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Why Collaboration Drives Business Growth with Eric Keosky-Smith · Better Together

• Kelly Sundsvold: Welcome to Better Together, real talk for people building real businesses. I'm Kelly Sonsvold, co-hosting with my partner in business and life, Sean Sonsvold. Today we're joined by a truly dynamic force in the world of conscious entrepreneurship. We have David Kiyoski-Smith, founder and president of the Business Development Agency. Eric is a conscious leader and strategic instigator whose career has spanned digital marketing, SaaS, multifamily housing, partnerships, and nonprofits. With decades of experience as a fractional C-suite executive, Eric's passion lies in building scalable, purpose-driven strategies that help businesses grow while doing good in the world. So let's dive right in, Eric. Thank you so much for being here. Eric Keosky-Smith: My pleasure, and it's funny that you mentioned the word David, because that is my unfortunately now past brother, but a huge inspiration in my life. So that was, ⁓ I think, more than just a coincidence there. So, Greg, to be here. Kelly Sundsvold: That's wow, yeah. Yeah. Eric, tell us a little bit about ⁓ what you're currently working on and what your day-to-day kind of looks like and ⁓ give a little bit of background of your business. Eric Keosky-Smith: Well, the background spent many decades in the making. I've been a frustrated entrepreneur working for Intel Corporation in the 90s. I had great jobs, a wonderful experience there until I got to the headquarters in the middle of the politics there. Spent a decade or two either doing my own startups or helping other people with theirs and growth. A lot of SaaS space. I've got a very cool app I started that I'm going to relaunch soon called Diner's Passport. And along the way, I had some pretty interesting life experiences. ⁓ ⁓ really shaped me. One of them was growing up in a family in the East Coast full of exchange students. And the other was actually being pulled over to Europe for a company I was working with and spent 7 and 1 years on the ground, newlywed. two kids born over there, one in UK, one in Munich, but saw all of Western Europe with the exception of two countries. ⁓ say it shaped my life was putting it mildly. You don't have to go to Europe to get to that extreme of shaping your life, but learning those experiences every single day and remembering them and growing from them was huge. I was... Another huge step that impacts my fractional work, in fact that led to it, I was recruited to hire, I worked for the chairman and CEO of U-Haul, who's headquartered, I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, and an extraordinary man, extraordinary company, probably not my cup of tea on the surface, but I learned a ton, I helped shape them where they were going, revamping their digital strategies, but I also found out, again, that a Fortune 500 company and being in the belly of the beast is not my cup of tea. So we had a parting of the ways. I woke up on that Monday morning after my birthday and said, what I really, I found my purpose, which was to help those who are helping others. And I had been flirting around the areas of Fractional for quite a few years, part time, and said, I'm in all full bore. So quickly picked up some clients through key contacts. fact, a great friend of mine, Catherine Blackwell. She is the largest female franchiser in the US. She used to run a company called Kahala. If you ever had a Cold Stone or a Blimpies, you've known her brands. She pulled me into a space I never thought I would go in, and a huge lesson for me was, areas that need the most help aren't always the highest on your radar, and the senior housing space and the senior health space. So I... position myself to be the fractional EVP of three different companies with two different CEOs. know, chat GPT in this world becomes your best friend because you can quickly learn things that otherwise would have taken years. It doesn't mean you can go. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: You're still at 10,000 foot, maybe 1,000 foot, but I was able to get up to speed in three different industries quickly things took off. So I'm loving a fractional executive. I also carved out Fridays for myself. Turns out it's not really working well that way, but in my contracts, I'm a Monday through Thursday committed fractional and I still put in at least 40 hours in that time, but I have the flexibility to add on things that are also important to me. My purpose in life is to help those who are helping others. Shawn Sundsvold: Nice. Eric Keosky-Smith: and ⁓ recently took over chairman of a nonprofit that I just love what they're doing called ⁓ Worker here in Phoenix and they put marginalized people back to work in good quality jobs with benefits. And if you're working at a nine to five or inside of a fortune 500 company, it really is hard to become a ⁓ nonprofit board member. This allowed me the flexibility to do just that. So that's ⁓ about 60 years of life in three minutes, but a lot of lessons learned along the way. Kelly Sundsvold: Wow. Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: That's you know, something you mentioned there, just you've, and we mentioned it in the beginning of the conversation here, but you mentioned it there again of just, you've been across so many different industries, right? You've worked in tech, you've worked in the multifamily world, you're in nonprofits, you've done, you know, SaaS or software as a service. Is there a ⁓ thread that kind of connects all of them for you or, ⁓ know, how, what's of the thought processes, you know, with all that and how you bring that to your current work. Eric Keosky-Smith: Well, I've got a couple of different answers. That's a great question, by the way. First off, I have a strong philosophy that luck happens to those who are prepared. that's not just my philosophy. You get ⁓ billionaires like ⁓ Cuban. ⁓ ones who are really smart and honest say they lucky along the way. But being ready and ⁓ recognizing luck happens. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: I also don't live by the statement of things happen for a reason. I make reason out of things that happen. I've been very lucky in the shifts in my life, and I've missed some huge ones. But the ones that I onto almost had the need to have somebody who's willing to kind of jump off some cliffs. lead from the front, charge from the front, and get a lot of bloody knees and noses, which I have. I think that's the common thread throughout is I like to be early and show ways to do business, especially in industries that are used to doing them the old way. yeah, it fuels me. I'm not quite sure where that came from. I was always competitive in sports, but I was never the killer. I never want to beat somebody 21-0 in ping pong, although I could. So this instinct get out there and do something others haven't done though is pretty strong in me. And as I said, it's been extremely painful in some ways. I've lost a lot of money because of it, but I've also had some just tremendous ⁓ wins things happen that I never ever would have had. Shawn Sundsvold: ⁓ so ⁓ one of the things we about in the beginning, and I think kind of fits into your, where you're at right now and kind of wearing the hat of EVP and three different businesses ⁓ is that the idea that you're the strategic right? Somebody whose ⁓ goal is to come in and kind of things up. you know, how are you? ⁓ How are you doing that while being an EVP for three different companies? How do you sort of keep them separated in that process? Eric Keosky-Smith: So again, two answers to that question. First off, I'll start with the second half of that. My philosophy in doing fractional work was it was not only. Moral it was safe and sound to have companies all in a similar industry So the three organizations I work with all are in the health and aging and senior space So when I meet one organization or I do a podcast Actually, it can benefit all three of them now You have to be a little careful because there could be some crossover and in this case Turns out one of my clients is going to become a customer of the other client ⁓ and that's as long as you're upfront with everybody and you say this is what's happening or I go to a Shawn Sundsvold: Interesting. Eric Keosky-Smith: Consumer Electronics Show two weeks ago for the age tech aspect of it and health, which by the way was huge there. of my clients benefited from it. In fact, so much so didn't even charge them for the visits. I just said, I'll take that on. That's part of my responsibility in supporting new organizations. So on that side, the advice I'd give, if you're going to do fractional work, try and do something where they're at least complementary. So when you're working on one thing, you'll get some ideas on the other. And also, that's very important from a connections perspective. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Eric Keosky-Smith: The other side is the instigating side is about doing things differently or aggressively or just doing what should have been done in the first place. It's extremely important though to have that strategic. In fact, my instigation, there's a lot of people who are probably better at instigating than I am, but combining with the strategic thought. And I've got to give credit to a man I actually did not like when I met him. Bill Gates back in 95. Intel used to have quarterly meetings with the two CEOs and at the time, might be hard for a lot of people to believe this now, but Intel was the powerhouse in the world. Us and Microsoft, the marketing teams, and Lunas who ran Kelly Sundsvold: Hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: Intel's marketing was just genius. She went on to run Adobe's marketing. But we were a hot marketing company, so he wanted to sit down and have discussions with us. Now, I didn't talk to him personally, but there's a small room and the advice he gave us that resonated from that day on was, look at every company you walk by. Think about their business and what would you do differently? Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Eric Keosky-Smith: And that became the game for the rest of my life. So strategically, I can now look at a business model or a company. I'm not perfect about this, but a lot of them, can rip apart their business in five minutes and put it back together in my head. So. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: You combine strategy and thought like that with, now I can go do it, which is what I believe fractional executives should be. They shouldn't be consultants. They should be strategy plus doers. It kind of gives you a leg up on, quite frankly, on competition. A lot of great consultants out there, a lot of great executors out there, but you combine the two. for me at least, it's fun. I love it. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. That's awesome. ⁓ you talk about, know, what, I'm curious, what excites you most these partnership driven business development things that you're doing? Do you believe it's a growth lever that a lot of companies overlook or what do you see when you start these partnerships with people? Eric Keosky-Smith: You know, I'm still surprised how many people don't understand B2B or B2B2C. ⁓ I had it crushed my DNA at Intel, where all of our business was through distributors or through OEMs. And I was, fact, my first job at Intel was. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: in European distribution, where we had to go out and convince 30 people who spoke a different, know, English wasn't their first language, that these are the products they want to push to their dealers and to their customers. So that was kind of burned into me. And then the flip side, when I moved to Munich for Intel, and trust me, this was one of those absolutely got lucky and didn't deserve it, but got given a $24 million budget out of thin air to launch this new product called the Pentium, the new brand. ⁓ I had to learn I had nobody working for me except a hundred people at the best office and agency in the world, Pulisys. I now had to be the consumer poll. So ⁓ got lucky early on to understand B2B2C and then B2B partnerships. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm. Eric Keosky-Smith: can help a small company scale so much more. There are a lot of work. They're not easy. You have to be very open with them. You have to have clear contracts, clear expectations. But those are the kind of things, if I was helping other smaller B2B companies, I'd start one. Who are your other partners? Kelly Sundsvold: Mm. Eric Keosky-Smith: Who are the ones who leading out there? Who can you compliment the most? ⁓ think about focusing on that. And then go build those partnerships. And always, ⁓ as a conscious capitalist, it's always win-win. If you negotiate what's win-lose, that's not negotiation. So I think there's still thousands of opportunities out there that aren't being exploited, because quite frankly, most people coming up to the ranks haven't had the experience to see them that way. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, for sure. And I'm curious too, you know, a lot of our audience is small, much smaller businesses, obviously. And you've been able to kind of, you know, have the experience of being an EVP in or executive vice president in ⁓ corporations, right? You you think about small businesses and they can't always ⁓ be strategic because a lot of times founders and owners are in the weeds as much as they're doing strategic planning. What are... What are some things when they're looking at trying to on their business ⁓ you can maybe advise them and help them think about when they don't necessarily have as much time to think strategically? Eric Keosky-Smith: Well, and first off, I want to clarify, was never an EVP at U-Haul or Intel. Director was the highest I made, and ⁓ fine with that. But I also, at U-Haul... thriftiest company on earth. And I say that in complimenting them because they're still in business charging $19.95 a day for the trucks. But I didn't do stuff with much money. But I did find I had more time than most people there to think because of wonderful overhead of a Fortune 500 company. But my take is strategic thought today. First off, you've got a sidekick there. You can ask questions any day of the week. Chat GPT. If you're not spending $20 a month for that or some other LLM, and I have it as an Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, I've heard that. Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: app on my phone. Literally four weeks ago, I'm sitting in a parking lot at a nonprofit I support, gave it a verbal overview of what I wanted. By the time I was done on my commute, I got a huge response. you know, I don't take it all verbatim, ⁓ it gave me at least some extra thought that I couldn't have had from even another human sitting in the car with me. ⁓ Chat GPT helps capture back some of that time you otherwise don't have. But the flip side is we've all heard it, working ⁓ your business, Kelly Sundsvold: Right. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: versus in your business, you have to take the time to step away. And that includes shutting down. I cannot work seven days a week for a month. I'll be the first to admit. the second Sunday, I'm toast. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: I use, my escape is live music and great food and Phoenix is full of both. So you also, you know, and I'm fortunate, my kids, I've got grown kids, I don't have pets to take care of and so I have the time and space to do that but you have to because your brain doesn't work that way. Kelly Sundsvold: Aww. Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: One of the companies that helps, support, called Brainsavers.com, Dr. Paul Bendheim. It's to help prevent cognitive decline. But again, here's another one of those funny threads. It's also teaching me about my own brain and thinking. And brains need to recuperate. I've gone into a health kick recently and... Shawn Sundsvold: Mmm. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: because one of the six pillars of brain savers is sleep. And for the first time in my life, I'm making sure I get at least seven hours a night. And there's a lot of folks out there saying, ⁓ no, I'm ⁓ to nine, six days a week. Well, you're nuts because you're losing it. You're not getting the time to do this strategic thinking. And strategic thinking, it sounds so glory. It's Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Eric Keosky-Smith: It's really looking at the world from multiple perspectives and asking tough questions of yourself, but it doesn't have to take that much time. It just has to take a will to spend a little time to ask those hard questions. And again, you've got a sidekick, whether it's a co-founder or a chat GPT, put the questions there and listen to the response closely. That's how I do strategic thinking. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. That's such good advice. We've talked to several business owners on this podcast who have integrated AI in some way, or form. know, ⁓ it as a tool, it's really a powerful tool in your tool belt. ⁓ You know, we've talked about as Goldberg Media, we've talked about, we've written blogs about, you know, people being afraid that, you know, Chad GBT is going to take your job. No, it's not. It's just, it's like you said, it's a sidekick. ⁓ It's somebody that you can bounce ideas off of. if you don't have that. We have a client of ours who actually he's you know it's a very small team. It's me as the marketing. He's got an assistant and it's him and he set up through he's Claude. He has a whole board of directors that is his Claude because he doesn't want to you know have just the same you've done a great job. Yes this sounds like a great idea ⁓ so he's actually built some almost some pushback. Eric Keosky-Smith: ⁓ that's hilarious. That's a brilliant idea. Kelly Sundsvold: in his in his board his digital board yes ⁓ Eric Keosky-Smith: And you can probably build personas too. So you can have that. I love that. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, he went through when he first built it, it was just a really ingenious thing. And I was really impressed. This was probably about six months ago. He told me about this and he built personas for each one and kind of went through what they're like. And he's one he likes to have pushback. He doesn't want to be the person that has the best idea in the room. He wants to have that pushback. And so he built that board to be kind of a little bit of a conflict maker for him to help him think a little bit more strategically, a little bit more higher level. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Kelly Sundsvold: It's an interesting and I like it's a sidekick. It's a tool. Eric Keosky-Smith: Well, here's my strategic instigation in real time. Absolutely monetize that. use it as a lead gen tool. ⁓ want to have access to that, to be blunt with you. ⁓ ⁓ a way you can package it up or use it as lead gen. You it on LinkedIn and say, ⁓ DM for this and you'll probably get 500 to 1,000 follows in the next seven days. yeah. ⁓ Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Yes. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah, for sure. For sure. so kind of shifting gears. This is the side of business that, you know, you've, you've got the strands of wisdom. You've been in industries for a while for your whole career. You know, like you've, I'm sure you've had big wins. You've had failures. So kind of dig in under the skin a little. What's one failure that taught you something really essential? Shawn Sundsvold: Wow, yeah. Eric Keosky-Smith: Long list to pull from. Huge one for me. I don't think it was ego so much as it was almost too much resilience. I did a startup in 2008. Bad timing. Great concept, but not a business model. And yet, I stuck with it for two years, and I had employees I was paying, but not paying myself. I ⁓ had a unfortunate falling out with one of the people, so I shut it down. It also was losing me a lot of money and started the diner's passport product and had employees and had development costs and went four years with no salary while also going through divorce, having just built a luxury home together and the financial crisis hit. And ⁓ by the way, my kids wanted to go to college. So the lesson I had to take there was suck it up and don't jump off the cliff. I hadn't taken much outside funding. None of my investors suggested I keep going, which was huge. And also, if you get seed funding, make sure it's from people who are investing in you, not your company, because they will then understand. And I had to lick wounds and pay off bills for a long time after that. So that's a foolish way nowadays to go start a company or run a company. Won't do that again. And I'd strongly advise if you've got the ego saying, I can go do it. Well, good luck. But nine out of 10 of you will fail and take Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Eric Keosky-Smith: long time to recover. So that was a pretty huge one. Probably I'm not bitter about it, but I ⁓ to say I really learned my lesson on that, but it took me one or two more attempts with companies who quite frankly couldn't me. So I went ahead and took lesser pay to do something I thought was really cool. And again, that probably not the best idea. ⁓ No worth is what I learned up. So that's one. ⁓ Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Such a valuable thing. Yeah. It's, cause I think a lot of people struggle with that. Like, you know, they, they, there's comparison is kind of the, the, the joy stealer, right? Like you could have done a great thing, but you're comparing yourself to somebody else, right? I've going, well, they did it better or they did it because they were better because of X, Y, or Z and, you know, learning that this race as a, as a business owner, is only about how did you do today versus how you did yesterday, right? In your own race and not the comparison of anybody else. And I think that's such a valuable lesson. Eric Keosky-Smith: Well, and how did the people around you do as well? So for me, I had employees and I also had family. ⁓ If I had jumped off that cliff further, my kids would have been struggling severely to get through college with money. And one of them, they both got scholarships and got a lot of help along the way too. But that's a very... Shawn Sundsvold: ⁓ huh. Yeah. Eric Keosky-Smith: egotistical way to look at the world that it is not just about me. It's about everyone me that I'm supposed to be supporting and that are trying to support me as well. yeah, the side of small business. ⁓ We have time. We have less money. I'm not particularly at doing this, but you've got to stay focused. ⁓ That's one of the reasons I am a fractional executive. How do I overcome my lack of? Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: my slight ADD-ness. Well, I've got three different companies I have to pay attention to. And they're all in a similar field, so it kind of works. I can go back and forth. for some people, that work, that multitasking. I'm not a multitasker, but I need get my brain engaged at multiple different paths on a day. And this is my way to do it while still maintaining a degree of focus, if that makes sense. ⁓ I know why that came up, but it did. ⁓ Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, no, I honestly I can really relate with that. That's that's a good way of packaging it, you know, and yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: It's Yeah, it's good self-awareness. Eric Keosky-Smith: Fractional is great if you've got that some ADD-ness to you. Shawn Sundsvold: Definitely. So I'm curious, you know, with that fractional side of things and working with different businesses, how do you know when it's when you come in that it's you need to disrupt what's happening? Or do you need that? You need to stabilize what's happening. How do you kind of figure that out when you come in? Eric Keosky-Smith: That's a question, great question that I don't think I have a clear answer for, I just, it's innate because I've been practicing since 95. Honestly, sometimes, and this is not, I really want to stress. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: I'm fortunate in the things I can do well and I've got a lot of things I don't do well, but one of things I do really well is I can see holes so quickly because ⁓ just my 40 years of experience and ⁓ as you mentioned, across a broad swath of industries. So some of ⁓ just there. One of my organizations is an ⁓ online they've kind of ⁓ built then they ignored, but it turns out that online component is probably the biggest. going to be the biggest growth vehicle for them going forward. that took me a month or two. You talk, you have conversations, most importantly. Talk to not just customers, but talk to people who said no. And you'll be surprised at how easy it is to learn what you should be doing. drawback of being a small business is you may not have time enough to do good strategy. You probably also ⁓ the one out making the calls to those ⁓ and to those who said no. Lesson I learned from ⁓ of my clients, Dr. Eric Lustre. We have three Erics in a 12 person company, so I use my initials there, EKS. But Dr. Lustre, portfolio he's actually got five companies, two of which I support. He spends an inordinate amount of time listening to people who are going to be impacted by the business he runs. They aren't paying him a penny. housing is the example here. And the more he listened, the more they told him exactly what he needed to go do. Hey, not telling you we might fall because you're going to get us. It's an independent living because you'll move us to ⁓ a living place. Huh, okay, so falls are an issue. So he digs deeper. Turns out we have ways to significantly decrease the amount of fall risk that a 75-year-old has in the facilities because he listened, listened, iterated, iterated. And then it went bit further. Well, it turns out there's other ways you can keep him healthy. So we put a telehealth suite into an affordable housing place, unheard in the entire industry, first one. And it's out in Glendale, Arizona called Waymark Gardens. Why? Because he listened that they hated, especially 110 Kelly Sundsvold: Hmm Eric Keosky-Smith: degrees in the middle of July is not a safe place to go send an 80-year-old out to go see their doctor or to go to CVS just to get a blood draw. Why don't we just do it in-house? ⁓ born an entire new industry that we're inventing because listening. So you got to take the time strategy, ⁓ you absolutely go talk to here. Customers are happy and those who said no, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to see what you can instigate on. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no. Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: awesome. Eric Keosky-Smith: Pretty basic in some ways. And I'm, for the first to admit, I've made that mistake of not doing so many of my own businesses. Shawn Sundsvold: It is. Yeah, there's a, the statement kind of goes, you know, if you can, if you listen to your, customers, they'll tell you what they want. Right. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, for sure. Go ahead, John. Eric Keosky-Smith: Yeah, the one argument against that is the Steve Jobs approach. But there's only so many iPhones that are going be invented in the world. But even so, there's no downside to listening. A little time, but if it's not you, there's tools you can do it with too. AI-driven surveys that take three minutes to set up and you send out to 50 of your top customers, you'd be surprised at what might come back. Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: exactly. Eric Keosky-Smith: One thing I do want to touch on too, because I had written a note about this when we were chatting earlier. I did have a great lesson that came out of U-Haul. Because I was ⁓ new, pretty high profile, outwardly person coming into a company, and it was rare that they hired an outside director. I also treated incoming calls differently than most of the people who have been working there for a long time. It's a hard place to work. People work their butts off there. Suddenly I'm in the spot that people start forwarding calls to me, hey, this vendor, this vendor, this software company is doing this. Are you the person to talk to? I ended up on the receiving end of at least 200 cold calls. Not all totally cold, but 200 calls coming in over the course of three years. And I was blown away at how poor. so many of these companies, some very small companies and also some huge companies, names you would know, at selling to enterprise. And I didn't understand it fully either until I was on the receiving end. And it wasn't until about year two I started to say, okay, I'm not doing this anymore unless you do this. And I sent probably the most cost effective software I've ever seen, it's called Fluent. think it's fluent.io. The guy who runs it, Nate Nazrallah, Wonderful human being, easy to find on LinkedIn. If you don't follow him and you're selling product to enterprise, you're making a huge mistake. I don't ⁓ for his software, but I use a lot of his ideas. And what he gives you is a perfect framework of how to sell to enterprise. And many of the times, it's not that complicated, but I've never seen anybody articulate it so ⁓ cleanly. started all vendors who want to talk to me, you have to go watch his stuff first. And the four who jumped off and did that quickly, all of them advanced much further in U-Haul than they otherwise would have. And a couple got some deals. a huge learning that came out, a positive learning that came out of that sitting on the receiving side of, quite frankly, poor enterprise sales folks going. Many of them were CEOs as well. So I don't care if you're a sales development rep or the CEO making the call. Follow Fluent, F-L-U-I-N-T dot I-O. And I have no stake in the company. I just have a stake in trying to help others. So really was eye-opening to me. Does that make sense? Kelly Sundsvold: It does. It does. Yeah, I'm glad you shared that. think that there's there's lessons that you've learned along the way that definitely our listeners, small, medium sized businesses, know, business owners, people interested in entrepreneurship like they're, you know, they can really take those little seeds of wisdom. And that's the whole point of, ⁓ know, this podcast. So I appreciate you sharing that. ⁓ And. ⁓ Shawn Sundsvold: Absolutely. Eric Keosky-Smith: Yeah. I'd also love to get a link to that person who has that board, the AI board, so in reverse. Thank you. Kelly Sundsvold: Yes, I will connect you with him. He's a great guy. I'm sure he would love to talk to you. So some of the mindset shifts that happen with entrepreneurs, what are some mindset shifts that you see that people need to make in order to grow their business? It's not just a simple formula, but some of the internal thinking and dialogue that they need to kind of get over, get out of their own way. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yes. Eric Keosky-Smith: You know, for a person who was basically called out by some of his best friends six or seven years ago that you've to get out of your own way, I'm going to give some... counterintuitive advice. First off, you have to get and stay healthy. I'm learning this immensely through the various organizations I support. fortunate. have lifelong, long genes ⁓ and to be, I'm not planning to retire. ⁓ 80, might be on a beach doing work, but you really need to spend that time on sleep and also ⁓ muscle activity, and lifting. I've really leaned into that last four years. Huge difference in my ability to think. Kelly Sundsvold: Interesting. Eric Keosky-Smith: Then take, yep, and then take that time to also check out because that's where the thinking time's going to happen. That's where the strategic insights are gonna come. The flip side to that is there are a lot of really, ⁓ smart people out there willing to share. know, LinkedIn's funny. It's got its good and its bad, but I will say I've made some great connections through it, us included. Network with your peers, network with your competitors. Listen, ⁓ try ideas on people. And it really is not that difficult. allows you, and keep your ears wide open your mouth shut when you're doing so. As I said earlier about talking to your customers, they will tell you. from their perspective, the blindingly obvious you should be doing. And you can then choose to follow that path or not, but really ⁓ isolating yourself in your business. And I risk that because I have a home office, but I also have a few other ones I can go to. Getting out always fuels me. I'm a closet. Introvert, everyone thinks I'm an extrovert, I'm actually not. But need to reset to come back to my home office. But when I get out, I go to a trade show, I'm ready to go. the knowledge you can absorb and the insights when you're fresh, extraordinary. I'm proof of that. So it may not be the most normal business advice, but that's the stuff that comes top of mind to me. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, I like that because it is like you mentioned exercise, you know, just simple. doesn't have to be that you're going to go do CrossFit every day. It's getting out there being creative. In fact, this podcast was the idea was birthed of, you know, while we were on family vacation, like, you know, we're going to the beach, we're sitting on the beach, ⁓ to just kind of relax. And then it just sort of plopped in and then it just sort of, you know, that rest that you give your brain. ⁓ Shawn Sundsvold: Definitely. Kelly Sundsvold: The clarity that comes from that is just so... needed, ⁓ energizes your business, and it can't be as... It can be as creative as you want it to be kind of thing. So on topic of creativity, how do you stay creative and inspired while you're navigating complex strategy work? Eric Keosky-Smith: I have no method that I'm overtly aware of. Part of it is, and this is so ⁓ but so true, if you love either the people you're working with and or the stuff you're working on, it helps a ton. I'm very fortunate now I'm in that spot. I mentioned right before as we were getting on this, I was on the... a Zoom with Kerry Masters. She's this CEO of a nonprofit I just became the chair of called The Worker in Phoenix. It's called theworkeraz.org. By the way, we're always looking for help and donations. Theworkeraz.org. We put marginalized people back to work in fantastic fashion. But. you get another person with a similar mindset, 30 minute conversation, that fuels my creativity probably more than anything else. And she and I really built a great relationship. She's just an extraordinary entrepreneurial type nonprofit CEO, in this world right now is a terrible position to be in because unless you're entrepreneurial, your nonprofit is suffering big time right now, I tell you. But that fuels me more than anything else, those one-on-one conversations. And then also that escape. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm. Mm-hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: I go to listen to live music once or twice a week here, and hides your thoughts. ⁓ you need to stop thinking. I have trouble doing that. It's meditation, so it's my meditation. ⁓ And then when you come back, you're fresh and your brain's ready to go. then I also, you know, went to Consumer Electronics Show. It was ⁓ so intense, never even got to the main show. I only stayed in the health section. But. Kelly Sundsvold: Mmm. Yeah. Eric Keosky-Smith: Over stimulation helps me where I've got, I had a hundred viable conversations, so a lot of new product ideas and I had to practice at each conversation. Does this affect any of my three businesses? Does it affect me? How does it do it? And you do that as kind of a subconscious. You just keep practicing and practicing that going back to the advice from Bill Gates. Look at every business, look at every opportunity and play the game of how does this impact me? That probably fuels my creativity as much as the one-on-one conversations. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: So it just treat it as game. It's the fun part of business. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. There's so much conversation about, you know, gamifying work, right? Because then it's fun, right? And when, work is fun, it doesn't. Eric Keosky-Smith: Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: sort of become work anymore. It is, but it isn't kind of a thing. and it's, I think that's where some of the creativity flows because you're having so much fun and trying to, you put that all together. So, one the questions as we wrap up here, one of the questions that we love to ask all of our guests is, ⁓ you we've titled our podcast better together and it's, you know, that was cause Kelly and I figured out we could build a better business together than doing life separately, right? ⁓ through different, you know, running and at different businesses. So ⁓ what that mean to you as you hear that and is that a person or a project or something that has helped you kind of, you know, believe in that a little bit? Eric Keosky-Smith: Yes, I've made some significant mistakes along the way of being a lone wolf many times. And had some successes with it, which masked the fact that it wasn't always the best approach. I'm going to go back to Dr. Luster, who runs Seniors Rising and Seniors Rising. He's an interesting character, has an ⁓ management background. fact, his doctor is a PhD in business management. But we really had to work to understand each other's communication methods, and we're quite different. But I'm starting to realize we both are having patience for each other, and because of it, we're both each other. And ⁓ that is exciting, especially we're helping a very ⁓ exposed age group, people who are basically very income, needing housing and needing keep them healthy. Our mission is about them, but we're working together and finding our common bound and finding the we can both understand. So, and the other is the, I mentioned Kerry Master of ⁓ the workeraz.org. When you meet somebody who has a more intense passion than you do, about certain things, it's okay to ride those coattails. Be with the people who excite you. Be with the people who can show you about passion and creativity. And you don't have them in your life, find them. For a long time I was, you know, I network a lot. I've got a really great group of people I can call on, but don't be the lone wolf. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Eric Keosky-Smith: ⁓ Because that does slow you down, even though it feels like at the time you can make all the decisions you want, it is not accelerating you, it's only keeping you at a certain level. You're not growing exponentially, you're just growing it arithmetically. These people are helping me grow exponentially. And at the same time, I'm helping them. So it's kind of a win-win. That would be the way I'd look at it. Shawn Sundsvold: That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, Eric, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, your thoughts. know, we appreciate that. I know our audience will as well. So thanks for everything today and ⁓ great having you. Eric Keosky-Smith: Well, thank you both. And I appreciate you supporting small business out there. They need help. Hopefully those who are listening will lean into a few ideas. And easy to reach with my last name, and it's Eric ⁓ Find me on LinkedIn. I'm ⁓ glad to answer a question or two. And if I can help, I will. If I can't, I'll also tell you. Shawn Sundsvold: Awesome. Thanks for giving us the info. Take care. Kelly Sundsvold: Thank you so much Eric. Eric Keosky-Smith: Thank you both. Have a great one. Take care. Bye bye.