Latest / MaxValue Podcast / The best kept secret in your business Ft. Carter Welch

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The best kept secret in your business Ft. Carter Welch · MaxValue Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: You and I both have a widget business.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Our widget business is doing five million dollars in revenue.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: I'll see business owners who say, Oh my gosh, I have to fire people.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: We had a really bad month.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Or, oh wow, I just bought a new car because our business is really going great.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: I didn't put time deadlines on my hope.
0:18
SPEAKER_03: There's no magic behind 12 months.
0:20
SPEAKER_03: The magic is just making making it happen.
0:22
SPEAKER_03: Even if you are marketing, it's not like you are telling your owner to stop selling.
0:27
SPEAKER_03: The cobbler whose kids don't have shoes.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: I am nearing completing or updating my own website as well.
0:50
SPEAKER_03: With strategy, valuation, exit building, and maybe even finally figuring out why nobody knows how good your business is.
0:57
SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Ben Town.
0:59
SPEAKER_03: And today, our guest is someone I've known for many years as a business advisor, as a referral partner, and as a friend.
1:05
SPEAKER_03: Carter Welch works with owners of growing companies, typically businesses that are already successful, but have reached a point in their lives where things are getting more complex, harder to run, and it's more difficult to prioritize what's important.
1:19
SPEAKER_03: He spent his career across consumer brands, manufacturing, financial services, and professional services, and today works as a strategic advisor and fractional CMO, helping owners think clearly about growth, marketing, leadership, and ultimately the long-term value of their business.
1:35
SPEAKER_03: What I find really interesting about Carter's work is that he doesn't just focus on marketing or strategy alone.
1:41
SPEAKER_03: He helps owners step back and make better decisions about what actually matters most and how those decisions impact the growth and business value.
1:51
SPEAKER_03: As somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about business value, risk, exit readiness, I think that perspective is very, very important.
1:58
SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Carter.
1:59
SPEAKER_03: Hey.
2:00
SPEAKER_03: Alrighty.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: So let's start.
2:03
SPEAKER_03: You know, when somebody asks about what you do, how do you describe it, especially given your background across, you know, marketing strategy and advisory work kind of writ large?
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like any great marketing person, I think sometimes I struggle figuring out exactly how to describe what I do because it really does cross different categories.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, owners that I talk to think, oh, I've got a marketing problem or I've got a growth problem.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: But in a lot of times, it seems like what they've really got is a clarity problem or a decision problem.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: How do we make those kinds of decisions?
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And I work with them as kind of a thinking partner.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: So my job, my role is to really just help them step back.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, you've heard phrase to see the forest through the trees and things along those lines.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: But it's just to kind of help them step back, see, try to see clearly what's going on and be able to make better decisions.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And it comes across strategy, marketing, people, even financial decisions.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: I just started with a new client this week and we get finished with the meeting, and he just said, Whoa, I had no idea what this really how this was going to go, but I see what you did there.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And what I did was I just said he was so stuck in the moment.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And I just said, okay, let's think five years down the road and let's just say the year was really great.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Why was the year so good?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: And then I get them in get him into a mode of just thinking visionary.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And where are we really trying to get to?
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Because I think so many times people are so stuck in the weeds and they're stuck in the moment, they're stuck in the business.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And that happens with marketing decisions too, where they say, Well, we just need to do this, this, and this.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes it's a lot more than just that.
3:47
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: The mindset is incredibly important and perspective, like you said.
3:52
SPEAKER_03: Uh, what one of the things that people often have an incorrect perspective on is say the accounting function.
4:00
SPEAKER_03: Uh I'll you know, drawing the corollary here between people often think of the accounting and finance function as either, you know, just a lowly bookkeeper, quote unquote, or you know, it's it's out getting it outsourced with you know the high flute and hot shot consultants.
4:16
SPEAKER_03: And same thing happens with you, right?
4:18
SPEAKER_03: I mean, a lot of companies, business owners think about marketing and the quote unquote CMO role, either as you need a giant agency to help you out with your marketing, or you're getting some college intern to you know run your social media or something.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: And those are uh a dichotomy that doesn't really exist.
4:36
SPEAKER_03: So, what's what's really missing from that modality when we're talking about a real CMO level person and how that comes in as your fractional CFO offering?
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're gonna you're gonna laugh.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna move out of your questions just for a second because I want to touch upon something you talked about with the accounting piece of it.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: I think you you hit upon something I just don't want to forget that is so true.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm shocked by how many times business owners make decisions based upon cash that comes in, right?
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we hear all the time cash is king, oh cash is king, cash is king.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: But I'll see business owners who say, Oh my gosh, I'm I have to fire people.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: We had a really bad month.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Or, oh wow, I just bought a new car because our business is really going great.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'll say, Well, what do you what do you mean?
5:23
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, look, look at the cash we brought in last month.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and they're not, they struggle sometimes in just stepping back from an accounting perspective and the stuff you do to say, okay, well, what's really going on?
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Let's stop, let's pause, and let's see what the numbers really do.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: I I spend, I'm not a CFO, I'm not a CPA, but I spend a lot of time with business owners just saying, okay, let's forecast, let's think about the year a little bit and let's predict and let's understand where we're going so that they have a better sense of, okay, where are we at?
5:57
SPEAKER_00: What are we trying to get to?
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And then, and that delves back into you know the marketing question, because so many times people say, Well, I have to do this, I have to do that, and we have to do this marketing.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: I probably get, well, very often I get the question, two questions related.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: One, what kind of ROI should I get on my marketing?
6:16
SPEAKER_00: And two, how much marketing should I spend?
6:18
SPEAKER_00: My answer to how much marketing they should spend is as little as possible.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And it may sound funny, but the more strategic your marketing is, the tighter your message.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: This is what I work with clients all the time is let's get your message tight.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Let's understand who you're really trying to target, because the more focused we can get, then the less money you have to spend.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: If you can find a target, sort of a narrow target, get a message that really clicks, then you can spend less money because you're delivering that message, you know, in a way that your clients are gonna get.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And and I would say that kind of getting to your answer about what CMO is, I think agency types are really good at executing, oh, you got to do a podcast or you got to do a blog.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And they're good at executing that, but they're not always thinking strategically about what are we really trying to execute?
7:14
SPEAKER_00: What are we trying to accomplish here in the business?
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And a CMO is someone who comes in and says, hey, let's let's think about the business and what are the goals?
7:24
SPEAKER_00: What are we trying to really get at?
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Who are those targets?
7:27
SPEAKER_00: That's a place where I think I, you know, add a lot of value to clients.
7:31
SPEAKER_03: So you're really thinking about how to design the building as the architect, not as the contractor who's going to actually necessarily be building the building.
7:43
SPEAKER_03: Both are equally important.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: You have to have the executor, but you also have to have the visionary.
7:48
SPEAKER_03: And unfortunately, I know I happen to know that the business owner doesn't always know what they are looking for, i.e., to be a visionary about it.
7:56
SPEAKER_03: So I yeah, I think I think that's a really, really important uh definition.
7:59
SPEAKER_03: By the way, everybody, I hope you all know that CMO is chief marketing officer.
8:04
SPEAKER_03: I I thought that was self-evident, but I thought I'd better, better uh say it.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, and using your using your your imagery there, yes, I'm the architect that helps them design the building.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm really first and foremost, I'm the guy that says, hey, you're a heck of a you build great buildings.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: We know you know buildings, but what do you really want to try to get?
8:24
SPEAKER_00: What what is the essence of how you design?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: It's funny.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I have a client that's an architect.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: I have a client who's a residential home builder.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think part of what I do is help them understand, okay, what's the essence of who we are?
8:37
SPEAKER_00: How do we design?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: How do we do this?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: How do we create?
8:41
SPEAKER_00: How do we deliver our product?
8:43
SPEAKER_00: How do we deliver the service?
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Who are the clients that we really want to get?
8:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's helping them understand that.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: And then the second part of that is understand, okay, well, where are we trying to get to?
8:54
SPEAKER_00: What does that really look like?
8:56
SPEAKER_00: I had a meeting this week with a client who is at a kind of an inflection point.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: And then we used the concept of jump several years ago.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And the concept of jump was a Sherlock's framework that says there are a few points in a business life where you really are at kind of a crossroads and you have to invest in the business and maybe people, maybe structure, maybe systems.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: And then you're gonna have to go out and you're gonna have to sell and you're gonna have to maybe do some products and things along those lines.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: But I spent time with this business owner and her head of operations, and we said, okay, let's not worry right now where you're at, but let's talk about where do you think you want to go?
9:36
SPEAKER_00: And then let's start thinking about well, what does the business look like at that point?
9:40
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:40
SPEAKER_00: If you're a million dollars now and you're really saying, I think we want to get to eight or 10 million, okay, what does that look like?
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And then let's work backwards because that then informs it, helps you understand who are you trying to target, what are you really trying to sell, what kind of brand are you?
9:56
SPEAKER_00: And then you can go through the um process of understanding how are we going to market ourselves between here and there to get to where we're going.
10:05
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
10:06
SPEAKER_03: And and the I I like that you said process of marketing, because you know, in business valuations, I often see companies that will have the owner being the only person bringing in sales because they're based off of their personal relationships, or maybe just a really small cadre of people at the top, or basically there's dependency, there's a concentration of risk around that, uh, around those individuals.
10:30
SPEAKER_03: And that's much different in terms of business value as compared to businesses that have a process and a system for generating sales, generating demand.
10:41
SPEAKER_03: So, how do you see that as different from a growth and risk perspective?
10:45
SPEAKER_03: And I I know I have an answer.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Guys, give me your answer first, but I'm just kidding.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say, do you have the right answer, or do you oh now the pressure's on.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: So I work with clients who one of the things I do with clients is help them increase the value of their business when they're a few years out.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: So if someone says, hey, I'm selling my company tomorrow, I'm not really the guy that's gonna help them do that.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: But if they say, hey, we uh a great example, we um someone that I worked with over the winter, he down the business valuation.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: They said, uh, uh, uh I'm not sure it's right.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: I think I want to sell it for more.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: What can we do?
11:20
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and I said, well, there are two things.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: One, you know, obviously you can increase the revenue and the profit, or you can do some other things in the business that are going to improve the value of that business.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think chief among those is finding ways of getting the business to you know operate without you or with less of you and operate in a way that replicates what's going on.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: I use this example all the time that right, you and I, you and I both have a widget business, and our widget business is doing five million dollars in revenue and uh a million dollars in profit.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Your widget business, you're never there.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: You're always gallivanting about some place, you never show up, you're never there, and your business does great.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Five million in revenue, million dollars in profit, right?
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Your people make decisions, they don't even need you.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: My business, people can't go to the bathroom without asking me a question, right?
12:12
SPEAKER_00: They just don't know what to do.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: They need me constantly.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: I never get to go on vacation, never do those kinds of things.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And for someone coming in to buy the business, they're obviously going to say, well, okay, your business is both at 5 million in revenue and 1 million in profit, but they're not they're not the same business.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And so what I work with owners is to say, okay, how do we get your business, you know, more like Ben's, so that it's operating and it's replicating without you?
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And you spoke specifically of sales.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: And I've worked with one client in particular recently in the last couple of years, where we've talked about, and they've made some changes where all the sales was really concentrated among the owners.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: They were the ones doing the sales.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And what we talked about was look, if someone's going to come in and buy your business, how do you um diversify that sales function so that you have more people responsible for selling?
13:09
SPEAKER_00: So someone can come in and say, hey, the owner's not there.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, they've got a great process.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: They've got a system, as you said, to do that sales.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: And for any kind of a smaller business, you know, we talk about marketing, but marketing for a smaller business is about, and by smaller, I mean, you know, under 25 million in sales would say.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: It's about selling, it's about networking, it's about finding referrals, getting referrals, and communicating.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: In all of that, you have to communicate who you are, what you do, who's good for you, who's ideal for you.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And then you add a layer on top of that, more traditional marketing or advertising in some form, whether it's social media or buy your own website or email marketing or different things like that.
13:52
SPEAKER_03: I think that's really interesting, talking about it like a layer cake, because even if you are marketing in a kind of traditional sense, it's not like you are telling your owner to stop selling.
14:03
SPEAKER_03: That that's not what anybody's saying.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: Go ahead and keep doing that.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: Do your networking.
14:07
SPEAKER_03: That has been very effective.
14:08
SPEAKER_03: That's gotten you where you're today.
14:11
SPEAKER_03: However, if that's the only thing that you're doing today, then that's you know, not not as not as yummy of a cake for somebody to want to come and buy.
14:18
SPEAKER_03: The you know, the fact of the matter is unless you are literally going to stay with the business and you are selling yourself, selling your services with the business, then somebody may not be able to replicate exactly what you do unless you make it replicable.
14:33
SPEAKER_03: So that's that's where you get to that transferable value.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and just um building on that a little bit, you know, people I'll I'll talk to business owners who say, Well, my people can't really sell, they're not really salespeople, and you know, yada, yada, yada.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And but I'll talk to them and I'll say, okay, one element of selling is if you're in any kind of a uh networking group and there are a lot of them, you know, like a provisors or B and I or anything like that, the currency of those is you give a referral, you get a referral.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And you know, a lot of times for the owner, they're busy, you know, they they it's just a difficult thing to go out and try to find referrals.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: But what they can do is if they're if they have their teams who are actually working with clients who are out communicating with them all the time, they can uncover referrals, they can uncover needs and uncover opportunities.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk to a business owner who set something up with a business owner recently where they said, Well, do we need to create some sort of an incentive plan for my for my account managers or staff that you know reward them for sales?
15:38
SPEAKER_00: And I said, How about you pay them 50 bucks every time they uncover an opportunity for referral that you can then hand to someone else?
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And that can result in, you know, I mean, that really is it's cash in a lot of ways.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: There are great people who talk a lot about that.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Sam Lee is someone we both know who's done a lot in that area, and there are many others too.
16:05
SPEAKER_03: We we may have a guest by that name coming on at some point to talk about exactly that because I've talked to him and and Dr.
16:13
SPEAKER_03: Beam uh quite a bit, Dr.
16:15
SPEAKER_03: Carrie Beam quite a bit, about being able to have that social capital to spend.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: And if you have to spend a little bit of monetary capital to accrete that social capital, it's actually well worth it uh you know in the long run.
16:29
SPEAKER_03: Let's take a break to address the adoring fans.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: Carter walked us through the handful of things that he tells every owner to start on now to implement a solid marketing strategy and emphasis on start on now, because the max value audience knows value compounds or erodes for years before you decide what to do with your business or the rest of your life.
16:49
SPEAKER_03: When you build a great business, it gives you options about how you want to step back from that business.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: That's why Town Advisory runs Exit Builder, which is a program that gives you actionable guidance.
17:00
SPEAKER_03: This might mean first bringing in a pro like Carter to customize a plan for your goals and your business.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: And really, not just the proverbial and detestable consultant binder of Ivory Tower advice, stuff you can actually use.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: If you're curious how it works, start at townadvisory.com or reach out to me directly.
17:18
SPEAKER_03: No cost and no expectation about what an exit actually does need to look like for you.
17:22
SPEAKER_03: Now back to Carter.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna make one other comment about it that I think how you leverage your own assets is just a really key thing.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: It's understanding, it's like you know, you come home from work and you gotta make dinner and you don't really know what you get.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's open the pantry.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's see what we get.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we've got some chicken, we get some rice, oh, we've got some pretty good vegetables and something else.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, let's use that because I'm not going out to spend money and go to a grocery store to buy something and come back.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't have the time, I don't have the interest.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to spend the money if I've already got stuff here.
17:55
SPEAKER_03: And the same thing is true.
17:59
SPEAKER_03: I mean you you don't have to.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
18:01
SPEAKER_03: And it's either that or leverage off of you know what you're what you're talking about, where where you are.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I you you have talked to me about you know the this idea of start where you are, not where you think you should be.
18:17
SPEAKER_03: So I mean start with what's in your pantry, uh, not not you know, not the souffle you want to make.
18:23
SPEAKER_03: But really tie that into how business owners need to think about their current situation trying to and trying to grow their business and increase the value of their business.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: I think uh one of the things that business owners try to do a lot is they say, well, we've got to do this, either we've got to fire this person or we've got to add this new initiative, or we've got to spend this money, we've got to do this, we've got to do that.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: And the other part of that is, well, we should be here, we should be doing this, we should be doing that, we should have done that.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, if if we had the time or we had the money, or I knew what I was really doing, we should be here.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And and I often just say, okay, chill.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Let's start where you are and let's understand what's going on, let's understand what you have and what you can leverage, and let's just start there and then we can build.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you need to have a vision, but if you so often we get, you know, in um, you know, in fitness, right?
19:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes in fitness, what bogs us down is right, well, we don't want to lift because, well, you know, if I really had been doing what I said I was going to do, I'd be able to bench, you know, so much more.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: I'd be able to deadlift all this, but oh, you know, what a failure.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: I haven't done that.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even gonna bother trying.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: As opposed to just saying, okay, start where you are.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Let's just let's just start with baby step.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: I was singing the song.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Did you ever do remember the the um did you ever watch Santa Claus's Coming to Town, the cartoon?
19:49
SPEAKER_02: You mean there's a claymation?
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Is that yeah, kind of claymation, I guess it was.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: It was anyway.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a song in there where the with the the warlock, winter warlock.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: It is so true in marketing or sales.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Start where you are and let's make progress.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: And don't get don't get worried about how well someone else is doing that, and someone's doing that.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Great, let's start where you are and let's make some progress.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: And let's understand and let's look and let's listen and and learn and go from there.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: It all makes sense.
20:17
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you you like you said, you can't, you know, you can't you can't lift your body weight until you know, until you work up to it.
20:24
SPEAKER_03: And I mean, you know, our our listeners don't know that you know, uh uh around the frame of your uh of your screen there.
20:30
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're incredibly jacked.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: And you know, if if it was that kind of podcast, I'd have you lift up your shirt and show off your six-pack.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: But but it but it's not that kind of podcast.
20:40
SPEAKER_03: Thank goodness.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: Thank goodness.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, thank for me, thank goodness.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: I I I don't want to be just game by my uh by my friend Carter here.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: But I I you know it's funny you just said that.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I don't know if you can see this picture.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: So that's me where my finger is, right?
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh huh.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: It's me.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: So I do I do sprint triathlons.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: And I did last summer, I finally had kind of done a pretty good job, but I've gotten in gotten in pretty good shape.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: And last June, there's a point to the story that's not just about me and trathlon, but I um I in June, I I did stratholon and I finished first in my age group of about six people, and you know, look, I'm an older guy, relatively slow, but um I felt really good.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And then I got injured, right?
21:29
SPEAKER_00: I I got plant fasciitis and um I couldn't really train, and so I just kind of stopped training.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: I didn't start, I didn't stop eating, and I like started gaining weight, and I had kind of gotten out of training and get that.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And then about a month ago, I was frustrated, and I just I just said, Okay, just go out, get in your bike, get started, sign up for a race, just don't worry, because I had gotten so caught up with Well, when I had been here and I, and if if only I had done dot dot dot dot dot, I'd be back there, but I'm not.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, well, I'm not even gonna I'm just frustrated and angry.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: And so I get out and I just said, I trademarked the phrase last year.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Start, I'm not sure how I was able to do it, but I did.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: I trademarked the phrase, start where you are, not where you think you should be.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And I I literally told myself, I said, okay, if you can use that stupid phrase, you better believe in it and you better start using it yourself.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: And I just went out and I got in my bike and I just said, it's gonna be slow, just go, just do it, just start, just start.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And I've got a um, I got my first rathlon, you know, next week of the year, and I'm sure I'm gonna be slow, but my goal is great, you're making progress, make that progress and um feel good about it and you're already, and you know, you feel better when you're at least you're doing something towards it.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing with with businesses and their marketing and their sales and what they do, just start someplace, make some progress because it feels great.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you have momentum and you know, you see an employee that that that gives you a lead that you can give to someone else, and they feel great.
23:13
SPEAKER_03: And you feel great, they do because it it helps out the client.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of that that aspect that has nothing to do with the money.
23:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the the money is you know, like you said, you're you recommended to the client, uh give your staff fifty dollars every time they can uh give you an opportunity to make a referral to somebody good.
23:33
SPEAKER_03: It's not about the money.
23:34
SPEAKER_03: I mean, nobody's gonna change their life over fifty dollars.
23:38
SPEAKER_03: However, it's just the that recognition, it's just that tiny little uh you know endorphin uh hit to to provide to somebody to say, hey, thank you very much.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: That was worthwhile, that was actually worth something to me, and now it's hopefully worth something to you.
23:53
SPEAKER_03: And it's not about the money.
23:55
SPEAKER_03: One of the things that you when you're in your story there, I wanted to comment real quick in in your story there, uh that was uh that was pretty funny because it makes me think of well, every middle-aged man like me ever, where you remember how you used to be able to do a thing, and you can't quite do that thing the same way anyway, yeah, anymore.
24:16
SPEAKER_03: And you know, I think the hard part is truly that fact, grappling with making making progress, but it is the fact that you're making progress again or the same progress again that you already had, and that's that's a killer.
24:29
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and it that happens in our in our businesses as well, uh, at times, you know, gosh, I gotta go, you know, I just lost a key individual.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: I gotta go higher again.
24:38
SPEAKER_03: Man, that is really really a really tough hill to climb again.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: It it it's a killer, but if you try to get a mindset that says, okay, you know, you hear people say it's harder to win a championship a second time.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless you're, you know, the New England Patriots and you win so many championships, okay.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: But we won't go there anyway.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: But it is, right?
24:58
SPEAKER_00: You hear people you hear people say that you know, winning was hard, but winning a second time, boy, that's that's super hard.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: And you have to um, you know, I will work with business owners and just say, okay, great.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: You yeah, yeah, you did well.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, right?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was here.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: How do I get back there?
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, now I'm only back to where I was.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you get back, if you win a second championship, yeah, you only want, oh, I want a second Super Bowl.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, you want a second Super Bowl, you know, it's like that's fantastic.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: And helping people take comfort in that is such a such a big deal.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: We you were talking about, you know, kind of training and fitness and things like that.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I've got a goal.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean the early parts of this decade that I'm in.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And my goal is at by the end of the decade to kind of hit certain strength targets, right?
25:45
SPEAKER_00: I've never been, I've never been all that thrilled about strength training.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And I know it's good for me.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: And my goal isn't, you know, I gotta, you know, lift, deadlift this and bench that or whatever by next month or even next year.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: No, mine's like eight years from now, I want to, I want to get to a point where, you know, I'm the strongest I've been.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: And when you can kind of set longer goals, then you can, you don't limit yourself from a time standpoint.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the things that was makes me think about we hear a lot about goals and how um, oh, every goal you have to have a deadline, you have to have a time period for it, right?
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And um Sherlock's concluded, it's it's small global boutique um business coaching consulting firm that I'm also part of.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, they concluded that one of the biggest problems that business owners have is they constrain themselves too much by time, that they set time goals that limit their ability.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: I see the puzzled look on your face.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And the story they shared was um, I think it was Admiral Stockdale.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: He was um he was the vice president for um the guy from Texas who ran for president.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Stockdale was a POW for several years, and he was able to survive in the, you know, in the South Pacific or wherever they were.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Um he was able to survive when others didn't survive.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: And he said, because I didn't put time deadlines on my hope.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: And he said, what would happen is there'd be other prisoners who'd come in, we'd all be POWs, and they would say, okay, it's January 1st.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I am optimistic by February I'm out of here.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: February come and they weren't released.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: And they kind of uh get down a little bit and they say, okay, by Easter, I'm out of here.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Easter would come, they weren't out, and they got down worse and worse.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And he said that I always focused on the long term, but I didn't constrain myself by saying it has to be on this time frame, it has to be on this time frame.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And what I find a lot of times with business owners is they get so obsessed with saying, well, look, we just we got to get to this revenue point by next month or next quarter, six months from now.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: And when they do that, they limit themselves.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And if I said, okay, well, if you if you needed to get to that revenue rate 18 months from now, would you do anything different?
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I do a lot of things.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: I would do, I would, I would do it the right way, or I would, you know, hire someone or do something different.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't spend quite as much money in the short term.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: I would build, you know, where I needed to build to.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: And by limiting themselves and saying, I've got to do it now, I've got to do it now, then they just, they, they shut themselves out of so many other possibilities that can get them to where they want to go, even if it takes just a little bit longer.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Because in the grand scheme of things, most of the time, if I if I take my business from here to here to thriving, where I want to be, if it takes me, you know, three years instead of two or five years instead of three, great, I'm there and I'm okay.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And that is one of the things that I find really limits a lot of business owners, is they get too time constrained on their goals.
28:59
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think I just found the value vitamin for the episode.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: I think the uh your idea that doing things the right way, having the real infrastructure involved, uh even if it takes maybe longer to do it, or again, just doing it the right way, irrespective of the time it takes, maybe it's faster.
29:19
SPEAKER_03: That smart goals are important, I would say.
29:22
SPEAKER_03: However, the be being a little bit able to release yourself from you know the the dictates of a calendar per se.
29:30
SPEAKER_03: There's no there's no magic behind 12 months or 13 weeks or one quarter or whatever.
29:35
SPEAKER_03: Uh the the magic is just making making it happen.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever have you ever tried to build an IKEA desk or a chest of drawers or something like that?
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
29:44
unknown: Right?
29:44
SPEAKER_00: I got kids.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: You get in and you say, Okay, I've got about an hour or so.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: I gotta get I gotta get this done because I want to watch, you know, the San Jose Sharks win a great game, um, or whatever, right?
29:57
SPEAKER_00: I've only got an hour, so I gotta get this done.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to look at the directions.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna do this thing, right?
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, three hours later you say, Yeah, I got it, I should have looked at the directions.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: And if I had not been so constrained by saying, Oh, I gotta get this done in an hour, if I'd stopped, looked at the directions, thought it through, you know, I might have gotten done in, you know, an hour and five minutes, as opposed to four hours and 50 minutes and gotten angry and frustrated.
30:25
SPEAKER_03: Or you think about it, you know, outside the box, and you you say, Well, I'm gonna do this in my living room while I watch the incredible, incredible Sharks hockey game uh where they just just score so many goals.
30:39
SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, am putting together the chest of drawers or whatever while I'm doing that.
30:43
SPEAKER_03: So it does take two and a half, three hours, but I'm enjoying the whole time.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yeah, exactly.
30:49
SPEAKER_03: Very good.
30:50
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
30:50
SPEAKER_03: All right, Carter.
30:51
SPEAKER_03: Thanks, thanks so much for uh for answering the the I'll say the tough questions and you know following the paths where where they lit led today.
30:58
SPEAKER_03: And you know, although you know I've had the benefit of knowing you for a long time, uh the listeners maybe don't.
31:08
SPEAKER_03: Tell me something about you that's not on your LinkedIn profile and maybe something we haven't talked about today already.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's see.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Number one, I am a new grandfather.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: There's a picture there.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's just the most amazing thing.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, I I've heard people say, well, you're a grandparent, it's even better than being a parent.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, what are you talking about?
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I just I just love it.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, every day there's something new and it's fun, it's exciting, and it's just been great.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: It's just been incredible.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: It's it's probably the most meaningful change in my life in the last year.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: That's been great.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Second thing is uh triathlons.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: So I spent I do sprint triathlons, I train for them, and I I've done a good job.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm really pleased I have gotten back into it.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I have gotten into the training.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I have a training plan that says I have X number of activities I'm supposed to do a week, and I usually are, you know, X minus something, but that's okay.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing something.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And and I love the training for it.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Someone someone said to me, Oh, I bet the races are fun, but the training's got to be terrible.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: And I said, let's say you you do five races a year and you devote 300 days to training.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: That means 295 of your 300 days you're devoted to, if you don't like it, why are you doing it?
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Why are you doing it?
32:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and I like it.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: I like the idea that I'm I'm doing something, I'm making some progress.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: So I just I love it.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And then what else?
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh, something interesting.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you I know you we haven't talked about this, but I am um exploring going, I'm getting a master's in divinity certificate starting in the fall.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: And I know you know, religion and church and faith are you know, everyone's in a very different place, and it can be a very difficult thing for some people to go through.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sensitive to that.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: For me, I just I see I I I've been a youth leader for years and years and years, and that's kind of my big thing outside of work that I just love doing.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: I work with high school students, and it it it keeps me fresh on you know, k-pop demon hunters and and all those kinds of things.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, all the all the phrases of the day and all of that kind of stuff.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: But we occasionally are supposed to provide some guidance and some leadership and and things.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And I found out in the last you know, year, two, maybe more, that there's almost too much of an intersection for my liking between politics and religion.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And kind of people try to just they try to project their own political views onto, you know, whoever they may be following or whatever they may be following.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of was reflecting and said, you know, I'm a Christian, I teach in a you know, Christian church.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And I just said, well, if if I'm gonna be doing that, I might want to try to get to know a little bit more and go a little bit more depth and understand um more about that background and and more how do I live my life that way and understand that.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: My uh youngest son is getting a degree right now, he's going to seminary school.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I just was I was really motivated.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: I said, I don't think I want to go and try to get an MBA or do something like that, but I think I want to delve deeper and understand how I can just mentor and help lead and guide and learn more about myself and learn more about leadership and learn more about being authentic in how we're living our lives.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's the other thing I'm doing.
34:40
SPEAKER_03: That's that's very cool when you can be inspired by your kids.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:44
SPEAKER_03: Right?
34:44
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, but that that that is something something very special.
34:47
SPEAKER_03: The uh, you know, I don't know what else to say about that, frankly.
34:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the the you know, the fact is that um it it is one of the things I I really value about you and about uh our friendship is the fact that we don't necessarily have all the same views.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: I'm not particularly religious, but at the same time, I I just value your perspective so much, and it's valuable that everyone believes something, I think.
35:10
SPEAKER_03: What you know, and it's and whatever that is is is fine.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, let's we we don't have to make it a uh uh dissertation for your uh for your maybe this already answered the question, but I always ask, what are you reading right now?
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I knew you were gonna ask that question.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: So I brought out two books.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: There are two things that I'm reading that are I think are relevant.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll do the first one.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: It's called The Politics of Jesus, and it's just that fascinating.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: It's like it was someone's um, it was a cousin's book from college, and I just thought, you know, it's in the news, might as well try to read about it a little bit.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just kind of starting it.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit of a slog early on, but just trying to understand it, just trying to get more perspective and things like that.
35:51
SPEAKER_03: And then the other book absolutely, I would absolutely entertain myself by calling it the politics of Jesus and seeing how that changed my understanding of the book.
36:00
SPEAKER_03: But sorry, be that as may.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: This is the other book.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: It's called Cracking the Sales Management Code.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: I have heard that.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think I mentioned to this to you before, but it's a it's a book I read a while ago, and it's just so relevant.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going back to it again and again, so I'm rereading it.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: The the two authors basically what they tried to do was identify what really matters in sales.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: What are the key metrics?
36:27
SPEAKER_00: What do you have to measure?
36:28
SPEAKER_00: And my big takeaway, and it has absolutely been true, I have managed sales organizations and marketing organizations.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: I tell my clients all the time, especially when they're obsessed with measuring things, and I like measuring things, don't get me wrong.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: I get my data, I got my watch, I got all that kind of stuff.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: But the key premise in the book was that if you try to measure everything, you end up focusing on nothing.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: And what they what they concluded was in sales, there were only a handful of things you should focus on really measuring, right?
37:03
SPEAKER_00: It's the it is your sales call.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I can control that in a sales call.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And then what are one or two metrics for that?
37:11
SPEAKER_00: A sales opportunity, an opportunity comes up.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are what are one or two core things that I should measure there?
37:17
SPEAKER_00: And then there are two others, territory and account or the other ones.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: But the premise is that just measure, start by measuring the the one that's kind of most important.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to add a second one, great, even a third one.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: But if you're measuring the three most important factors that are going to drive an effective sales call or close a sales opportunity, or manage an account, if you're just thinking of, let me just track those few that are most important, you're a lot more effective at it.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's a lot easier to hold yourself accountable.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Because if if I'm measuring 10 different things when it comes to sales, it is really easy for me to say, hey, I got six of the 10.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, the problem is if I didn't focus on the four most important ones that account for, you know, 85% of my effectiveness in sales, then I'm just wasting my time patting myself on the back because I've got six out of the 10 right, if they're not the ones that really matter.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: So I just it's a great discipline.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: It's a great book.
38:19
SPEAKER_03: Excellent.
38:19
SPEAKER_03: Measure what matters.
38:20
SPEAKER_03: That's why KPMs matter.
38:22
SPEAKER_03: You know, I I know you like uh EOS, and so do I.
38:25
SPEAKER_03: One of the things I love about that is everybody's got a number.
38:28
SPEAKER_03: And maybe in this case, you know, you're talking about two or three numbers, but it's it's a number singular, not uh a whole dashboard.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: Dashboards are great, but they can't be overly complicated, otherwise they're noise.
38:40
SPEAKER_03: And it it goes from information to noise very quickly, very, very quickly.
38:46
SPEAKER_03: People get very overwhelmed.
38:47
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I know I have to explain large arrays of data, uh large arrays of numbers to people uh who aren't quote unquote numbers people.
38:57
SPEAKER_03: And the way to do that is not to show them the whole large array of data.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: And I've really come to conclude that I think a lot of it is is used as a justification for not holding ourselves accountable.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: And no, I mean, I don't know.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: I I haven't met very many people who say, hey, I want someone to hold me accountable for these things that are hard to do, but you have to.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got to find some way to hold yourself accountable.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you have if you give yourself too many things, then you're not holding yourself accountable for that one thing that really matters.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: The one most important thing.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: And look, I think we can all agree that being held accountable sucks.
39:34
SPEAKER_03: That's the that's the worst, right?
39:36
SPEAKER_03: That that's where you know that you've fallen short.
39:39
SPEAKER_03: But it also has the the hidden benefit of really being giving you that objective win condition as well.
39:45
SPEAKER_03: Like, hey, you know what, I've done enough.
39:47
SPEAKER_03: Because you can do infinite amounts of of work and busyness and things.
39:51
SPEAKER_03: But when you've hit those, you know, that that one KPM and you know that that's what will eventually turn into the goal, the the achievement of the vision, then you can say, you know what, I'm gonna go have that uh that ice cream and sit on the couch now, you know.
40:09
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
40:10
SPEAKER_03: All right, Carter.
40:11
SPEAKER_03: If you want to be found, where can people find you?
40:14
SPEAKER_00: They can find me through um wonderful partners, collaborators like people like you.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: They can email it's really simple, Carter at Carterwelch.com.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: Try to make it very simple and easy.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: It's a great place to find me.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: LinkedIn and my own website.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: And you know, like the like the cobbler whose kids don't have shoes.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: I am nearing completing or updating my own website as well.
40:40
SPEAKER_03: But LinkedIn is a great place to find me.
40:43
SPEAKER_03: That's pretty funny.
40:44
SPEAKER_03: You've helped a number of people with their website, include including myself, uh over over the years.
40:48
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I definitely should give you some crap about that.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
40:52
SPEAKER_03: You can hold me accountable.
40:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm happy to.
40:54
SPEAKER_03: That's that is one thing I can do for other people very well.
40:57
SPEAKER_03: All right, Carter.
40:58
SPEAKER_03: Thanks very much, man.
40:59
SPEAKER_03: This was a great conversation.
41:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad to have had you on here.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: Great, thanks.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed it.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: It's always great catching up with you, Ben.
41:05
SPEAKER_03: That's a wrap.
41:06
SPEAKER_03: You've been listening to Max Value Podcast.
41:08
SPEAKER_03: And if this episode provided any interesting information, hit that subscribe button, smash like, and drop a comment below.
41:15
SPEAKER_03: I'm Ben Town with Town Advisory, and I'll catch you next time.