Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Changing the Way You Think: Brian Wygle’s 40-Year Philosophy for Turning Companies Around

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Changing the Way You Think: Brian Wygle’s 40-Year Philosophy for Turning Companies Around · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:17
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotos Bodi,
0:21
and today's guest walked into a struggling oil and gas company,
0:25
bought it, turned it around and walked out with a return.
0:29
Then he did it again and again for 40 years across different
0:34
industries. Each engagement begins with
0:36
something that needs fixing. He has guided businesses through
0:40
distress, helped owners exit on their own terms and stepped into
0:44
the CEO chair when no one else would.
0:47
The work is rarely clean, and the stakes are almost always
0:51
high. Brian Weigel is the owner and
0:54
corporate fixer at Help for My Company, the consultancy he
0:58
built out of Lazarus Resources Group.
1:01
He has served as CEO and CFO across companies ranging from 10
1:06
million to $150 million in revenue.
1:10
He lectured on ethical leadership at USC and now
1:13
focuses on working directly with clients through Help for
1:16
mycompany.com, choosing a smaller, intentional team so he
1:21
could spend more time advising business owners.
1:25
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All right, back to our guest today, Brian Weigel.
2:27
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:30
Thanks for inviting me, it's going to be fun.
2:32
This is going to be a good time. Let's roll up our sleeves here.
2:35
So you've described yourself as someone who fixes things rather
2:39
than starts them. Take me back to the earliest
2:42
point in your career where you realize that was more of your
2:45
true skill and instincts. OK, well, it, it goes back long
2:52
before I actually, before I actually took it on as a career.
2:58
I started out, I, I was young, I was probably 21 years old.
3:03
I'd gotten a real estate license and was working in a real estate
3:07
office just getting started, and I would eat at a restaurant
3:12
across the street fairly regularly.
3:15
And one day I said something to the manager about poor service.
3:22
And he threw his apron on on the table and said if you think you
3:26
can do this better, you do it. And I didn't realize at the time
3:30
he had been feuding with the owner and he wanted out.
3:32
The owner didn't know where to turn.
3:35
So I ended up running the restaurant.
3:37
I had no experience in restaurants, but I ran the
3:40
restaurant for about 9 months before he, you know, in order
3:43
for him to sell it off to, to an owner or operator.
3:47
And that stuck with me. And then from real estate, I
3:52
realized I didn't enjoy selling houses.
3:54
I, I had more business mind in, in more of a business mind than
4:00
holding open houses and things like that.
4:02
So I, I, I joined the, the finance department at the real
4:10
estate organization. And then when my boss left there
4:15
and went to a, a banking institution, I went with him and
4:19
I kept seeing the people were businesses were getting turned
4:22
down for loans. I'd bring in a loan for a
4:25
business and they got turned down.
4:27
So I started wondering, was it me?
4:29
What was I doing wrong? What are they doing wrong?
4:34
So I started looking at the loan business from the view of the
4:40
lender, not from the borrower. And I started helping a couple
4:44
of the clients fix what the lender would see as an issue.
4:49
Didn't tell your story, right? Didn't didn't have the systems
4:54
in place to guarantee success, that type of thing.
4:57
And eventually it just I just left the finance side of it and
5:02
started working with clients to resolve their problems.
5:05
Also, in that time I found that money is not always the answer
5:08
to your problems. So can I pause you here for a
5:12
second because I want to understand what were some of the
5:14
things that you were seeing once you put yourself in the lender's
5:17
shoes that the borrower was not understanding, where you were
5:23
able to make that bridge and connect them?
5:26
The number one thing was the the borrower's assumptions about
5:31
their business. You know, financial projections
5:36
and things like that really are only as good as the assumptions
5:40
you make that you base them on. So that was 1 issue.
5:45
The assumptions #2 was the not having an appropriate plan for a
5:53
business structure to support the business.
5:55
You have a great product. We understand that.
5:58
We love your product, but we're not buying your product.
6:00
We're lending you money to sell your product and you don't have
6:04
a plan for the infrastructure and how that's going to happen.
6:09
You haven't thought through some of the the problems.
6:12
You haven't. We don't see how we're going to
6:14
get paid back from from this if something doesn't go well.
6:19
So it really begins and and it's still the same today.
6:23
What are your assumptions? And I'm real big on changing the
6:27
way people think. And so let's go back through
6:30
your assumptions. Let's make sure that that they
6:33
are in line with as close as possible to reality.
6:38
What's really going to happen? Do you have contingency plans?
6:42
And then, you know, I started getting a couple of clients that
6:47
were really actually in trouble and they thought they could just
6:49
go borrow their way out of trouble, but they weren't
6:51
addressing the issue. They had no plan how to fix it.
6:55
And so we would work together to to create a plan of here's how
7:00
we're going to fix it. And then if you did need money,
7:02
here's why this is going to work and why the money what what the
7:06
money really does towards making this work as opposed to just
7:11
giving you more money. And so you are making the point
7:13
that you've discovered, yeah, often times money isn't the
7:16
actual solution to the problem. And so you're going in and what
7:20
you're looking at more like operational things?
7:23
Yeah, it it, it's kind of a, a multi faceted thing.
7:28
You, you have the financial aspect of a business and that's
7:31
what everybody seems to focus on restructuring financially or
7:34
whatever. A lot of times you, you have
7:38
either external forces, a a crisis in your industry,
7:42
economic downturn, something that that is forced on you.
7:48
But most of the time it's how the business thinks, how they,
7:53
you know, are the employees bought in?
7:55
Have you, you know, I start first with can you make money
8:00
making and selling your product or your service?
8:04
If you can't make money doing that, you can cut all the
8:07
administrative overhead you want, but you're not going to
8:10
make money because you know your cost of goods are too high.
8:14
So we look at that and we just start at the top of the income
8:17
statement and work our ways down.
8:19
And I look at what causes this. You can tell a lot about
8:25
someone's decision making by reading their financial
8:27
statement, what they are investing in, what they choose
8:32
to overspend on. And so it really becomes an
8:35
issue of trying to get the client to look at their business
8:40
differently than they have. They're they're in the middle of
8:44
it, they're in the thick of it. When, when a crisis happens or a
8:47
problem happens, is it internally generated or is it
8:51
external forces that we need to find a workaround?
8:55
But at the end of the day, it's all about I, I have a favorite
8:59
quote from Einstein. He says you cannot fix a problem
9:03
using the same thinking you used to create the problem.
9:07
So how do you get a client to think differently about their
9:11
business, especially when they're in crisis mode?
9:14
Well, I'm a little odd in that I use stories, I use word
9:19
pictures, I use humor. I, I, I kind of jokingly, you
9:26
know, in the, in the business world, they talk about, you
9:29
know, management by wandering around.
9:31
Wandering around, I say management by wondering aloud,
9:36
asking philosophical questions. You know, I go deeply into the
9:42
difference between what people and why people, what people do.
9:46
You know, you tell them what to do and they do it.
9:48
Why people? You tell them why you're doing
9:49
it and then probably find a better way to do it.
9:52
I find that most managers are not good at converting what
9:56
people to why people they need to understand the whole
9:59
philosophy behind why we're doing whatever we're doing so
10:04
that they can then encourage their employees or other team
10:07
members to to come up with their own creative ways.
10:13
And so my methodology is really challenging to them, you know,
10:20
challenge them to to think differently.
10:22
Playing devil's advocate, wondering out loud, can this
10:26
what it, what if you did this? Can this work and allow them to
10:31
find ownership of that, that thing that fits for them?
10:35
And then when the light bulb goes on and they go, oh, I never
10:38
thought of that. Let's give that a try.
10:42
And then creating a way to, to implement that and get buy in
10:46
from all the stakeholders. So that that's kind of where I
10:50
come in. And like I said earlier, I tell
10:54
stories, I give examples of other clients or things that
10:59
I've seen and, and I ask a lot of questions and, and, and I, I
11:06
do a lot of business philosophy, if you will, you know, why do
11:11
you think this is important to you?
11:13
But what's this going to do for you personally, not just for the
11:17
business and try and meld all that together into a plan that
11:21
says, OK, we're going to, we're going to roll this all into a
11:24
ball and we're going to start over and we're going to do this
11:27
differently. Rather than trying to bolt on a
11:30
fix on to something that's still moving.
11:32
It's I, I say it's like trying to move, change a tire on a
11:36
moving car. You know, it's, you got to get
11:41
everybody to lean to one side, you know, if you're going to try
11:43
it, but eventually you have to stop the car, you have to get
11:47
out and fix the tire and so. So you're a storyteller.
11:53
So let's let's go to one of those stories that we brought up
11:55
in the intro, Max Oil, OK, we bought this company.
12:00
It's the oil gas industry. You restructured it.
12:03
You exited with a return. Take us back to kind of the
12:08
early days there. How did this opportunity come
12:10
about? What did you see that made you
12:12
decide this was something you wanted to get involved with?
12:15
Well, OK, so I had a small office in Glendale, CA, where I
12:22
was living at the time. And it was one of those shared
12:25
offices, you know, where people have their own office where we
12:29
all share a receptionist and all that.
12:31
And there was a small oil company that in there.
12:36
And I got to be friends with the owners.
12:37
And they were, they were older, all three of them were reaching
12:40
retirement age and all three of them had other interests.
12:44
And they would express frustration about this money
12:47
losing operation. And I just saw some things that
12:54
they wouldn't look at. I said, well, how about this?
12:57
Oh, no, we can't do that. And I was thinking, well, I
12:59
could, you know, and I wouldn't have any problem doing this.
13:04
The company was a subsidiary of a small publicly traded company.
13:09
And the publicly traded company was trying to do a reverse
13:12
merger with another company and go into a different industry.
13:16
They and the public company actually went went into laser
13:20
eye surgery centers. So they merged with a company
13:22
and used that as a way to go public.
13:26
They divested themselves of this little oil company in California
13:31
and basically gave the stock to the three owners.
13:35
The business business was in the business of managing oil wells.
13:42
4 investors that you know, they'd put pools together.
13:46
The investors were no longer putting money into the oil
13:48
business or into their wells. They, they were just waiting for
13:52
a return. They were behind on their
13:55
royalty payments to the land owners or the mineral rights
13:59
owners. But I saw some real
14:01
opportunities that got me excited about it.
14:05
And so I just one day said to all three of them, you know,
14:09
what is the par value of your stock?
14:11
And they said it's $100 each. And I said, OK, I'll give you
14:15
$100 each cash. You give me your stock, I'll you
14:18
can just walk away from all the liabilities.
14:20
And so they did. And I knew I was going to have
14:22
to put about 180,000 of my own money in to do some work on some
14:26
of the wells. I knew that the guys who
14:29
actually operated the wells up in Bakersfield were they knew
14:32
their stuff and I didn't have to know that.
14:37
And so I said about one of the things that that excited me was
14:42
the balance sheet was all wrong. They had, they showed a
14:48
liability of owing to the parent company $800,000.
14:52
But I knew that the parent company from kind of getting
14:55
involved in the, the public merger that they had written off
15:00
that $800,000 loan in order to clean up their books.
15:04
So I knew I was immediately going to have an $800,000
15:07
improvement to the bottom line. And so I, you know, I, I changed
15:12
that. The other thing that excited me
15:14
was they had a two and a half million dollar tax loss carry
15:16
forward. It was AC Corporation and I knew
15:19
I could use that vehicle of the tax loss carry forward number
15:24
one to write off the the 800,000 and not have a a taxable event
15:30
but also. So explain this for folks who
15:32
don't understand the tax implications here, because this
15:35
is a big deal. So a tax loss carry forward or
15:37
carry back is, is a calculation. If you've been, if you're AC
15:41
corporation and you've been losing money for, you know, a
15:45
couple of years, when you do make money, you can take your
15:49
losses and apply it forward to under a certain formula towards
15:54
gains or you can go look back and recapture some taxes you
15:59
paid. I'm not an accountant, but I
16:02
understand enough of it to know that it's a usable vehicle.
16:05
I see it a lot of times it's a value in a business that a lot
16:09
of people don't, don't recognize.
16:13
So. You were able to acquire this
16:16
ability to write off future profits by buying the stock at
16:21
par value. Right and.
16:22
Assuming apply it to. Yeah, assuming about $800,000
16:26
debt. The other thing I know I knew
16:29
was that these investors who were refusing to invest in the
16:32
wells in their contracts, there was a right for the owner, for
16:39
Maxwell to pay that amount, you know, on, on their behalf and
16:45
then seize their interest. So I wrote letters to all the
16:49
interest holders and said we need to raise $180,000 if you
16:54
want to put the money in, you know, you could stay in with me.
16:57
If you don't, let me know and we'll do a voluntary surrender
17:01
of your interest. Well, I ended up getting 100% of
17:04
the interest. So all the income was now coming
17:07
to me rather than passing through and taking just a
17:10
management fee. All the income from the oil was
17:15
coming to into the company. I also had learned through my
17:20
own study that the oil wells were in a growing residential
17:25
area and developers were developing around them and in
17:29
order to get them to abandon some wells, they had given them
17:33
lots in their developments which were buildable lots.
17:37
So I ended up with about 1/2 a dozen buildable lots in
17:41
developments that were already built out and this was the only
17:43
lot left. So I was able to sell those lots
17:47
to other developer, other builders and use that money to
17:54
improve the oil wells. And again, with no taxable
17:59
income because I was writing it off against the tax laws carry
18:01
forward. And then when, you know, and so
18:06
we did that and you know, did that for about 5 years and at
18:10
the end of five years, price for oil was high enough that it
18:14
justified selling. And so I sold it to another oil
18:17
company and made a tiny little profit.
18:20
It didn't seem like a huge profit, but if you think about,
18:23
you know, collecting almost 40,000 a month for, you know,
18:27
five years, selling the lots, you know, having the tax loss
18:32
carry forward. I sold the assets of the
18:34
business, did not sell the corporation.
18:36
I kept the corporation which I could write off the sale of the
18:41
assets and when I'd used up the tax laws carry forward out just
18:45
simply dissolve the the corporation.
18:49
That sounds a lot like a lot of moving parching, but it was
18:51
actually fairly straightforward. And I saw that from the very
18:54
beginning. And I, I wanted them to do it,
18:56
but they, they were just tired and they didn't.
18:59
Did you try to explain it to them and they were like Nah?
19:02
They they all wanted to go. One wanted to retire completely
19:05
wanted wanted to go into a different business.
19:07
And the third person who was a lady, ended up working for me
19:11
for a couple of years before she retired.
19:15
So I gave her a nice bonus for sticking with me and helping me
19:17
through the business. She already knew all the
19:19
accounting and all of that. And it wasn't a big business.
19:22
There weren't a ton of employees.
19:24
There were a couple of guys up in the field.
19:26
But it was a good money maker for the time it was.
19:28
And when it was time to get out, it was time to get out and, you
19:33
know, go on to the next thing. So that's the story of Maxwell.
19:37
And so was the next thing, Lazarus Resources Group.
19:41
Yes, I actually turned renamed the Maxwell Corporation Lazarus
19:46
Resources Group. OK, bringing it back from the
19:49
dead analogy. But then I dissolved it and then
19:54
I formed Lazarus Resources LLC because I wanted a little bit
19:57
more flexibility and not deal with corporate returns.
20:01
And I just started doing more clients.
20:05
I'd already been doing it. I'd already been CEO of several
20:09
fairly large companies. And so Lazarus Resources became
20:17
an investment banking. Model and I went and got all my
20:23
securities licenses and and set up shop to basically help people
20:28
fix their company to sell it. The idea was, you know, it's
20:34
very difficult to fix a company and then hand it back to the
20:37
owners if they haven't changed their mindset.
20:39
So we would fix it up and then I would represent them in the cell
20:42
or I'd represent a buyer looking to do it.
20:45
But it was very hands on and I would take on deals that other
20:48
investment bankers didn't want to deal with because they were
20:50
messy. They weren't an easy sell, kind
20:54
of like buying a fixer upper house, you know, and and having
20:57
to fix it up to sell it, knowing how much to put into it until
21:01
it's you're there's no. Most other brokers want to walk
21:03
into a situation where the business is ready to sell, They
21:07
can get their transaction fee and move on to the next one.
21:10
You like getting your hands dirty?
21:12
You want to go when you like to fix or operate like, oh, I got
21:15
some ideas here. Yeah, yeah.
21:19
So then that morphed. I just, I got tired of the whole
21:23
securities industry side, you know, all the regulation of
21:25
having to maintain my licenses and all of that.
21:28
And, and I found that some of my best sources of referrals and
21:35
friends were investment bankers, brokers and I didn't want to
21:40
take that away from them. I enjoyed the hands on part.
21:42
So I got out of the, you know, buying and selling side,
21:47
transactional side and would refer that to somebody else.
21:52
And that allowed me to get referrals from another source,
21:56
which is investment bankers who would say, hey, we need to get
21:59
this company ready to sell. And I'm more than happy to roll
22:03
up my hands and do the the work of helping the the owner prepare
22:08
his company for sale so that the investment banker can then step
22:12
in and sell the company, you know, more successfully so.
22:17
And in your type of work, is there a success fee attached to
22:21
that exit or is it strictly like a consulting fee?
22:24
No, you know, I've, I've gotten a tip a few times for good
22:29
service. No, I don't do anything on a
22:32
contingent basis because then I would have to have licenses
22:35
still and all of that. You, you really can't do that.
22:39
But a lot of times we'll have a simple thing that says this is
22:42
my hourly fee or my weekly fee or whatever we've negotiated.
22:47
And if you successfully sell the business, you're going to pay me
22:50
a flat bonus of X dollars. And it's a fixed rate.
22:54
No matter what you sell your business for, It's not a
22:57
percentage or whatever. But sometimes that's not really
23:01
appropriate. I'm not involved in the
23:03
transaction. I just did a sale where I had to
23:06
help the company get ready, but I had to walk them through the
23:09
whole I didn't find them. The buyer, the buyer found them,
23:12
made an offer, but I walked them all the way through closing,
23:15
dealt with the attorneys, dealt with everything that came up,
23:19
help them through the due diligence and all of that.
23:21
So yes, on that one, you know, while they were paying me, my
23:25
retainer, my fee for consulting, they did pay a bonus after the
23:29
sale and that was pre negotiated.
23:33
So, you know, on that side. I, I still do that, but with
23:39
help from my company, I'm moving more towards coaching, advising
23:44
and in helping people kind of take a more do it yourself
23:48
approach to things and, you know, guiding them, shepherding
23:52
them through that process rather than saying get out of the way,
23:55
let me do this. Got it.
23:57
In the past you were a lot more hands on.
24:00
Now you're moving into a little bit of a different model of a
24:03
different mindset. Yeah, either.
24:07
I mean, I've been CEO of $150 million company and I commuted
24:12
it was back east and I commuted 2 weeks on one week off, 2 weeks
24:15
on one week off while I was my wife was trying to raise two
24:19
young boys. And and so I with new technology
24:25
and being able to do what we're doing right here.
24:27
I don't have to get on a plane and I don't have to fly to
24:31
Chicago to meet with a client where I'm billing them for the
24:35
flight time, the airline, the hotels.
24:38
It's probably going to be two days to accomplish what we could
24:40
do in two and in an hour, a day of actual time.
24:44
So I can pass that savings on to the client, which means smaller
24:47
clients can afford my expertise, I don't have to charge as much
24:52
and and I'm not wasting my time with all the travel and all
24:56
that. Yes, there are times when I need
24:58
to be there, but for the most part, what has been successful
25:02
is having clients book an hour, you know, an hour a week, hour a
25:07
day. I have one client, I do 2A
25:09
morning session and afternoon session almost every day.
25:13
You know, what are we doing today?
25:14
How did we do at the end of the day?
25:16
That's still a lot cheaper for them than having me be there all
25:20
day. And I want to be able to help
25:24
more clients at one time. I'm curious if shifting into
25:30
this model has been a challenge at all, or if it's been pretty
25:34
smooth for you to make that transition.
25:38
It has been a challenge #1 having to learn technology and
25:45
#2 your referral source. The you know, my business has
25:49
always come from attorneys, bankers, insurance companies,
25:53
other investment bankers. When you go to what I'm trying
25:58
to accomplish, you, you have to find new sources of lead feed,
26:05
if you will. It's I always hate talking about
26:08
the messy part of trying to client acquisition.
26:10
You know, you like to think it's just going to, you know,
26:13
somebody just says, hey, call Brian and then you, you know,
26:16
everything's wonderful. But yes, you have to go through
26:19
that. COVID changed a lot of things in
26:23
terms of networking opportunities.
26:26
It drove me a little bit more to think about online.
26:31
And so finding new clients is more of a challenge.
26:36
It's easier to find one big client and be with them for a
26:40
period of time than it is to find clients that may be a
26:44
little bit more in and out. And as, as all of us are getting
26:50
older, a lot of my referral source, the attorneys, the
26:53
bankers, if they're my age, they're retiring.
26:57
You know, they've worked for a big firm, they get a nice
27:00
pension and they, they say, hey, I'm out.
27:02
And the new generation of attorneys, bankers and all of
27:06
that, the way to, to reach to them is different than the old
27:12
days where you knew an attorney and you played golf with him and
27:15
you, you know, spent a lot of time with him and you went to
27:18
the same organizational meetings.
27:21
Now everything's online, you know, I've been hit up with a
27:26
lot of offers to help with, you know, AI lead generation.
27:30
And I'm, I'm studying that, but I'm at this point slightly
27:34
agnostic about its success rate because what I do is not a
27:38
cookie cutter. I'm not an IT consultant.
27:41
I'm not a, you know, I'm not a, a tax consultant.
27:44
I, I, I, I'm kind of a more broad range.
27:46
So how do you put that into AI and have them find the
27:49
appropriate lead content generation staying relevant.
27:55
Used to be you stayed relevant with calling up someone or
27:59
sending them an e-mail. Now you've, you're not on
28:02
LinkedIn, you're not on Instagram, you know, you, you're
28:05
not doing putting content up on my website.
28:09
My, my SEO guy is on me all the time about stopping and writing
28:12
an article, you know, to post on my website to keep it relevant.
28:16
Those are the challenges. The challenge is not helping the
28:20
client. That's as has is the same as it
28:23
always has been, but it's a new model for me and it's
28:26
challenging my way of thinking. As I said, I taught, I try to
28:31
teach people to think differently.
28:32
I'm having to teach myself to think differently.
28:36
You know, I'm not. I don't mind saying it.
28:39
You know, I'm in my 60s. When I worked in that first real
28:43
estate company, we got one of the very first fax machines and
28:48
it was about as big as your desk and it had thermal paper.
28:52
And we were excited when the phone rang and we heard that
28:54
beep and we had to put it down on the on the sheet machine.
28:57
That's where I started. That was the technology and look
29:01
what we have now. So that is a big challenge for
29:04
me to stay up with it, to understand it, to know how to
29:09
help my clients with it. Now, do you think that it's
29:12
really changed in so much that you couldn't do the old things
29:18
of playing golf and going to the organizational meetings or
29:21
making phone calls? Or are they other people just
29:24
not receptive? To that, well, I do that to some
29:27
degree with some of the, you know, some of the people you got
29:30
to get to know the people first. You know, so my marketing is, is
29:34
often not to potential clients, it's to potential referral
29:39
sources. It that is it, it's fine, but
29:45
it's time consuming. If I'm out playing a round of
29:48
golf with a couple of attorneys, that's not billable time.
29:53
And while it it and so that's a longer play then the instant
30:02
kind of the instantaneous response rates you get on the
30:06
Internet. You know, I post something and
30:08
I'm immediately checking every hour to see if any it's getting
30:11
any traction, you know? It's are you finding that your
30:14
online work is getting traction? It is getting it's getting
30:20
noticed. You know, posted something on
30:23
LinkedIn the other day and within a day I had a hundred
30:27
impressions, no interaction. But I don't expect it to.
30:32
I don't expect someone to look read an article I wrote or
30:35
something ago. OK, that's it.
30:36
I'm hiring the guy. But if they see if they come
30:40
back and they see a trend that hey, I like what this guy is
30:44
saying, then maybe when the situation comes up, they will
30:49
know, hey, I should call this guy.
30:52
That's why I named my website help for my company.
30:55
It's pretty self-explanatory. So you have talked about the
31:00
five stages of a company's life cycle, right?
31:02
Startup and growth, stability, distress and exit.
31:05
So typically when somebody does come to you, Brian, what stage
31:09
are they in? They are.
31:12
In some form of distress or disorganization or they are
31:19
looking to exit. Those are the 2.
31:22
So I tend to get more of the end stage then I do startups and
31:27
growth and stability. But I, I want to be able to help
31:31
those kinds of people. You have a stable company and
31:34
your vice president is, you know, you want to groom him to,
31:37
to move up the ladder. What better way to groom them to
31:42
talk to than talk to an old hand who's been there, who's done it,
31:45
who has some quote, UN quote sage advice, if you will.
31:50
And, and I'm not really done a ton with startups.
31:54
I did early in my career, But one of the big problems with
31:56
startups, quite frankly, is they don't have the money to pay you.
31:59
Although I did help a startup recently and I got paid in stock
32:06
and last month the company went public.
32:10
So that was a win. But and, and now that I'm older
32:16
and more financially stable, I could do those kinds of things
32:19
because I'm not having to make, I'm not having to feed my kids.
32:22
You know, my kids are grown and gone and I have grandkids now
32:25
they can feed themselves. So, but that answer your
32:30
question, I, I kind of got off track is usually the time
32:34
somebody calls me is when they need help.
32:37
And that usually means some form of distress.
32:41
It may not be financial distress.
32:44
I had a client that called me in several years ago there.
32:48
They went into their attorney. It was a family business and
32:51
they couldn't get along. They were just destroying the
32:53
business by destroying each other, you know, and what they
32:56
were doing. And so they went to their
32:58
attorney and said maybe we should just shut this down.
33:01
Their attorney was one of those ones who said I'm not going to
33:04
help you do that until you've talked to Brian.
33:07
They became a client and I said to them, the best way I can help
33:11
you as a family is remove the business from your day-to-day
33:17
concern. And so we took it over and I ran
33:20
it on their behalf until they were in a place where they
33:24
wanted to come back and allowed them to resolve some of their
33:28
differences. One of them retired said, you
33:31
know, I, I, I'm just going to own my stock and I don't really
33:33
want to be involved anymore. So I helped them through that.
33:38
Right in the middle of that, the sister of these three
33:41
businessmen who was running the business died of cancer.
33:46
So I had to then take her role and find somebody to replace it
33:50
and keep the the wheels rolling. So, but, but their business was
33:55
was doing OK. So it wasn't financial crisis
33:59
from that standpoint. Financial crisis because one of
34:03
the problems is when you have that many owners trying to make
34:05
a living off of a business, you know, you're usually taking out
34:08
more from the business than you should.
34:11
And that was one of the hardest things for me to get them to see
34:14
was you have a choice. You can build value in the
34:16
business so that you guys can sell it and, you know, make
34:20
money, or you can continue to live out of the business, in
34:23
which case you're going to have to grow this business because
34:25
there's not enough in the pot for the all of you and your kids
34:29
and everything else you're doing.
34:31
How often do you find yourself kind of stepping into this role
34:34
of being a therapist? Every client, I mean that's I
34:40
actually have the therapist so I can talk about the therapy I
34:43
have to do and we talk about it quite often that at at some
34:49
point it is all basically being a therapist.
34:53
It is basically hearing hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears,
34:57
ideas, stupid thoughts, wrong headed plans and, and guiding
35:05
them to see the light, see a different way of doing it.
35:08
So really, I don't care if it's, you know, trying to restructure
35:13
the balance sheet or whether it's trying to restructure the
35:17
business operationally, it still comes down to, OK, we need to
35:22
change the way you think, you know, because you, you, you
35:27
know, Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying.
35:30
My best thing, my best, and I quite frankly had a son who had
35:35
an issue. And so he taught me this.
35:37
My best thinking got me where, And that's the question they
35:41
asked. So you need to change your
35:43
thinking. And so I kind of take that
35:45
approach is if, you know, we need to look at this differently
35:50
and it doesn't matter what the issue is, what the problem is,
35:53
you've obviously stared at it long enough to realize you need
35:56
some outside help to do this. So let's walk through it.
36:00
What have you done that didn't work?
36:03
When this happens, what is your default thinking?
36:06
Those kinds of things that helps me plan a more holistic plan of
36:11
how we're going to address things.
36:13
And, and I don't do it just with the owners.
36:15
I do it with the key employees as well because the owner may
36:19
change his thinking. The employees aren't so much
36:22
they don't have, they're not invested or they've been told
36:26
for so long to do it a certain way that they just, they don't
36:30
see the light. So I love that aha moment when
36:34
you know, I see an employee or an owner or something.
36:37
Suddenly you almost can see the the switch flip when they start
36:42
looking at it a little differently.
36:44
And all of a sudden they become a little more creative in in
36:48
their problem solving and teaching them to think
36:52
critically about the choices they're about to make rather
36:55
than knee jerk reactions or trying to just continue to do
36:59
the exact same thing and hope it changes how it's how it comes
37:03
out. Is there some common low hanging
37:07
fruit, Brian, that you typically see when you go in to help
37:10
companies turn things around? Yes, there are.
37:17
There are a couple things that are basically easily
37:20
identifiable and and you want to have a win quickly when you come
37:24
in to something so that it builds the confidence with the
37:27
client that, you know, yeah, OK, we're not just going to talk
37:30
about it. We're going to fix something
37:31
right now. Those are often poor
37:36
relationships with vendors or customers, poor relationships,
37:41
you know, employee morale and, and then the next one is they've
37:49
usually gotten in trouble with lenders or, you know, out on
37:55
their credit cards or something. There's almost always financial
37:59
distress is a symptom of what's going on.
38:02
And so if you can at least stem the flow of the symptom, then
38:05
get back to addressing the, the, the root of the problem.
38:09
So those are, that's kind of the low hanging fruit that every
38:12
company will show something low employee morale, poor customer
38:18
relations, losing customers, you know, tension with vendors or
38:24
other stakeholders, defaults on their loans.
38:28
And it may not even be at a payment default.
38:30
It may be a default in covenants that they will or will not do
38:35
certain things and they've defaulted on that.
38:37
That can be just as deadly as a financial covenant, you know,
38:42
payment. Explain that what's what's a
38:45
covenant that breaking it could be as deadly as missing a
38:48
payment. OK.
38:51
So if you have a, there's, there's what they call positive
38:55
and negative covenants. If you have a negative covenant,
38:59
it says we will not do the following things.
39:04
We will not take more than 5% of revenue as personal income.
39:11
We will not will not borrow money from another institution.
39:20
Positive covenant might be and this is one that people get hit
39:23
with all the time that your your assets to liabilities ratio
39:30
cannot slip below 1.5. Financial reporting requirements
39:37
must provide, you know, quarterly financial reports to
39:40
the lender. Maybe you didn't make any
39:43
payment mistakes. You know, you didn't miss any
39:45
payments, but you didn't file those reports with them.
39:48
That that has the same rights to foreclose if you will, or to to
39:55
discontinue lending as missing a payment.
39:59
And it frankly, missing a payment is easier to fix.
40:03
You call them up and you say, hey, we're a little behind.
40:06
Can we stretch these payments out and work something out on a
40:08
modification? If you don't have your
40:11
financials together, that's going to be a little longer term
40:15
trying to put them together. Maybe you don't have an account.
40:19
Maybe, you know, lack of financial information is often a
40:23
big problem in companies. They fly by the seat of their
40:26
pants. They send everything off to the
40:27
accountant at the end of the year, but they're not really
40:29
looking at anything during the year or they're hyper focused on
40:33
one issue over another. My accounts receivable or, you
40:38
know, top line sales growth or whatever, and they don't have a
40:43
holistic understanding and, and, and then that usually means the
40:46
information is not available in a readable sense.
40:50
Then that means I can't get it to the lenders if I have a
40:53
lender issue. But you know, like I said, those
40:58
are symptoms. Those are easy to, to kind of
41:00
grab and say, OK, let's fix this.
41:02
Let's get on the phone with the lender or let's get on the phone
41:05
with the vendor and work something out.
41:09
That's the easy part. People think it's hard because
41:11
they don't want to call their vendor and say I'm struggling.
41:14
It's not my company, I don't have a problem doing that.
41:18
I'll call them and say, hey, you know they brought that.
41:21
You know, they realize they have a problem.
41:22
That's why they brought me in. I'm here to say, both of you,
41:27
those are symptoms. You fix the symptom so that you
41:29
buy the time to fix the root problems, which very simply
41:33
could be broken. Manufacturing processes employee
41:38
morale, which is a broad category, But if you don't have
41:42
employees that are on the team and motivated, maybe they're not
41:45
working that fast, Maybe they're they've cut output or whatever
41:51
it is you have them doing in a way that is causing you to lose
41:56
money on your product takes longer to make that product, so
41:59
you're paying more wages on that product.
42:03
So dealing with all those kinds of things.
42:04
So what kind of things can you do to help with employee morale?
42:09
Number one is here, the employees listen to what they
42:13
have to say. I find a lot of owners of
42:17
businesses do not have the level of respect for their employees
42:21
ideas or opinions and that's a big problem in in a lot of
42:27
areas. I had a client tell me another
42:32
one where an attorney brought me in big crisis.
42:35
We got the crisis settled down and and attorney and the client
42:38
I were meeting and the client said I I said something about
42:43
employees and he said I view my employees as my enemies.
42:47
They're between me and my money and if I didn't have to pay
42:51
them, I would make more money. That is not an uncommon thought
42:56
process, really. Even or not that that.
42:59
Shocks me. I Yeah.
43:01
They don't look at their employees as assets or as team
43:04
members. And there's a lot of talk about
43:06
teams and team building, but it's really not the employer
43:13
being part of the team that he's building.
43:15
It's him trying to build a team under him.
43:18
And so that, yeah, those are real problems I come across
43:22
frequently. And that's why I would talk
43:24
about changing your mindset, changing the way you think.
43:29
I have an acronym I use acronym, sorry, not an anachronism, an
43:36
acronym I use called PAIR. So when you're team building,
43:41
when you're trying to get people to work together, is
43:44
participate, anticipate, instigate, and reciprocate.
43:49
And so I try to teach them that if you're a team and you're the
43:53
leader of the team, you have to be paired with your team.
43:57
You have to participate. That's the number one thing you
44:01
got to be, you know, you got to anticipate what's going to
44:03
happen, what they're going to need.
44:05
You need to instigate. You can't just let it happen to
44:08
you. And and when good things happen,
44:11
you need to reciprocate. And so I have a little saying
44:14
with Pear. I say, you know, PAIR if you
44:18
don't participate, the rest is just air.
44:23
So that's a way just to get people to start thinking about,
44:27
hey, my employees, I need to pair with my employees.
44:32
I need to be a part of them. They, they make me money.
44:36
They're assets. They are not liabilities.
44:38
They're not a cost center. They are assets.
44:42
And I need them to be fully engaged and participating, which
44:47
means I got to reciprocate when I do well, I've got to help
44:51
them. Maybe it's financial, maybe it's
44:54
not. I hear a lot of people say,
44:56
well, we made the, the boss, you know, money this year and he
45:00
bought a new car and we didn't even get a bonus.
45:04
And the employer says, well, I pay them $25.00 an hour.
45:07
That should be enough. That's, you know, that's all
45:11
great when money's just flowing and your employees are, you
45:14
know, blindly following you along.
45:15
But when you need to make a change, when you need to turn
45:18
left or right, you need those people on your team.
45:22
So, and that's particularly an issue when you're in some form
45:28
of distress. You know, when there's problem
45:31
that needs to be solved, you're going to need those people to
45:34
buy in and be a part of it and, and actually help you come up
45:38
with ideas, not just wait for you to tell them what to do.
45:43
You need to turn them into why people, as we talked about what
45:46
people and why people. I'm genuinely surprised at how
45:51
common you say that that viewpoint from owners towards
45:54
their employees is. I mean, it's quite hostile in my
45:59
opinion. And I don't know, maybe I'm
46:01
tainted because this show perhaps attracts a certain type
46:05
of mentality to it. And you know, those are the
46:08
stories that I hear and my own experience as a business owner
46:11
in the way I've treated my employees and my friends who own
46:13
businesses. That's it's, that's just foreign
46:16
to me. You know it and it is far more
46:20
frequent, you know, in, in the, in Main Street America where
46:27
they're not you're, you're not talking about a business that's
46:30
innovative and, and doing, you know, all kinds of the latest
46:33
things from McKinsey or whatever.
46:35
You're talking about a guy who maybe sells some part for an
46:40
aircraft or something and he cranks them out in a little
46:43
factory in Kansas and he doesn't have all that training.
46:49
Most business owners didn't go to Business School and then
46:51
decide to start a business. They made a really good product
46:56
or they provided a really good service and they've kind of
46:58
built a company around it as it grew.
47:02
And nor do a lot of them have time to.
47:06
I will tell you, I've got 5 clients right now that I'm
47:09
working with. I don't think one of them
47:12
watches a podcast, listens to anything other than news in
47:16
their car on the, you know, it's still listening to AM radio.
47:19
The average age is, is 45 and up.
47:23
You know, they're not the, the bright young entrepreneur style,
47:27
the old way of doing things. You know, your employers or your
47:30
nine to five workers is much more common in what I find.
47:34
And maybe that's why some companies are in, in some kind
47:37
of trouble. I have a client right now,
47:39
they've got 20 employees. They're very nice to their
47:43
employees. But in their mind, the employees
47:46
are, are workers. They're out in the field working
47:50
and they're not part of any conversations.
47:54
They're not part of anything. You know, they get their their
47:55
orders and they go out and do their work and they get paid.
47:58
And if they do a good job, occasionally there's like
48:00
bonuses. I've been trying to get them to
48:04
engage with these people and, and the owners don't really want
48:08
to. They're, they're, they're just,
48:11
you know, I keep them busy. I keep them working.
48:14
I pay them. That should be enough.
48:17
And they're not sending them for any training for anything.
48:21
They're not helping them anything.
48:24
They're too busy doing the work. And frankly, I see they don't
48:27
have time. They're too busy to call their
48:30
employees in for a day and do something.
48:33
OK, maybe they'll have a Christmas party or whatever.
48:37
There's also a language barrier. All of their employees are
48:39
Hispanic and they are not. And they've never taken the time
48:42
to learn how to communicate very well with their employees.
48:45
And they kind of look down on them because they're it's a down
48:48
and dirty business. And so that is not uncommon,
48:54
unfortunately. And so that is probably the
48:57
biggest challenge is getting first to the owner to think
49:01
differently and then by that happening, get the employees to
49:05
view themselves and their business differently, understand
49:08
the whys of the business and understand how they benefit.
49:12
When the employee, when the company makes more money,
49:16
they're asking it all has to tie together or they're not going to
49:19
move at the same pace you want to move.
49:22
So Brian, how would you describe the ideal client for help my
49:25
company? I'll say simply, anyone who
49:32
wants to learn to view their business differently, to take a
49:40
step back and view themselves and their leadership abilities,
49:46
how to think through problems, anybody who wants to do that is
49:48
an ideal client. Anybody who just has a problem
49:52
but wants me to fix it but doesn't want to change anything
49:54
themselves, however big that project may be, is not an ideal
49:59
client because we're going to just have frustrations all the
50:02
time because you're expecting me to fix something and you're
50:06
going to stay the same. Typically my client range is I,
50:12
I, I say generally 5 million to $150 million, your business.
50:17
My sweet spot is I actually like to go a little lower than that
50:21
sometimes if I can really be helped.
50:23
They don't have the management level, you know, if you got a
50:26
$2,000,000 business, you don't have, you know two vice
50:30
presidents and ACEO. You have a couple of people and,
50:36
and I really like things that are under 50 million because
50:39
again, in that spot, the infrastructure isn't there for
50:48
multi divisions of, you know, leadership training and going to
50:52
seminars and sending everybody to Florida for a week for, you
50:55
know, to fall back on each other's arms or whatever.
50:57
The latest thing is they're busy doing what they do and they're
51:02
they're trying to make it happen and, and I want to be a part of
51:05
that. So.
51:09
You've answered it. It does.
51:10
Thank you. You've lectured at USC on
51:13
ethical leadership. What are the kinds of things
51:16
that you talk about in that room?
51:19
Well, so my conversations, my lecture was, is was targeted
51:25
towards the investment banking program in particular at SC, but
51:30
I can't help but not talk about leadership.
51:34
So for me, you know, I know there's a term out there that
51:37
everybody throws out ethical leadership and, and all that.
51:41
Mine starts with being an ethical person.
51:44
You know, you can, you can care about the environment and you
51:48
can do all your, you know, pardon me, I'm not being
51:52
derogatory DEI stuff. You can do all the right things,
51:56
but if you are not an ethical person, you're never going to
52:00
lead ethically. So it and so I talk about
52:05
defining your ethics. What guides you?
52:07
What's your worldview? How do you see the world and how
52:12
do you see yourself in it? Then how do you want to lead
52:17
people according to your standards?
52:21
So we did some exercises to to again think differently, to
52:29
drill down and say what is your worldview?
52:33
How do you view the world from, you know, religious, moral,
52:40
ethical, financial standpoint? How do you view your business,
52:46
your place in the world, and what do you want to accomplish
52:53
that's going to guide how you lead.
52:55
And if you've got your ethics, you could be true to yourself
53:00
and be a horrible person because your ethics are horrible.
53:03
So it's really not about trying to lead from some moral
53:07
standard. It's really trying to stay true
53:11
with integrity to what you believe.
53:14
And I may not agree with what you believe, but if you can
53:17
articulate it, if you can envision it, you can put it
53:21
together and you can lead from that place and be successful.
53:25
That's ethical leadership in my book.
53:31
You know, if somebody I think is, you know, they're if, if, if
53:35
they're, if their ethics disagree with mine, but they're
53:39
consistent, they're cohesive and well thought out.
53:42
I, you know, I can't really, I mean, maybe I could challenge
53:45
you and say, well, I, I think that's pretty lousy way to look
53:48
at things, but it certainly ties to everything else.
53:51
The way you look at things, understanding yourself first
53:55
before you try to understand anyone else and before you try
53:58
to put together any kind of leadership.
54:02
The, the first thing I say is the definition of a leader is
54:07
someone who has followers. If you are not, if you don't
54:10
have any followers, if nobody's following you, you can call
54:12
yourself a leader all day. You're not leading anything.
54:15
You're just out in front. The the next thing I thought was
54:21
the role of a leader is to envision, empower, equip and
54:26
encourage. It's my ease of leadership.
54:30
So the vision comes from your ethics, from what you, you know,
54:35
your worldview of you, your business, the world around you,
54:38
while your competitors, your moral compass, whatever.
54:43
You have to set the vision as the leader.
54:46
And then you have to make sure that those who were following
54:49
you have the right equipment, the right tools to do the job,
54:51
to do what they need to do. And you have to empower them.
54:54
You have to give them the permissions.
54:56
You have to break down the, the, the barriers to make it happen.
54:59
And then you have to encourage them.
55:03
And that is not always positive. Sometimes it's it's negative
55:07
carrot and stick. Encourage simply means to come
55:09
alongside, ties into the pair. You need to participate, you
55:13
need to come alongside and you need to be part of that from
55:17
that. The next thing, and you can see
55:19
I love these little acronyms. The next thing is what we call
55:23
Acme, and that is your communication style based on
55:27
what you're trying to accomplish.
55:28
Acme is speak with authority, communicate clearly and manage
55:32
expectations. So I tie all of that into
55:36
basically an hour long conversation of who are you?
55:40
Do you see yourself properly? Have the students ask each
55:47
other, how do you see me? You know, have those
55:51
conversations. What are my flaws?
55:53
What are my blind sides? I think I'm good at this.
55:57
Do you agree? And, and being willing to take
56:01
some of that and maybe reshape yourself to say, OK, maybe I
56:06
need to change my ethics, my world view a little bit because
56:11
I always thought I was this, but I'm not.
56:15
I always do a little psychological analysis on my
56:18
clients when I first meet them. And then after I worked with
56:21
them for a while, I, I kind of go back to it and say, do I do I
56:24
see the same thing? I have a client right now.
56:26
There's three owners. One I assessed before I even
56:30
started with him that he had a Napoleon complex.
56:34
He's he's the shortest of them, the youngest of them and the
56:37
bossiest of them. The other one has a Messiah
56:40
complex. He's always hiring the wrong
56:42
people thinking he can turn them into gems.
56:45
And the other one is, is what I call an abdicator meddler.
56:50
Sometimes he completely abdicates and disappears.
56:53
Then when he feels like things are out of control for him, he
56:55
gets in and medals in the smallest little things and you'd
56:58
never know which one he's going to be.
56:59
It's like leaning backwards on the last back two legs of a
57:02
chair, you know, and just catching yourself.
57:05
That's how it is being around him, because you just don't know
57:07
which one's going to show up. Well, I've worked with them for
57:10
several years and while I've gotten them to progress, my
57:14
assessment of those 3 has still not changed.
57:17
So I try to kind of get a little assessment after talking to a
57:20
client. Who am I dealing with?
57:23
And that's going to impact my leadership of them, guided by my
57:27
own ethical standards, my ethic, my particular ethics standard is
57:35
servant leadership. It's not being boss, it's it's
57:38
leading from behind, it's leading in the trenches.
57:42
And I always have. I have another saying if you
57:45
practice servant leadership, you better get used to being treated
57:48
like a servant. And and you got to have strong
57:52
shoulders to put up with that because people will treat you
57:55
like their personal servant. But that's the cost of showing
57:59
them how to lead from humility from from servanthood rather
58:05
than, you know, being the little Napoleon Bonaparte who comes in
58:10
and tells everybody what to do and stretch around, especially
58:14
when you don't know what you're talking about.
58:16
So that's good. I hope that kind of ties it up
58:20
in a nutshell. Ties, yeah.
58:21
Lots of good topics there that you get into, yeah.
58:24
What's 1 of the hardest things you've had to overcome
58:26
personally in your life, Brian? If I had a deck of cards, I'd
58:33
say pick one. But I'm going to, I'm going to
58:37
go out a limb here and I and I hope I don't offend clients,
58:40
potential clients. I think the hardest thing I went
58:44
through was a series of about 10 years, from the late 90s to the
58:48
early 2000s. My father became terminally ill.
58:55
My mother could not take care of herself very well either.
59:00
I had kids who were teenage. The relationship with my father
59:06
because of his illness, which impacted his mental ability,
59:09
became very I tried not to make it but but contentious.
59:14
He had a lot of caretaker rage and I was essentially in charge
59:18
of all his care. So I was trying to run my
59:21
business, raise some some very rambunctious teenage boys, deal
59:29
with a mother, and they did not live together.
59:31
So I was going between two houses, you know, taking care of
59:34
two people. And then in 2008, I was heavily
59:38
invested in real estate and the real estate market went down and
59:42
I was in place where I was having to sell properties in
59:45
order to raise enough money for my parents treatments,
59:48
financial, I mean, medical. So, you know, I, I basically ran
59:55
down my tank to almost nothing. So while I was earning, I
59:58
wasn't, I, I didn't have those reserves anymore.
1:00:01
It took a far bigger emotional toll on me than I thought and on
1:00:05
my kids. And, and so basically in mid
1:00:09
2006 or seven, I essentially had to start over again.
1:00:15
My father had passed away. I'd learned some lessons from
1:00:19
that on how to take care of my mom in a different way.
1:00:23
And she lived for another 10 years after that.
1:00:28
But I it was much easier to take care of her.
1:00:32
I had to start over financially. My kids are both very strong
1:00:38
willed 'cause I won as a professional athlete and you
1:00:41
know, fairly successful professional athlete and we had
1:00:45
to nurture that as he was growing up and his desire to do
1:00:49
that along with that. And the, and the other one is
1:00:52
my, my favorite, I hate to say favorite son, but he's my, my
1:00:57
favorite non conformist and underachiever.
1:01:05
And he's, he's the typical kid of his generation that is more
1:01:09
focused on anything other than work, you know, and don't worry,
1:01:13
Dad will always take care of you.
1:01:14
But all of that happened in a time frame that really set a
1:01:20
tone for me for the last 15 years, 20 years of my career and
1:01:27
how I deal with my family, how I deal with others.
1:01:31
It really humbled me because I was riding on the top and you
1:01:36
know, big house, nice cars, all of that.
1:01:39
And we had to make the decision to downsize and start over.
1:01:45
And at that point, it really started my journey of am I doing
1:01:49
what I'm doing for the money or am I doing what I'm doing
1:01:53
because I really believe I can make a difference in my client's
1:01:56
life. And, and I decided that's what
1:02:00
drives me. And, you know, we rebuilt
1:02:04
successfully. I mean, you know, there's a
1:02:05
happy ending to that story other than losing my parents and all
1:02:08
of that. But it taught me a a lot.
1:02:12
I thought I was a pretty humble guy, but I wasn't.
1:02:14
It taught me a lot about humility in how I deal with my
1:02:19
clients because you never know if they're going through the
1:02:21
same kind of thing that I went through.
1:02:25
They're trying to run a business, put a good face on it.
1:02:27
In the meantime, they've got a, you know, a mother at home with
1:02:31
cancer or whatever. I just found out an employee,
1:02:35
one of my clients that I work with on a regular basis, she
1:02:39
started asking if she could telecommute a little bit more.
1:02:42
And I had the authority. So I said, yes, you know, you
1:02:46
can, let's work something out. And we did.
1:02:49
But it wasn't until I really got to talking to her that I found
1:02:51
out her husband has stage 4 cancer and she needs to be home
1:02:56
more with him at this point in her lives and she can't afford
1:03:00
to lose her job. The owner would have said well
1:03:05
we don't need a telecommuter, we need someone in the office.
1:03:08
That's their thinking. I was able to bridge the gap and
1:03:11
get them to work together so that she is able to work when
1:03:14
she can. One of the things I taught told
1:03:18
him that changed his thinking was never confuse activity with
1:03:23
achievement. Is she getting done what you
1:03:27
need her to do? If so, can't you accommodate her
1:03:31
or do you just need her there so she can look active from 8:00 to
1:03:35
5:00? And when we measured it out and
1:03:39
said it's actually making her more productive, same as me with
1:03:43
my, you know, online, it's a concentrated hour or two that I
1:03:48
have to do that, got to get it done.
1:03:51
I don't have time to just sit at my desk and look like I'm doing
1:03:56
something. So those kinds of things happen.
1:04:00
You know, life goes on around us and, and the focus so much in
1:04:05
finance, in consulting, in turnarounds is on the business,
1:04:11
you know, and how can we restructure this business and
1:04:15
when it doesn't go well that the consultant or whatever doesn't
1:04:19
understand? I didn't change the people.
1:04:22
I didn't do anything to help the people.
1:04:24
I just tried to put a new widget on their product or I just tried
1:04:29
to open a new sales channel. I didn't think about how is this
1:04:34
going to impact them? Do they have the capability?
1:04:37
Is this, you know, is this going to work for them?
1:04:39
And so I try to take that approach rather than just say I
1:04:43
got this great thing, you need to buy it.
1:04:45
It's such a powerful story to hear about how your own life
1:04:49
stressors, you know, really help to reset what was already a
1:04:54
really great mental foundation and mindset in a way that you
1:04:58
can see is carrying forward for your clients and their
1:05:01
employees. Brian, I've just got one more
1:05:04
question for you today. But before I ask, I want to do 3
1:05:07
quick things for the audience. Anybody who wants to get in
1:05:10
touch with Brian Weigel, Help for mycompany.com is a great
1:05:14
resource. There's a place in there where
1:05:16
you can schedule a meeting with him and the first consultation
1:05:20
is always free. You've heard all the wisdom he's
1:05:22
dropped here on the show today. So if anything that he sounds,
1:05:26
you know, he says sounds like it could be interesting or helpful
1:05:28
for you, reach out Help for mycompany.com set up that first
1:05:31
call. And if you're enjoying the show
1:05:33
today, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you're
1:05:36
listening. It sends a signal that helps
1:05:39
others discover our podcast. So thanks for that.
1:05:41
And as a reminder, you can be the hero advisor that helps
1:05:45
clients give their employees access to therapists, doctors
1:05:48
and prescription meds while paradoxically increasing their
1:05:52
net profits, real gains that can change how a business is valued.
1:05:55
So contact us today at AD back benefits.com.
1:05:58
So last question for you, Brian. A year from now, what is 1 very
1:06:02
specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?
1:06:09
One specific thing, it kind of all fits together.
1:06:13
I hope to be celebrating the success of the transition to
1:06:16
more virtual consulting because I want more time with my my
1:06:23
grandkids and I want more time with my family.
1:06:27
And I don't want to spend all that time on the road trying to
1:06:32
get from Place A to Place BI live in Los Angeles.
1:06:36
So it could be, it could be 20 minute drive or it could be two
1:06:40
hour drive, just depending on when you have to be there.
1:06:43
So the thing I want to accomplish is, is the success of
1:06:48
being able to reach more clients and provide help through my, my
1:06:53
website and, and through Zoom meetings and things like that.
1:06:59
And, and, and subsequently have more time for myself.
1:07:03
That would be what I'd like to be able to celebrate.
1:07:07
You know, I'm, I'm on my 41st, 41st year of marriage with my
1:07:10
wife and we have not had a lot of vacations in our lives
1:07:14
because I've run my business and I've run a business that clients
1:07:17
depend on me to be available during their times of trouble.
1:07:21
So it's been hard to to, you know, go away.
1:07:27
I can sit in a hotel room and have a Zoom meeting and still
1:07:31
accomplish and still be present. So that's really why I'm going
1:07:35
where I'm going. And I'm hoping that within a
1:07:37
year I will be able to reduce my in house presence with clients
1:07:43
and more online presence with clients and hopefully from a
1:07:47
business standpoint see the same revenue.
1:07:50
Terrific, wonderful goals. Brian Weigel from
1:07:53
helpformycompany.com. I want to be the first to thank
1:07:57
you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:08:00
I really appreciate you being here.
1:08:01
Thank you. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:08:04
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:08:06
Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put
1:08:10
that into action today.