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Steven Roberts · Calm Under Fire

• Col. John Boggs: Welcome back to Calm Under Fire. I'm John Boggs, Colonel John Boggs, the president of Fortitude Consulting, and we're an executive leadership ⁓ development and coaching firm. And today I'm joined by Stephen Roberts, entrepreneur, investor, and founder of Ameritech Partners. For more than three decades, Stephen has helped organizations transform underperforming businesses into scalable, profitable enterprises working across hospitality, real estate, and emerging AI-driven business systems. His work focuses on unlocking hidden value and helping leaders scale companies toward meaningful growth and successful exits. Stephen, it is great to have you back. Steven Roberts: Thank you, John, and thank you for the invitation. It's so good to be here. And thank you for your service to our country as well. Col. John Boggs: Thank you, sir. It was such an honor to serve, believe me. So Stephen, do you mind if we jump right in it? Okay. Stephen, you spent decades stepping into companies that need transformation. When you first look at a struggling business, what do you see that others often miss? Steven Roberts: Let's go. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. It's ⁓ kind of reminds me of ⁓ Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink. ⁓ when you do this so long, John, you start to really create a sixth sense about people, places, personalities, and business. So to answer your question, typically when I see struggling businesses, ⁓ especially It typically is a financial problem or an operations problem. I typically see alignment problems between leadership, systems and beliefs, believe it or not, which create the culture. And that usually begins at the head of the table, the CEO or founder. So as I've found over the years and consulting, it becomes a very personal element, a ⁓ personal thing, not just a corporate or a business to business ⁓ issue. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: Because companies are not just balance sheets. They're living operating systems of human psychology, decision making patterns and processes. So when I see performance drop, leaders often start looking at marketing tactics or cost cutting or sales strategies. But the real question is deeper in my experience. It's what, what belief system is the company running on? What belief system are, is leadership running on and how. How is that reflected or mirrored within the cultured community of their business? Because ⁓ every organization reflects the internal architecture of its leadership. And when that architecture is unclear or fragmented, the business becomes fragmented. And success and failure leave clues. I guess hopefully that makes sense, and that's the answer, the initial answer to the question. Col. John Boggs: Wow, well, I'm gonna dig a little more into that one because that's, you said two words that always grabs my attention almost immediately. I spend a lot of time working with leaders. I work with leaders who are good at things and we work at getting them to be better. So this is getting them to make that kind of an improvement, not that kind of an improvement. But you said culture. And I've had other people on the show, and it was interesting because one of the very first things everyone talked about was culture. can you give me a little bit more about culture and leadership? Steven Roberts: Absolutely. Culture to me is multifaceted. It's the interaction of people, the chemistry of people, but the bigger element is trust, belief, and alignment. So if a company, you look at professional sports teams, NFL is made up of what, two, 3000 of the most elite athletes in the world in that sport. But yet year over year, there are the top five teams that are fairly consistent in the bottom five. And you ask yourself why. It's to me, it's culture. It's that level of commitment, communication, trust, belief, and the willingness to work together without fear of failing, without fear of being called out ⁓ for a misgiving or a, you know. A poor result. So culture is, ⁓ is multifaceted, but it's the sort of foundation in my view of being of any company and the ability, their ability to build, to energize, to create focus. And you have to have a little control tension, but control tension is very different than, ⁓ complete diametric. ⁓ and opposing views. So culture is the foundation of growth. It's the foundation of leadership. you know, it's funny, I was on ⁓ a private equity call with Blackmore Partners last week and almost every private equity firm now is talking about culture as one of their main directives, their main priorities because they see Col. John Boggs: Hmm. Steven Roberts: You know, and their model, they want to grow a company. They want to buy a company through merchant acquisition and they want to scale in three to seven years, triple their value, their multiple uninvested capital and exit and runs to repeat. And now there, it's, there's a realization that culture is such an integral ingredient in that recipe. Uh, it's become. very front forward in terms of discussions about how you grow and build companies. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, you know, it's. I tell, now this is what I've noted was in organizations. I've always found it a little bit humorous when I hear the senior leadership talking about, we have to improve the culture. It's been my belief that, well, you guys are the culture. The culture starts with you. It doesn't bubble up. It flows down. What's your perspective on that? Steven Roberts: Yeah, you're 1000 % right. And that's typically, you know, it's a sound bite for a lot of executives, a lot of executive teams, you know, we the culture, but to your point, they are the culture. Leadership starts from the top and it's built from the bottom though. And that's what, you I always ask when I hear that, what do you know about the culture you've created? And that is usually, that is usually a like, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ wow. Steven Roberts: You know, full stop skid. Like what does that even mean? I said, okay. You, do you know your people? Not just know their position entitled and where they sit and how they, what, what role they fill, but do you know them? Do you know their desire? You know, I, I'm an NLP practitioner and certified trainer and body language is 80 % of communication. You know, are you aware of that? Do you understand? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: The, you know, some, and some people are kinesthetic learners. Some are audible learners. Some are, ⁓ visual learners. Do you know the difference? ⁓ and really starting to dig into, you just talking about culture or are you living culture? The first, the first key that I look for is where's the energy leaking in a company? because when I first, when I consult for companies, I've found that typically. It's the founder, CXO, CEO, owner that is the bottleneck. It's not the system, it's not the business It's their belief in what their company is, ⁓ working for them, ⁓ their ability to make decisions ⁓ create change that is reflected in the energy and attitude of their people. So I look at it and say, where's the energy leaking? Is leadership avoiding discussions, decisions, are systems outdated? And that's fine. But if you don't know that, it probably means you're not talking to your people because they typically will tell me in individual interviews, well, that's been broken for 10 years and we just, we work around it or we deal with it. Um, you know, is culture tolerating mediocrity? And that's a big one to me because. At some point, you've heard of the, I'm sure you've heard of quiet quitting and those types of terms, but that's a real thing. when you talk to people, when you take the time to individually interview folks, sometimes they're afraid to talking groups, they're afraid to talk directly to their direct report or CEO, but you have a good open, honest conversations and you don't make it business like you make it personal. How do you feel about? Col. John Boggs: Yes. Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: the company, how do you feel about your position growth? Do you see an end game here? Do you see a path for ⁓ you to create, ⁓ to optimize your career, your position, your role? Because the moment you identify that and you realize something powerful, most companies don't need reinvention. They need clarity, alignment, and disciplined execution around what already works. And once they've aligned, they have alignment and that alignment happens, growth tends to follow very quickly. Col. John Boggs: When, that's great, you say alignment. When you walk into a turnaround situation, What's the, is it alignment? What's the first leadership shift that you try to create? Is it that alignment? What is that first shift? Steven Roberts: It's communication first, John. I find more often than not, teams people just aren't communicating. They've shut down or they've made a determination that, well, I just can't work with that department or that individual or my direct report doesn't understand me. So they kind of shut down. So I look at communication channels. I ask a lot of questions around, what does your day look like? Who do you work with? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Steven Roberts: you communicate most with and why and where do you see the biggest opportunities in how you communicate and the frequency and the discipline of communication in order to better understand ⁓ outcomes and standards within the organization because when you have clarity and when you have alignment you have the ability to pick your head up and see what and focus on the vision rather than a role or a project or a task. So communication is always number one. that's connecting the dots. If you have multiple departments, have accounting, you have HR, you have operations, you have sales and marketing, you look at your core departments and G and A and you say, okay. Is this where the bottleneck is happening? If people at the team, the greater team, doesn't believe in leadership, they don't believe that communication ⁓ is one of a healthy form and one that tends to enrich ⁓ the environment and the culture, they typically turn off and more are quiet about it than not. Col. John Boggs: interesting, more or quiet about it. Where does that come from? What is it that keeps people from speaking up when they see something? Steven Roberts: Yeah, quite often it's Occasionally it's, ⁓ it's, it's cultural. It's, it's social. You know, people tend to speak down the chain rather than up. ⁓ When that, when that sense of I can't speak, speak my mind and speak my truth. I certainly can't talk to my direct report because he or she ⁓ downplays it or shrugs it off. That speaking down, that social interaction down the chain often becomes complaints. It becomes ⁓ a negative sort of narrative on the company. And when you start seeing that happen, that becomes a very big problem. Because if the water cooler discussions are about what's wrong rather than what's possible, you start to develop toxicity within a culture and within a business. Col. John Boggs: Yes. It's not you. You've worked in companies that you've worked in companies for five million to over 100 million in revenues. And how how do leaders how do leaders have to evolve as the company grows? Steven Roberts: Yeah, the great question. mean, I see, as you mentioned, I've worked with startups and scaled companies to a hundred million with the executive teams. I've seen the gamut. I've worked with international companies, multiple international companies, ⁓ U.S. companies. So, you know, the answer to the question is typically they hit a ceiling startups, for example. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: Once they surpassed two or three million in revenue and they become used to doing everything themselves, the old adage, if you want something done, well, do it yourself. ⁓ They start hitting these barriers, these ceilings at five million, at 10 million, 20 million. Because the further you expand as a company and the more team members, departments, employees, locations that you have, Col. John Boggs: yourself. Steven Roberts: You've got, you have to become more masterful at communication, more masterful at strategy and the strategy itself, but how to communicate that in a simple way to your teams. So they understand the intent, the why, you know, Simon Sinek speaks about that a lot. The, you know, what is the why to just to say, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna double sales. That doesn't mean a lot to, to most people. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: We're building a brand that's best in its class. creating a brand, we're creating brand equity in a platform that's going to become the preeminent leader in this, in the X industry. And we're doing it because we want you to be part of that central to it. And we need you to help us deliver that. Col. John Boggs: Yeah. Steven Roberts: So we create a legacy brand that is going to help not only the organization, but you in the future and in your career. So quite often it's, it's a matter of communication, strategic, a strategic vision. And, know, I call it vision, mission and purpose. If you have that clarity and you have those three key things and you're communicating it regularly, not just on a, you know, Here are our company standards or here's what we believe in that sits on a plaque on a wall. That's just that style phoning it in as well. You have to live it. You have to believe it. You have to be the evangelist of your own standards and mission. So I see that typically as the biggest challenge and you know, and quite often leaders aren't trained to be or managers aren't trained to be leaders and founders are. Col. John Boggs: Interesting. Steven Roberts: quite often not quality delegators. They don't understand they're not good teachers. So therefore they're not good trainers and they don't quite often think, well, someone else will take care of that. But people look to leadership to set that example, to set that pace, to set the standard. And when you're clear and you have clarity in what the company is, what it stands for, it's vision, mission, purpose. and what your role is in that and executing that, it becomes a much, not only simpler, but actually enjoyable. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Stephen, you said this a couple of times. You said communications, communications. I love that you brought in strategy and vision. what does the leaders play in that? And they stop and I've heard it all. So let me just throw this at you. the founder. The founder, well, we have a mission statement. We've built a strategy and there goes the strategy goes into a nice leather bound thing. It goes up on the shelf. I know you've seen it. I see you smiling. I know you've seen it. It goes on the shelf and it's always referred to like, well, there it is. That's our strategy. But yet the tactics, the actual execution. looks nothing like what's in the strategy. And the mission statement somehow becomes the thing that goes on the wall, the plaque. This is who we are. This is what we, and I love seeing the value statements. When I see value statements that get into seven and eight, I stop and go, you have no values. have you seen that? How do leaders break out of that? Well, I've got the strategy and actually use it. How do they break out of that? Steven Roberts: Well, to me, it's very simple, John, you have to live it. If you depend on people reading your mission or your values, you're lost. If you live it, if you speak it, if you exemplify it, and if you evangelize it consistently, some of the best, ⁓ most successful founders and CEOs that I've worked with created a weekly ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: loom video or a YouTube video that they shared, especially if you have multiple locations or your folks are spread out and this is an opportunity for them to see you, see the real leader behind the mission, the vision and the purpose. And if they see that you're speaking the vision, that you're living it and that you're inviting them to do the same, do you believe what we believe? ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: as a company. And if you don't, let's have a conversation. You know, I love Gary B's play on this. He has conversations, just five, 10 minute conversations with at least a half dozen of his folks every day. And it's just, hey, how are you doing? How are things going? What pisses you off? What are you happy about? What can I be better at to help you grow? How can I push you to help you grow? So it's not necessarily, you know, babying anyone. It's just communication. It's being real. It's being approachable. And it's, ⁓ it's sharing communication consistently. That's key brilliances and consistency in business communication. So the people see that you're, you're, you're there, you're involved and that you care. And it doesn't take, ⁓ you know, an annual review and a sit down for an hour. takes. a five minute conversation, especially if you are able to remember, hey, you've got three kids, how's your son doing in baseball? How's your daughter doing in gymnastics? You mentioned that your husband was starting a new job. How's that going? And it has to be authentic, obviously, but it gives them the clear indication that you're not just a boss. You're there and you're... You're very involved and you care about their wellbeing. So that communication to me is about consistency. It's about finding the messaging medium that makes sense for your company. If you're a small startup with 10 employees, you can probably have a morning huddle. You can have a end of day sort of round robin. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: get people's input. If you're, you know, if you have 5,000, 10,000 employees, much more difficult, right? And then, you know, with the larger companies that founders, CEO level individual, um, sort of sharing that and creating that culture with his leader, his direct leadership team, VPs, SVPs, COOs, you know, are they replicating or are they Col. John Boggs: Hmm. Steven Roberts: mirroring the same behaviors and beliefs and values and rituals, business rituals that you are. If they're not, there's a disconnect. Col. John Boggs: Steven, what do you say to leaders? I agree with everything you've said, but what do you say to leaders who will look at you and say, well, Steven, that's great. I don't have the time for all of that. Steven Roberts: Well, the tough love answer, John, is you make the time for it because there's nothing more important. Human capital, your people are your greatest asset. And you, whether you believe that or not, it's an absolute truth because any business is nothing but buildings and equipment and maybe IP, intellectual property, that's your people actually as representatives of your brand. doing the work every day that builds the business and builds enterprise value. I mean, there's really nothing left. So I always talk about it in terms of reverse engineering. know, the old Stephen Covey saying is, begin with the end in mind. So if you prioritize one hour of every day, 30 minutes of every day on communication, walking the floor. talking to your people, calling a couple of folks that are maybe offsite, ⁓ and just showing that you genuinely care and that you have their back. And this is more than a job, and they're more than employees to you. They're an integral part of the enterprise value and the brand equity that you're building. It's different result. So it has little to do with time. It's intent. and its effort and its reverse engineering it to make sure you make the time for the things that are most important in a company and in a culture. Col. John Boggs: Absolutely. Wow, that's awesome. I'm going to switch tracks with you just a little bit here. I'm going to bring in AI. Because I know you've done work with AI-driven business systems and the like. So where do leaders misunderstand AI's real impact on their organization? Steven Roberts: Wow, yeah, that's such a great question. And as the owner and founder of Ameritech Partners, we're an AI automation company. That's really our focus. AI is not new, but it is new in terms of the mainstream attention that it's getting today. So we talk about AI as a support partner. It's not a technology that's going to take jobs. To be very fair and clear, it will take jobs, but I believe and others in the space believe that more jobs will be created through AI than lost. ⁓ So we talk a lot about, you know, what are the manual steps that you are required of your business every day and which of those are... truly required in terms of human engagement and interaction and which can be automated. ⁓ So we just ask very simple questions because where we see AI fail often, John, is trying to create the easy button and automate everything all at once. It creates chaos and havoc, lack of understanding, and confusion. So we talk about it in terms of what's the one thing If you could, if you were the CEO and we asked this at the team level, employee level, what's the one thing that if you were the CEO, you would automate today. And we just listen and we talk about this because, often, you know, we call it reflecting our invisible patterns because quite often you're so subconsciously ingrained and entering data in an Excel sheet, filling out. Manually filling out an RFP, entering data into an accounting system, filling out a CRM, ⁓ email sequences that can be automated that are being done manually. So we talk about it in terms of, you know, what are those invisible patterns that you repeat on a daily basis? And quite often it takes just taking the time for them to give them the time to reflect on it and say, Wow. Yeah. Half of my day is spent manually entering data. It's already in another system that can be imported and auto populated in this system, which would free my time to not number one, not be as stressed as I am on a day day basis, but do a better quality of work in the areas where I can really make a difference. and so we talk about it in terms of invisible patterns. personal insight engines, know, AI-driven journaling tools that analyze language, tone, sentiment over time, that they surface unconscious patterns and stress, motivation, and belief systems. So this is far more than just an automation or technology tool. It creates an ecosystem and a platform that allows people to step away from the mundane and Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: and ⁓ automatable work and start to actually add enterprise value through the skills, their intrinsic skills that they don't practice enough because they're too busy filling out forms and data. ⁓ And then we also give emotional emotion recognition feedback. So real time emotional emotion analysis, voice and facial cues. And we, help them understand, you know, When, as we're talking to them and as we're moving through as an NLP body language trained certified practitioner, we see people shutting down. We see them asking anxiety or slipping into defensiveness, trying to protect the fact that they have to manually do these things because they think it's going to somehow either protect their job or that it can't be done through automation because they simply don't understand it. So, ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: Enabling immediate course correction toward empathy and openness while helping them start to see the forest for the trees, so to speak, is a big part. There's a lot of ⁓ psychological barriers to entry and to helping ⁓ businesses and people embrace technology, especially AI now. Col. John Boggs: So you're looking for mindset changes. Steven Roberts: 100 % why I teach, you know, NLP, teach what I call quantum mindset 360 training. And it's really for executives because again, executives lead the charge. They set the pace, the tone, the example. So if we can get the leadership team focused and just hyper fixated on solutions rather than problems. Col. John Boggs: 100%. Okay. Steven Roberts: showing them how AI can help them achieve that. It starts to open doors and opportunities that wouldn't have been available prior to that. Col. John Boggs: helping companies to prepare for higher value, higher value exits. So. ⁓ What are the how does leadership impact getting to those higher values? You've got their mindsets. You're changing the mindset. Now you're trying to grow their value. Do you see this as a is there a stumbling block? Are there areas where they where it's typical? Hey, I can I see the pattern or they're in this pattern again. I got to break them out of that. Do you see that? Steven Roberts: Absolutely. Yeah, the most dangerous behaviors we see in leadership are rarely dramatic. You know, they're quite often they're subtle and Three show up again and again in our experience one is decision avoidance Leaders delay decisions hoping the problems will resolve themselves Second over involvement micromanaging founders who built the company through hustle struggle and to transition from operator to architect They struggle with that because they always feel like if I'm not involved, the other shoe is going to drop or something is going to happen. And by the way, that's one of the key indicators for business buyers that they look at to say, is the owner, operator, founder, the lightning rod in the middle of the business? And are they essential to day-to-day business? If they are, your valuation can drop in half instantly. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. ⁓ gosh. Steven Roberts: Because they know that if the operator, if the owner founder is essential to the business running. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: then how can I move them out of the company and have it continue to run seamlessly in their absence? so, and then third is protecting comfort instead of pursuing excellence. We see that quite a bit. Scaling companies, that requires the uncomfortable truth and it requires leaders. We're willing to say this work to get us here, but it will not, it won't take us where we're going. And when leaders adopt that mindset, Only then can the company evolve and grow, truly grow. So it becomes this circular, you know, decision avoidance and the over-evolvement, then protecting comfort instead of pursuing excellence. that we have to break them out of that cycle for us to be able to create change and become the catalyst to the improvement. Quite often for them first. and then for the company and the business results. Col. John Boggs: Can you tell us about a moment where business transformation looked uncertain ⁓ and leadership actually made the difference in pulling it off? Steven Roberts: ⁓ yeah. Great question. I mean, I can tell you without ⁓ giving a very specific example, the first shift is always moving the organization from reaction to intentionality. So struggling companies in our experience often operate in survival mode. ⁓ Everyone's busy, but very little is strategically aligned. So the first step. Col. John Boggs: understand. Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: is enabling or establishing, sorry, clarity around typically three things. Where's the company going? What drives profitability and performance? And what behaviors will define the culture moving forward? ⁓ There was a consulting project I did in New York at one point for a fast casual ⁓ organization that was, I had Two primary objectives. One is to transform their supply chain and their production output, which was costing them about 6 to 7 % of sales, which is about double the average that you want to see in a situation like that. And the other was they were expanding quickly. We doubled sales in 15 months. How do we hire well instead of fast? How do we train and create a culture that's sticky and that new hires get quickly? ⁓ How do we turn that into results to maintain the growth based on the capital allocation that we've put forth to support, you know, we added retail lines within the store, year over year sales. ⁓ new menus, menu innovation, service innovations. quite frankly, most of the executive team didn't believe it was possible because, and maybe rightfully so, because they had never experienced it. So what we created was ⁓ a sort of an inner circle of the best and brightest operators that really carried their culture and understood it. And we made ambassadors. Col. John Boggs: Bye. Steven Roberts: to onboarding, training, ⁓ basically the catalysts for growth. So we held them, we trained them and gave them resources, but we held them responsible to say, our first and only result is to adapt, adopt these folks into the culture that is already existing within our business. Col. John Boggs: Hmm. Steven Roberts: our main leadership team. So it caused, you know, it created a bit of, you know, was three, four hours a week. And it was taking the time to adapt this part of the, this, this element to their schedule. But we walked through it with them and where we heard, Hey, I don't have time. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: Or I don't understand how to do this. We created a format. We created a structure and a strategy to help them get there. But most importantly, we helped them understand the why, why it was a benefit. What they're, you know, the human condition is what's in it for me. Right. So, ⁓ we helped them through that, ⁓ a bit of psychology and a bit of, ⁓ sort of mindset training and they ended up actually loving it. Col. John Boggs: Correct. Yeah. Steven Roberts: and they felt then they were part of forming the company and developing the people within it. And it also created connection, ⁓ familiarity, and they created good friendships as well as working relationships with these folks. And that sort of reverberated throughout the company. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, I could see that. So if a leader wants to unlock, they want to unlock their hidden value, and they want to unlock the hidden values inside their organizations, where should they start? Steven Roberts: Well, I think it's around those three principles. know, where are we going? What drives possibility and performance and what behaviors will define our culture moving forward? Our culture and our people. And if you can, if you can answer those honestly, and you can ask others and their answers are similar, if not the same, now you have a recipe. know, it's like in baking, you... Col. John Boggs: Where are we going? Which drives? Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: You know, if you add ingredients in the wrong sequence, quite often your recipe is going to be a disaster. We found the same in the people recipe. There is a system, there's a structure. And if you create the right mindset, the right adoption elements, connectivity, evangelism, the why. Col. John Boggs: Yeah. Steven Roberts: things typically fall in place and there's belief and there's a feeling of trust and safety. Col. John Boggs: feeling of trust and safety, I love it. After 30 years of working with entrepreneurs and investors, what kind of leadership excites you today? I mean, what gets you going today? Steven Roberts: Love that question. mean, for me, it's today's leadership is about, is about connection. It's about trust, safety, growth. ⁓ so I love leaders who are highly engaged, who don't spend a lot of time in a, in a policy book, but on a face level with people talking, rolling up their sleeves, having conversations, ⁓ getting to know their team members, getting to know. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: ⁓ you know, the good, the bad and the ugly and owning it because at the end of the day, leaders have to own every outcome in the business. accountability for everything that happens rather than pointing fingers or blaming or the old, know, hey, I told him how to, I told him to do it that way a hundred times. Well, that says more about you than them, but, ⁓ you know, it really comes down to high, high engagement, communication, connection, authenticity. And being there when people need you to be there and having them feel like you're approachable and that you want to be involved. Not if you have to, you know, if you need something, let me know. That's very 1990s. You know, today's mantra is I'm invested in your success. I want to be involved and engaged. I'm here for anything that you might need to be successful. So it's really a progressive and sort of proactive, ⁓ highly engaged level of leadership. And that's what we see being most effective today. Because people want to, know, the millennials, Gen X, Y, Z, it's a very different mindset in terms of the professional environment. People want to know that what they do means something, that they have some impact on the company or the service they provide. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Steven Roberts: and they want to know that there's meaning behind the work. It's not just trading hours for dollars. Col. John Boggs: Wow. Wow. Stephen, I couldn't even pay you for all of the gems that you've given out here today. And I hope our audience is really paying attention. Hours for dollars. leadership responsibility. mean, you could have been a Marine with those comments. And folks, just so we were clear here, what Stephen said was leaders are responsible. For everything, for everything that happens or fails to happen, you're responsible, period. There is no sidestepping. There is no, here's a dart to the heart, let me move out the way. Nope, it's coming to you. this is, Stephen, this has been absolutely spectacular. thoughtful, transformational, and thank you for sharing. This has been a fantastic perspective. So how do people reach you? How do they get connected to you to learn more about you? Or if you can tell us a little more about you and how do they reach you if they want to connect with you? Steven Roberts: Yeah, sure. John, people can reach me at Steven with a V at Ameritechpartners.com and Ameritech is T E K on the end. ⁓ so they can reach me via email. You can find me on LinkedIn, Steven Roberts and Tampa. I'm happy to ⁓ shoot out, you know, my link if people can't find me and they can also reach me, you know, by phone at 7 2 7 3 0 4. We ⁓ love helping companies realize their potential. ⁓ We love helping companies visualize what's possible for their organization, especially those, you know, we spent a lot of time with folks preparing to sell their business. You know, I'm an executive advisor for mentor securities and investment banking firm as well. So we help them prepare for sale. As a lot of, a lot of ⁓ owners, founders think that Hey, I want to sell my business, so I'm going to list it today and it's going to sell in three months. Well, the truth is that 12 to 18 months is the starting point to create optimal valuation, to make sure that you're systemized and that you have the technology and the processes in place that ⁓ private equity firms look for. And we can typically help founders and business owners double their enterprise value. There are multiple, you know, to a 4X, 4X to an 8X, because we can come in as seasoned investors and ⁓ private equity players in the game and the arena and help them see their business differently. Because a lot of owners build businesses and they spent so many years ⁓ just in their business building it that they weren't really thinking about the exit because they were thinking about growth. Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Steven Roberts: That's where they can find me. They can also find me on YouTube. have free, I could offer free training videos, AI mindset, professional training videos at Quantum Mindset 360. You can find me there as well. So any number of ways, but we're always happy to help. you know, initial conversations are always free and we just, we want to make sure it's a fit. and it's a business or a situation that we actually can be where we can add massive value and help founders, business owners take the next step, whatever that is. Col. John Boggs: Perfect. Perfect. Steven, would you mind giving that email address one more time? Steven Roberts: Sure, it's Stephen with a V at AmeritechPartners.com and Ameritech is A-M-E-R-I-T-E-K. and where americatechpartners.com is also our website so you can find us there as well. Col. John Boggs: Perfect. Stephen, thank you very much. This has been absolutely spectacular. I can't thank you enough for being here. I mean, you were singing to my heart. I love it. That's what you talked about was absolutely leadership at its best. That's exactly what's done. That's exactly how it's done. I loved every second of it. Thank you so much. And for everyone that's listening, hey, we'll see you the next time. That's it out here. Steven Roberts: You