Latest / Voices of Leadership w/ Chris Atwell / Voices of Leadership w/ Chris Atwell - Jon Wiggs

Transcript

Voices of Leadership w/ Chris Atwell - Jon Wiggs · Voices of Leadership w/ Chris Atwell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Voices of Leadership.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Chris Atwell, and in each episode I sit down with the leaders shaping the future of the manufactured rep industry.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Real stories, real challenges, real life.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is where leadership comes to life.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate you taking the time today, John.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And rather than interviewing industry experts about products or manufacturers, these conversations are really about leadership.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to understand what it actually looks like to build and lead a successful Manufacturers Rep agency.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Every agency has its own story, challenges, lessons, and my hope is that someone listening hears something that helps them become a better leader in their own business.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump in.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who may not know uh Wiggs, Han, and Bond, tell us a little more about your agency, yourself, and how you found yourself leading the business.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So Chris, thanks for having uh me on today.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you always put great content out, so it's it's an honor to be here with you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: But um my agency agency, so it started in the the early 70s, and um my father um had come on board with a gentleman by the name of Bill McMath, and um they had this large territory, and they were going out and working out of their cars, and you know, it was just uh interesting childhood, and and just see how it kind of came about, and it just always evolving, always something different.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it was a lot of work back then.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it still is today, but it was just uh you know a different grind.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have the technology.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I remember you know, the fax machine coming in, uh, my dad having roll of quarters to make his uh sales call.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: So like the the world's just totally different.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um when you sit back and look at it in our office, we used to have like a card index file that you know with inventory.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it's a tremendous change in such a short period of time.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I went off to college and um and didn't have aspirations to get in this business, and and uh I found myself here, and it's the story that you know you hear if you go to AMR, you hear it from a thousand times.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this industry is so great.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Once you get into it, you never leave, and that that that's the truth.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you grew up around the business, so lots of exposure.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm curious, was leadership always something you wanted, or did you kind of just grow into it?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think that it it's something that you always kind of grow into.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can be born a leader, but you still have to grow and mature.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to go through things, you have to have the adversity, you have to you can't just say, hey, I'm gonna be a leader and tell people what to do.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: That that's not leadership.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, your your your dad and his partner running around doing sales calls, having samples in the back of their cars, rolls of quarters.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think every owner eventually realizes that you're no longer in the sales business, that you're in the leadership business, right?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got quite an organization there.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when did that shift happen for you?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that really as my dad was coming to the succession timing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody's gonna go through it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody has to start looking at what is my succession and or is it gonna be successful with our manufacturers and our customers?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so really me getting involved more and more from the sales side into the operation side.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I think he did do a great job of of giving me more and more each year until it was smoothly and and he was just out.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, it it it took it takes time.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: A successful planning oper uh succession plan doesn't just happen overnight.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: You have to come down, you have to create it, you put implement the strategy of it, you lay it out, and you work that plan.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if something changes, you you make those changes.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when we started ours, um one of the guys that was going to be my business partner, he decided the the rep business wasn't for him.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, Drew Dawson, my business, one of my business partners, came on board and it's been phenomenal.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you know, having open communication, laying the plan out, and working the plan.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that's just it it takes time and it you just have to work on it.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a clean succession planning there with your dad, and and over time he gave you more and more, which to your point, rather than being all in the sales all the time, you started working more on the business gradually, which gave you the the capacity and the understanding on how to do that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you and you have to understand the business to work.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: You had to work uh you know in the business before you can just work on the business.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're going out and just working on the business and think that you can buy an agency and then it's a stamp business to go work on it, that doesn't work.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's tough.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're not setting yourself up for success.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being at AMR last year and uh great guest speaker.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh one of the things that I realized was that most people don't understand the rep agency business, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very complicated business.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many moving parts, there's a lot of stakeholders, there's a lot of influencing happening in that business rather than direct sales.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So to your point, you need to be in the business first to really grasp that concept because traditional business models are not like this industry.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're not, and that's what makes it so hard.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I laugh about it because if you go and talk to an accountant or or someone else, a banker, and you try to explain what you're what you do, you know, really when you look at a company like us, Wigshahn and Bohan, they think we're a law firm first and foremost.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're trying to break it down, but like leadership is is totally different in a rep firm, just like just like our business.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I think leadership in a rep agency is different just because you know our businesses, we're leading in every direction.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have to work with our manufacturers, we have to work with our wholesale partners, we have to work internally for us.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it's a multi-directional leadership to be in this role.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say the hardest part about leading a rep agency today that people outside our industry probably don't appreciate?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that it's not appreciation.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just lack of understanding.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're you're trying to be the best you can be for your manufacturers.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when people ask, they're like, well, what's your role?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Are you is that your company?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, we're independent from our manufacturers, but we're their sales force.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're you know, and and back in the day that that's what it was.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was a relationship business, and you went and you sold product, but you know, today data is so important, and so we're managing upstream, downstream to left and right, and we're trying to make sure our manufacturers are well taken care of, everything's timely.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Data's out there, our our customers can get data quicker than ever, but the relationship still has remained key in this because it builds trust.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're having to manage it both ways, but um I think it's just a we don't have a clear business of what it is.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: We can sit down industry folks and we understand it, but to the outside world, they don't understand that you know, we do work for this company, we are the sales force, we are getting this to market, we are training, we are marketing, we are social media, we're bringing all this information back to different hubs and spokes to deliver it to the market.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we play a very, you know, important role, and I see this role just becoming more and more important as everything keeps expanding.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so much change in the last 10 years alone.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, um you mention data and communication and and sharing of information.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think has changed the most over the last 10 years as you've grown up in this industry?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's definitely speed, speed of product.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you look back, I mean, people used to you know phone in or fax in.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was a big deal to get a fax and place the order.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't worried about when it came.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so those inventory levels are managed differently.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was just there was not the speed.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now it's it's the Amazon effect.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You want to be able to call, get the right thing, right information, make sure it works, troubleshoot any issues, and have it almost immediately if possible.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's incredible how I like that term, the Amazon effect has changed many industries.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look at retail stores and all this stuff, too, right?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: For you, working as a manufacturer's rep agency, the expectation of the end user, the distributor is is that they're gonna get it right away and the communication is gonna get through just as quickly as they can send a request on Amazon.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's it's far more complicated than that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you you work to deliver on the speed as best you can.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, our contractors are evolving in this and they're growing up in this new age, new generation that's coming to market.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: They're used to this.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have to adapt to it, we have to be overprovide, we have to combine.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And really, our our a lot of our rep partners and AMR members, they're planning and it's generational that's out there.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: There, there's succession plannings that are coming.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we're probably gonna see even more of a rapid uh pace of change coming up, Chris.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: In the next 10, 12 years.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think things will speed up more.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't doubt it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the hope is that agencies continue to grow to your to your point.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh there's the demand for the services, the relationships, the value that rep agencies provide is is only getting stronger.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think you recognize that as agencies grow, the owners can't stay involved in everything, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So how have you approached developing leaders underneath you?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it's communication.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that like for to be a good leader, you can't just tell everything and tell people what to do or keep it in your head.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have to communicate everything, over-communicate, let the let people make good decisions, hire good people, have good people, and listen.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Quit asking questions or quit telling things and ask better questions because you'll get better answers.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: But really, it's just laying it out and having back to the plan.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: You have a plan, you work that plan, and make sure that everybody knows which way we're going, why we're going, and how their decisions affect things.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because if everybody's empowered, um, you don't have to be everywhere at one time.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be everywhere at one time.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I heard something in an AMR conference uh several years ago.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: A gentleman came and spoke, and he was like, Go on vacation, turn your phone and email off for a week, and if you come back and there's no problems, you've got to get business.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I wouldn't advise that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably not the best thing, but you know, it's it's really good when you can walk through your office and you can hear empower people making decisions, doing things the right way and and working with one another instead of just going to the owner every time for simple questions.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that requires uh a mindset, a specific mindset, right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to learn to let go when you're empowering others to make decisions.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what have you learned about letting go?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I imagine there was a point when you were in the business a lot that it was there, you know, it was hard to let go of things.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not always right.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that that that's one I laugh at and uh I tell my wife I'm always right, but uh that doesn't usually go over well.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah, yeah, it's just knowing that you're not and stepping back and being able to interpret uh interpret and listen to other people's views and asking those clear questions because you can see sometimes the light bulb come on when if you are right, you can see and then they've figured it out, and that's a great feeling to sit back and watch.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um, there's also the light bulb that comes onto your head when they're saying something and you're like, You're right, we've done it this way for all these years, but it's not the right way.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's finding those solutions, and and that's that's empowering, and people feel good, and then when people feel good and decisions are you know coming at a fast rate and everything's clear and right, it's a happy work environment.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody enjoys coming to work.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so interesting how looking back, many of us kind of you know have to make that leap into trusting others, empowering them to make decisions, and that requires delegation, right?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and and giving them ownership of something.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, what what would you have delegated sooner as you were growing up in this business?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's a tough one.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, what could I have delegated sooner?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: There were a lot of just little things.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's just the day, the the stuff that just eats your time that it's that doesn't I don't want to say it doesn't matter, but it is just time time killers.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you can identify what are the time killers and put people that um that can realize that and it's their time killers, helping helping others find those.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, time is the one resource that we can't make.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So if we can find an area and and clean that up, that that would be I wish I would have known that sooner.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the little things, those little things that you know bog us down.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I call them the admin stuff, right?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You've got uh emails, phone calls, calendar, all kinds of things, and then expenses, all those things that just you know death by a million cuts, right?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you look up and it's three o'clock at the end of the day, and you're like, what have I accomplished?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I try to sit there and you know, I'm I'm a very particular person about my calendar and try to keep it running.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, uh I I learned from um another vendor that came from Amor, but uh setting a uh a 30 minutes at the end of the day for a daily rap.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I do my calendar rings me and I try to sit there and say, what it what did I what do I feel great about today?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: What did I accomplish?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: What do we need to work on for tomorrow?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're really in tune with the industry.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You sit as on the executive committee for AMR, and um you know there's a lot of speed changes happening in the industry right now.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: What what changes do you think owners should be paying attention to very closely over the next five years?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think that we've had a lot of uh talking from the rep side of that and owners, it we've had a lot of change, just really private equity coming and stirring up the market.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um that I think we're still in that middle phase of of their acquisition MA.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we're still gonna see that.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think um we're kind of getting used to it in that aspect of how it affects business.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: But um it's really, I think people are getting harder and harder, good people are harder and harder to find and bring in.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's a lot of variables that are out there, but it's still, I think the speed is going to be more and more um at a faster pace.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we're seeing different projects that come with with AI and Chat GPT and Claude and all these investments that are coming in.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, our our company, we we spend a lot of time and effort researching and bringing in different different aspects of AI, but at the same time, we're having to safeguard and and watch the data that goes through there.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not like I can just open it up and tell everybody, hey, go use this.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to protect our market information.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to uh protect you know what makes us our company.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: So there's just a lot of scary things that are out there, but it's it's it's all good.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to adapt and and and stay on top of it and pay attention because um at this year at conference, we've got a lot of great speakers that are coming up, and uh some of the AI guys are coming back, and I would tell everyone go sit in that, listen to it, because it's not just coming, it's here.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to that technology because uh over the next five years it's moving so fast that uh if you misuse it, you could put yourself at risk.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't use it, you could put yourself at risk.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's there's a lot of uh of opportunity there for for people to understand it at a deeper level.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think our manufacturers are gonna start looking at how we use it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it it's there's just a lot of a lot of interesting stuff there with that.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the agencies that uh can leverage it in a way that adds value to the manufacturer and they can demonstrate that, that's a huge value add.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they want to work with companies like that.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: They want to partner with you.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely keeping the keeping their safe stuff too.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: If someone were to inherit or succeed or bought a rep agency tomorrow, what's one lesson you wish someone had taught you when you got started in this?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that a good lesson everybody says listen, but everything comes at you at at such a rapid pace, and you're trying to put your you know, get your feet settled and um you just gotta slow down and step back, and it's okay.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're never gonna make all the right decisions, but you just have to gather your facts, get as much information as you have, it can, and you know, try to make the right decision and and you know, make sure you have good people around you.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Always I don't want to be the smartest person in the room.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: I want to have the smartest people around me.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Get them on your team.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of great stuff can come from that.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: But everybody tries to push and everything's coming at a super fast rate, and that's fine.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can be fast and be agile, but slow down and think.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Think slowly clearly allow yourself to understand, make decisions, bring on the right people.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I I I see so many people that go out and just just try to run to keep up and you know, and aren't looking you have to look back, do your evaluations, look at yourself, look at your team, rate yourself, rate your team.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if someone's not up to score, it's okay.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Figure out how you get them up.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Don't, you know, yeah.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Invest in what you need to.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, John Wiggs, I appreciate you sharing your experience with me today.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know there are a lot of owners who are dealing with many challenges in the industry right now, and I think they'll get a lot from this conversation.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for spending the time with me today.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Chris.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's been great and look forward to seeing you around.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.