want people that believe that change is possible. You want some of those characteristics. What do you think are essential values, if not of an entrepreneur that are a person that would succeed in an organization that wants to move but wants to progress? What's one or two of those values that are must-have?
0:17:46 - RJ
I would say from a value perspective, one of the main values is that they're trustworthy, they're a good communicator, and I don't know if that's behaviors or values, but in the same respect, I think that there's always a simple rule of thumb that I've always used when hiring people, and it's a simple principle of would I go to dinner with this person and enjoy the couple hours of dinner with them? If the answer is yes, then that's one of the barriers. Another thing that I ask again and I'm not asking your question specifically, but it's again trying to pull out signs that someone could be an entrepreneur is a question I always personally ask every candidate that comes to Unify is if money was not an object, what would your dream job be? I'll go first. The answer isn't to come to work for Unify, because that's not my answer as the CEO-president.
0:18:39 - Alex
It shouldn't be yours either.
0:18:41 - RJ
My dream job would be I'd be the coach of the University of Michigan's football team or hockey team. I love coaching, I love athletics, I love competing. That's another value. They have a high competition, they have a high compete rate and typically you get those out of athletes. We love hiring athletes that come out of a team sport environment because they have discipline, they have work ethic, they understand team in a high compete level.
Then I'll ask them Alex, there's been people that I've thought through the whole interview. They're not a good fit. They've answered that question in a certain way and I've hired them. There's been other people that have come through interviewing and I'm thinking, yeah, this is great. Then they answer it. Obviously it just doesn't come down to that one question. But that question does wear on or have value in the overall, because that's really you're speaking to their heart and they're giving you a real answer, not a calculated answer, because they're taken off guard by it. I've also had people start crying. They usually there's an event, maybe in their family and someone passed away from cancer or something and they want to start a foundation and do that. It hits home. But again, it's trying to extrapolate from the person because at the end of the day, we're all what really matters to them, what's at the heart.
Yeah, that just works for RJ, but I love what you're doing again with your job description for your intern. I got to learn that word. That's a new one for me. We help companies actually just tweak that on their job description. As you said the blog that I've written and we have data behind this you'll see the quality of your candidates go up tremendously. However, you have to be on the guard because you want to ensure. The downside with entrepreneurs is that maybe they'll get out in front over their skis a little bit and you have to bring them back in.
0:20:35 - Alex
Yeah, I think just weighing in on some of these questions in the interviews, because I think that's sort of an important dimension of getting people into the right role. Sometimes you have a great candidate and they may have technical expertise in your domain, but do you put them in a role that's structured or the role that's unstructured? That's one sort of question. It echoes, I think, one of the legendary questions from my alma mater when I was applying to an ABA program. The question, which was the bulk of the application essay, is what matters most to you and why Believe it or not? The question and it was very different than any other MBA questions, and people would still go back to the answer that they wrote, not just throughout their MBA program, sharing it with their classmates. They go back and reflect on that five, 10, x years afterwards because it does force you to be specific. It does force you to reflect. I think I'm grateful to the institution for doing that.
I wonder have you done things in your recruiting process that also just forced people to, even if they don't join you, but leave some sort of positive impact in them? When I think about it, we want to leave our customers better, but we also want to leave our prospects in it better off. Even if we're not a right fit, you're still a good human being. We want to thank you for taking the time to investigate what we are up to. Who knows, maybe we'll meet again, but we want to create value. Experience Obviously customers, but same as employees. You obviously want to create value for your team. What about all the people that don't make it through the lens? I worry about that because you have to say no. How have you found particularly with the lens of the intrapreneur and high growth organization in a relatively mature industry, which is even more impressive how did you find to select out those people and then let the ones that didn't make it know why?
0:23:13 - RJ
Typically, I would always tell candidates if, for some reason, from our filter, I mulled the way that you framed that and positioned it, that it's probably us and not them. They just don't fit into who we are. I would always say we're unique because Unify actually started in 1978. When I came into the organization in 2013, it was a well-established organization. I was the second president, ceo of the company to jumpstart it again. I had a lot of legacy employees, which really were the true of the success that we had. The good news, though, alex, is when you deploy an iOS operating system within your company the intrapreneur operating system you're going to reduce your turnover, because people are again back to engagement and they feel their value and they don't want to leave the company. It really actually reduces your turnover considerably. We had a company that had all kinds of turnover. We went in, deployed this and within two years, they decreased their turnover 87%.
0:24:15 - Alex
To summarize for our audience the value is that I am leaving a legacy, I am creating something, I am part of the creation machine. I'm not just doing a job. Do you ever get to the stage where people feel like it's their calling, or it's just that I really love my job? So I'm very privileged to be working and I shaped it. It's not an accident. I wanted to write books. I knew I didn't have any talent as a writer, but I can kind of help others create more engaging and reimagine the book. So I'm geeking out like that. I wanted to marry a French girl. I ended up marrying a French girl.
So I've been like very deliberate in shaping my life to fit into some sort of however rightly or wrongly kind of set of values. Now, not everybody can do this and I wasn't able to do it at times either. So I'm really curious for people like you said. They've discovered this other. Their passion is not you would rather be coaching, you know, you Michigan hockey team and making them, you know, be where the puck is going to be right, like you know, do that thing more. So how do you combine?
0:25:37 - RJ
it right? That's a wonderful question because I also say my second job or my other dream job probably would have been a gym teacher in high school, coaching high school football or hockey, but that didn't compensate me for the lifestyle that I wanted to live. So that's where you have to make an adjustment, where what is going to get to get, what vehicle get to get me to where I want to go? All right, and I firmly believe in everything you're saying, alex, in terms of what is your North Star? What are you trying to get to? And when I fell into corporate America and I was working with businesses financing their equipment, it filled that void of not being my own entrepreneur because I was still in the trenches with them and I could add value to those relationships from my experiences.
0:26:24 - Alex
Got it, so you're basically, it's a combination of like look, you have other values, right. Like you got to take care of your family, you have. You know you have to want to see the world, explore. Like there is. Like not everybody is independently wealthy and can do whatever they want, right. Like you know, we are where we are and so what you're trying is like, within the constraints of you know, maybe the company that I'm in, the industry that I'm in the job that I'm in, how do I make that to be the most co-creative, innovative, like the you know, positive experience that makes me feel connected to the mission and actually influence the mission.
0:27:04 - RJ
Yeah, and that has that alignment has to be there Truly for an entrepreneur, that alignment has to be there. If you're a vital employee, you have to believe in the mission and the vision and the values of the organization or just won't work. And it's easy enough to go seek and find that. And the other thing that I'm trying to do, alex, is really educate people to self-identify of an inshapenor so they understand the value and then they can be compensated for that value accordingly. Okay, because it's you know they have a more robust job performance, they increase the organization commitment and things of that nature, and they should be proud of that and they should be compensated accordingly. Because we all know what happens. Right, as a business owner, as a CEO, you're always going to continue to squeeze more and more production or more and more value out of your inshapenor, your high vital employees. So why shouldn't they self-reflect and self-discover and identify as that and understand the true value that they are bringing to the organization? And I have an example of that.
I hired a lady out of the Detroit Red Wings. She was. She worked for the Red Wings for eight years. She was referred to me by another friend through LinkedIn. I thought why would this lady want to come to Unify? She works for the Red Wings. I mean, that's the coolest job.
0:28:15 - Alex
You want to work for the Red Wings?
0:28:16 - RJ
She was top-rope okay, but she was burnt out. Very demanding job, very demanding for eight years. So we interviewed her and this also plays into the question you asked before around. Maybe she didn't pass the lens or the candidate didn't pass through the proper lens the first time, but she came through for some reason. It wasn't a fit, but she continued to follow up with me and stay in touch with me, and not just, hey, I'm following up, but hey, I saw this article and I thought of you, or I thought this would be relevant to you, or congratulations, if we had a press release. Ultimately, we hired her as my executive assistant and she came in and within three years she went being my executive assistant to running the portfolio on the back end of the business. Just because of her, she was an entrepreneur. She is an entrepreneur through and through. She owned everything, she took out the risk and an every day. Her main mission was to make the company better, because she believed in how we were serving our customers and, again in a line with her mission and vision.
0:29:18 - Alex
Well, so we talked a lot about internal right and this is actually but you brought up the word customer and this is a word that's near and dear to my heart. So I think the risk for most companies as they become successful, is they go a little bit further away from their customer Right and some of our clients, they have these sort of innovation, you know, initiatives, right, and they, they, and so that's how we got to like working was very large in organizations. You, you know they want to be, appear innovative to their customers, and so they create these internal innovation teams and some people that are on the cynical side. You know, rather, you know, maybe some some English chat would say what it's.
Alex, you know it's a bit of innovation theater. You know that we're engaging in here, so it's some sort of a kabuki thing where we pretend like we're innovating, you know, and you know we, you know we pretend like we'll implement something with startups, and so we saw we got, we got pulled into some of that. We've found some amazing people and we found a lot of people that were doing like they had to get stuff done internally, but the ones that were the most impactful were the ones that actually were really customer centric so they they could get stuff done internally. That was a prerequisite for working within some of these larger organizations. But you kind of need to to be you know, get, get access somehow and get you know, get that mindset of like where the customer shoes you know on a more regular basis. And the larger the company, the harder that becomes. File me.
0:31:01 - RJ
How do?
0:31:01 - Alex
how do, how do? How do entrepreneurs kind of avoid the theater part and really like get something done and become that voice of the customer in in larger institutions Specifically?
0:31:16 - RJ
in larger institutions if the if you have that iOS system set up where ideas are being shared in a format that's being, you know, calculated and reviewed and things of that nature. As I mentioned earlier, 38% of all employees believe they have great ideas because they're working with the customer on a daily basis. The CEO isn't, you're not, they are. So if you have a vehicle where they can share that feedback and share those ideas, there's been a recent survey by Bain and Company that found the companies with an entrepreneur culture had a 30% higher net promoter score.
0:31:53 - Alex
Yeah.
0:31:54 - RJ
So, again, it's the right mindset and even this is a key key point here, alex, even if I spoke earlier about the 80, 20 rule, your functional and vital, even if the functional or dysfunctional which we want them. But you have an entrepreneurial culture within your organization, you're going to start seeing the functional with ideas, because now they, they, they can, they know that their voice is heard, they know that they're not going to be ridiculed with their ideas or it's going to go unheard or not valued. So you see discretionary effort, even from your functional employees as well.
0:32:34 - Alex
Yeah, and, by the way, we we incur, we actively solicited that and we find that like, let's say, I'm still junior, junior team member, but I'm working on something very specific and if I'm able to pull up and see how that specific thing impacts our customers in the either positive way, so we need to amplify it, or a negative way, so we need to address it. They are closer, sometimes, given their functional role, they're closer to the, to the actual nuts and bolts of what people may do was a product or was a service. And you know, because of the larger number, they also the ones that are in touch with the most number of customers, most frequently right. So they are essential, you know, and if you can imbue everybody, was that feeling to your point, because it's a culture that's reinforced. It's sometimes, you know, I could dream up a great customer idea, but I'm not the one that's dealing with the painful problem on a day to day basis.
0:33:35 - RJ
Right, right, I completely agree with that. And we have blind spots as leaders. You know, a lot of times we're, you know, getting back to. You know we're thinking about different things. We're worried like right now I'm worried about 2024, with a financial plan in the draft and things of that nature, and we were not as close to it as you just mentioned and then we just have a blind spot to it.
I'll give you an example of that at Unify, one of ourselves and again this he was an entrepreneur through and through an attorney by trade. He had his law degree came to me and said RJ, I really think we need to build out a online portal to receive payments. And I said well, tell me more. He said well, you know, he gave me some data points. In all, entrepreneurs are typically well documented and educated before they come and present an idea.
That's of significance, okay, and I said to him I said if you want to run with it, you're going to have to influence our IT department. You're also going to have to influence the outside provider and you're also going to have to continue your you know your sales production. He said I want to take it on, I'm going to learn from it. He's tech savvy. Well, lo and behold, he built this out in three months, 90 days today. Today we went from zero. We did not have that as a product or a function within the organization. Today, we process over $100,000 of multi payments through that portal. It was not in his job description, he wasn't compensated for it, but he understood that from my philosophy and my culture, we're all about the customer and he took the lead on that.
0:35:11 - Alex
So I love it because it basically says no initiative is too small to be an owner. This is a valuable. It's not like a total game changer for the business, but it's valuable. It creates meaning for them and that's already valuable. It creates a moment of improvement. So one thing that you brought up is presenting, communicating. So I feel like one of the biggest tragedies that I see in the world, but particularly in the corporate global 2000 universe that we often live in, is that these innovation teams talk a lot about we're going to do digital transformation, we're going to do this. They hire Bain and say Bain and us, we work through on digital transformation. Here's a 200-page paper optimized PDF report and how we're going to do those digital transformation. Now, if somebody wants to read that in paper, by all means, that's actually great.
0:36:18 - RJ
I'm going to see and say give me the five bullet points that I can take away from this document.
0:36:22 - Alex
Yeah, or something like show me, help me imagine it, help me show me the customer story, walk me through that, or let me drill in. I think one of the lessons I learned at Microsoft was just the stories of Bill Gates as a manager. He would hear the overall presentation but then he would go and drill in. But he doesn't need to go through every page of everything, but by drilling in he understood. Have you guys thought the true? Have you said you have a high-level strategy in overview, but then you have the supporting evidence? That's how a lot of leaders think.
I don't need to hear your whole 200-page spiel, but I don't mind getting the high-level summary and saying, hey, this is likely an interesting area or troubled area or the one that's not obvious. Let's drill in here. The problem is I don't think a lot of the innovation or entrepreneur projects are presented in that way. A lot of them never get started and they lose. If you're introducing digital transformation on paper or you're selling sustainability on a couple of trees that you killed, you're just not credible from the Gates. I think that just seems ironic to me. Maybe I'm too focused on this because I'm a little bit in this world, but I'm curious what's your opinion on being congruent? The messenger, the message, the delivery Do they align and how important is that?
0:38:04 - RJ
It's critical and the worst thing that you can do is start vocalizing, communicating that you're open to ideas and you're building this culture and education. That's what we do. We educate the employee, we educate the management team around this system and you roll it out and we always tell our customers it's not going to happen overnight. You don't go to the gym one time, work out, and you have muscles. The same thing if you go on a prescription from your doctor you don't take it one time and you're fixed. You have to have it parted.
0:38:38 - Alex
Especially if it's antibiotic right.
0:38:42 - RJ
Exactly. It's more of a journey. I actually tell business owners if you aren't committed to this for a minimum 12 to 18 months, don't do it. Please don't do it, because you're actually setting yourself up for more failure. You're actually going to hurt your level of engagement in your employees. You're going to have more turnover. But if you are committed, you have to commit to it for 18 months 12 to 18 months.
When you do that, that's where we set up that vehicle, where that communication and we have stack rankings of ideas, as long as we've had really crazy ideas that come to us and as long as the employee. You go back to the employee and it takes time and this is where leaders are challenged. The most valuable asset we have is our time. I can explain to them why it doesn't fit, because this is an education piece. Then you allow them just to make the simple changes. Again, alex, we like to start small before we go big with the innovating. Start with the small ideas basic improvement and, again, the benefits of that. You're going to get higher engagement. You're going to get higher discretionary offer, you're going to get a culture that is more open, trustworthy and things of that nature. The other thing you're going to do is weed out your people that you quickly can identify as not team players because they won't buy in. They will not buy in and you can quickly say okay, they're not part of this team long term.
0:40:07 - Alex
Right, that makes a lot of sense. But let's drill into one area that I think is very real for a lot of folks. You've created excitement. We're inclusive culture. We love ideas from everyone. I show up as an idea. I think obviously you might be as great. I think most people do. In fact, I think one of the reasons why we started relate to was I was like hey, my ideas for some reason are not winning in some conversations. It can't be because I'm not particularly brilliant, whatever. At least I'm talking of myself in my 20s or something like that. These people look like they're pretty smart, so I need to figure something out. It was the disconnect. People don't think that their ideas suck by definition. They show up and then their idea doesn't get chosen for good reasons. Reasons could be that you need to prioritize. There is a matrix of some how you select them, but what do you say to that feeling that it's not my thing.
I actually wanted to do something different. Why is that person's idea better than mine? Yeah, I'll do it for the team, but do you find these sort of resentment that builds up if your idea doesn't get picked up a couple of times?
0:41:42 - RJ
That could be, but it's really where you start the program, where you have to have the why why you're deploying this type of culture and then the business goal and then how it plays. We have a waterfall where the business goal plays into the strategic initiative to the objective of the program and then the metrics. So we can't pick 15 different ideas. Typically we say, pick one or two Again, get wins, get momentum behind that and clearly identify that, and then you have the measurement around that in terms of capturing it, managing it, putting it on a short list, implementing it, engaging and then analyzing it. Because there's been ideas too, alex, that we deployed that were complete flops. But that's OK because we learned from that. We have that in our mind in our business plan, where 20% of ideas will flop, and we're OK with that.
Because, again back to my point.
0:42:38 - Alex
It's a very important point and I think it's almost so. I have a 12-year-old who has been doing well academically and now has had her first hiccup and it's tough. It's a mentally great learning, but it's just an adjustment, like, oh, ok, I'm not going to be fitting into that perfection mode and I think I, as somebody who's an entrepreneur, who fails on a regular basis and encourages, I get it. But I think me in my corporate America or corporate Europe hat I was a little bit more probably conservative on that failure there was a big adjustment, especially if you were going to have done well academically and have pleased your parents with high marks and credentials and all that and that's your personality.
And then you hit reality of the market and all of a sudden there's disappointments and things don't work. So how do you help people who are not quite there yet in terms of accepting failure and learning from failure and even almost celebrating that OK, we failed on this and you don't want to celebrate failure too much because you still want to win more often than not. So it's sort of a tricky balance because people are like oh yeah, I failed, good job. Well, maybe you failed because you didn't do basic customer research. You know, like that's not a good reason to fail Right, Like I failed fast. Well, ok, still you wasted a bunch of either company or investor resources or people's time.
So you don't want to be like, oh great, I'm failed, you know, get another star. Right, it's not like that. But at the same time, you don't want to be discouraging people from taking on things and like what's your take on this? And like you may have a portfolio across the company, right, and if you see, may have a portfolio across the ton of startups, but as an entrepreneur and like entrepreneur, they don't have a portfolio like like their startup needs to work, right, and their project kind of needs to work because that's there. Like they probably have one, maybe two initiatives, and so I don't know if there is kind of a pattern that you found around this.
0:45:05 - RJ
There there is, and it's really you know where the business is in life life cycle. Right Is a is a pre-rav startup, post-rav, commercial, growing, scaling, and I think that the entrepreneur and all those situations play a different role. Ok, so you can't have and again, that's where the commissioning comes together but if you are truly a startup and you're trying to surround yourself with the best of the best in terms of you, you're going all in on this idea, so you're risking a lot. Why wouldn't you want to identify an entrepreneur that's going to have a co-ownership mentality to help you be successful? You would. I would want that on my team. Yeah, absolutely, by all means.
Now I also want to say, Alex, it's very critical and we've seen this before where we roll it out and, all of a sudden, people within the organization feel they're overwhelmed. Oh, we're being asked to do something else. Oh, you know what's what's in it for me and that's where the education comes what, what's in it for them, if they want to participate and self identify, that they're going to have more. You know, work, satisfaction, things of that nature, and helping the overall organization as well as serving the customer. So it's really each business owner and leader in the company. They have to craft it to their culture. It's not a peanut butter approach where it makes sense for everyone. And again you know they have to identify what is going to resonate with their team.
0:46:34 - Alex
Right, and the risk profile. I guess what you're saying is the risk profile varies by stage of the business. Which makes sense, right? You can't. You know, I think I'll say, like some of, at least in the technology industry, where I'm biased by bulk of my experience not necessarily our customers but, like you, have to make bold bets, even if you're a large company. But I think in some other industries I think it's more of a portfolio strategy that could actually, you know, hey, we do a bunch of things really well and they add up to some magical outcomes. So it's not, it's sort of. I think it also varies a bit by the industry competitive nature, competitive nature of the industry, I would imagine.
0:47:16 - RJ
But you can also seek feedback, and we did this at Unify in 2016, where we went out and said we really want to identify who we are, what our personality is, because when you grow like we did in 14 and 15 and 16, the metaphor I use is we're a restaurant. We found a good location. We wanted, we wanted cash flow. We wanted people coming in, so it didn't matter what they ordered Alex, they could order a steak. If we didn't have it, we run the store, cook the steak. If they want a pasta, they could order sushi tie. It didn't matter. We're good location, good atmosphere.
However, we can never scale it like that. So we had to make an educated decision and that's where working with the team of who we are where do we want to go and who are we going to say no to? Because we can't serve all and by serving all, we're actually hurting the value that we bring. So we became a steak shop and then, as soon as we made that pivot, that's where the business went to the next level, because we went again from 13 to 35, to 74,. We kind of stagnated around 80 for a little bit. Then we went to 100. When we made that decision because we could scale it and we were self identifying. And again the team had a voice in that it wasn't RJ, it wasn't a leadership team, it was all of us combined, because they are dealing with the customers every day. They know the filter, that to understand the growth and things of that nature.
0:48:37 - Alex
So if I connect the dots and some of the themes, so entrepreneurs have a distinct nose for delivering a customer outcome, because ultimately every business initiative whether it's internal, customer, external so they come with the customer ownership mindset and then you in the process you create the environment. That's more, creates a great cultural, employee and team member experience that makes people feel like this is worthwhile of the sacrifices and the extra investment, the extra love that they need to put in the business, because it's sort of anything that you put more of your heart into is also more meaningful to you and the outcome is more likely to be successful. Your kids are hard, but you put love into them.
0:49:30 - RJ
And they don't look at it. And that's the other beautiful thing about an entrepreneur they don't look at it from a monetary perspective. Okay, and that's why I'm trying to educate them. They should be. They're doing it because they love what they do. An example of that is college athletes. I'll use them as an example. But they're paid now, too, as their season goes on and they make it to the playoffs and the championship, or NFL football guess what? They didn't sign up for that at the beginning of the season. Now they're playing action. Do they care? No, because they want to win a compete and have the glory at the end. And entrepreneurs thinks the same way. They want the glory of seeing this business owner, this entrepreneur, be successful, as well as their customers be successful. So there's other motivating factors for the entrepreneur than just higher compensation and things of that nature.
0:50:20 - Alex
Well, the more I hear you, the more I think entrepreneurs are just wonderful human beings and we want more of them. So if you're, if you have a budding entrepreneur, come out.
0:50:32 - RJ
Well, here's the thing I painted all the positives. The negative side of it is the gentleman that I brought up that built the portal for us. He ultimately left because I could not fulfill his needs and more initiatives, so that is a downside, because they're again. They're life learners, they're passionate, they take calculator risk takers and he used his experience to go obtain a better job for him.
0:50:56 - Alex
And I applaud that, I think, but that's the thing I think you and I, we agree that that's actually that is. You know. Now, that is a testament to you as a leader. Right, a great leader is not somebody who leads, a great leaders, who helps others become leaders, and fundamentally, I think that is also something that a great entrepreneur does right, because they lead their team and they may lose their, their team, but that's life because people want to be the sort of a magnet, be known as a magnet where people come and join you and and you know they, they learn and they do great things, and you know, that's why you're a coach, right Like that. You love coaching, right Like you're. This is your dream job and, effectively, I think what you're telling us is that you are doing your dream job. It's just not in the in the field of University of Michigan football team.
It just in the field of you know people doing things in their job and I think that's amazing. I don't know like call me, call me like overly enthusiastic, but I think that's that's a, that's a great sign of somebody who inspires others. Through your examples, through the structure that you do. Sometimes not through your example, I need to tell people hey, don't do what I do here. This is me improvising, right Like you. Really, you know you're this is not sure it's the best and anyway, it's hard to imitate you and I, you and I are aware of the same way because I'll tell my sales guys.
0:52:27 - RJ
A lot of times they'll come ask me for my opinion and of course I'll give it and I'll say but that's the way. That RJ doesn't doesn't mean you have to do it like that. You and I'm always coaching them. You should take attributes from individuals that you come in contact with to build out your personality, which has to be your own individual personality. But just don't take someone and just repeat them, because it's not from, it's not authentic, it's not from the heart.
And one last example everyone's very familiar with the EOS operating system by track, with traction and things of that nature. And here's a real easy way to remember what an entrepreneur is in the EOS system the visionary, the entrepreneur, the idea guy or gal, they're here. The implementer in the EOS system comes along next to them and coal missions this is your an inch of an hour. Implementers are, all of them are inch of an hour. They're wired like inch of an hour and they make the dreams or they're the doers to make the dream happen for the visionary and it's their doers and they're typically very good operators.
And again back to the risk question you asked earlier, the inch of the noors that we work with and there's a lot of data and science out there that we've studied are very calculated with the risk taking, hence why they're not entrepreneurs. So sometimes they look at spending the money like it's their own money and understand, like I said earlier about level three, they understand the inputs, the outputs and what it does for the business. So typically they are very conscientious of the resource and the dollars, so they'll do everything that they possibly can to maintain it. My example earlier with the portal I can't even remember what that cost us, but it wasn't a lot if I don't remember.
0:54:08 - Alex
So yeah, it's interesting. I also think there's this trend and this may be like a broader topic, but the there's. There's a lot of studies that come out that more entrepreneurs are successful at the end of like in their 40s and they're in like a bit after. And they are definitely not, you know, hey, I'm just going to throw some stuff at the wall and see what happens. Right, they're, they've taken, they've acquired some knowledge, they're taking in a more seasoned, calculated risk. They probably have family obligations at that stage in their life or take care of, you know, older family members. Whatever, it is right, they have some obligations and not just like they're, you know, throwing some dice. And they happen to be the ones that are the most successful in the intra entrepreneur kind of universe as a founders and that sort of is a counterintuitive finding, because in the press that doesn't really come out that much right. So it may be the it may be the case here that it's never too late to be that kind of, to kind of find that part of yourself.
And hopefully this conversation has gotten people. You know, fire it up, rj. If people want to learn more, you know, get, get more coaching. How do they get? Connect was to connect with you, like I think you're. You've wear two hats, so tell us about you. Know what's the best way to connect with your easiest?
way to facilitate our hat.
0:55:36 - RJ
Yeah, the easy way is rjgrimshawcom. That's where all that's the main point of all the information in terms of the contact me If you'd like to join. We have two groups. We have an individual, in-chip and or group, or you want to learn more about it and be around like minded people sharing best practices. And then the other group is we have for business owners that want to understand and learn how to deploy some of the tactics and strategies that we've talked about, and if they want to select more, then we do full immersion courses while they're working with them. It's really their choice. So we try and serve everyone's needs if they want to do a DIY or if they want our assistance. But that's really the two places to start to ensure that what we're teaching and coaching is something that you want to participate in.
0:56:23 - Alex
Amazing RJ. Thank you so much for joining and sharing your wisdom.
0:56:26 - RJ
Thanks, Alex.