Latest / The GrowthPro Edge / Taking Over the Family Business | The GrowthPro Edge

Transcript

Taking Over the Family Business | The GrowthPro Edge · The GrowthPro Edge

• 0:00
  Speaker: Welcome to the GrowthPro Edge.
• 0:03
  We're here to help scale your business, build stronger teams,
• 0:06
  and sharpen your leadership skills.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Denise Killian, with the GrowthPro Group, and this week
• 0:14
  on the GrowthPro Edge, we're talking about taking over the family business.
• 0:19
  Luke Adams with Pioneer Vending shares the pitfalls, the successes,
• 0:25
  the challenges, and the joys of taking over the family business.
• 0:31
  So let's get started and sharpen your edge.
• 0:32
  Luke, welcome to the GrowthPro Edge.
• 0:35
  We're thrilled to have you.
• 0:38
  Speaker: Uh, great to be here.
• 0:39
  I'm, I'm really excited to have a conversation, and just kind
• 0:43
  of see where it goes, Denise.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 0:45
  So first off, Luke, you have taken over the family business.
• 0:50
  So let's first start with tell us a little bit about yourself, and how long
• 0:55
  have you had the leadership position?
• 0:58
  Speaker: Sure.
• 0:58
  Luke- Uh, so I bought my family out in, uh, October of 2018.
• 1:04
  Um, had worked, uh, in the family business since 2007, um, so I've
• 1:10
  kind of always been around it.
• 1:12
  Um, it's kind of one of those things within our industry, it, it really
• 1:15
  gets into your blood, into your DNA.
• 1:18
  And, uh, it's, it's been a wild ride, a lot of fun, peaks and valleys, ups and
• 1:22
  downs, but that's, I mean, that, that's with any entrepreneur or business owner,
• 1:27
  um, kind of trying to carve their way out and, and, you know, put their, I guess,
• 1:32
  fingerprints on the legacy of, in my case, of a four-generation, uh, family business.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: So let me ask you something.
• 1:40
  What's harder, running a business or running your family business?
• 1:47
  Speaker: Well, I mean, running a family aside from the business
• 1:51
  is probably the hardest thing.
• 1:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:52
  I've got two little kids that, that are, are great, and my
• 1:54
  wife and I are super blessed.
• 1:56
  Um, so yeah, you add in all that dynamic as well, uh, it, it
• 2:00
  certainly makes things interesting.
• 2:02
  But, you know, before joining on at Pioneer Vending full time, um, I worked
• 2:08
  at Fidelity Investments, uh, for a year.
• 2:10
  I graduated from Xavier University, um, decided I, I really needed to get
• 2:15
  kind of out into the workforce and cut my teeth with, with some different,
• 2:19
  uh, leadership and, and kind of learn from other people and, and how
• 2:23
  other businesses are basically run.
• 2:25
  Um, you know, I, I was very lucky to have an ex- an extremely, uh, strong manager
• 2:32
  at Fidelity Investments that really taught me a lot, um, just by kind of how
• 2:37
  she managed our team, our department.
• 2:39
  Um, so that was, that kind of set me up a little bit for success, uh,
• 2:44
  after I kind of decided that the corporate America wasn't really for me.
• 2:48
  Um, so coming into Pioneer Vending and having, um, you know, a background with
• 2:54
  somebody else kind of managing me, 'cause I'm definitely a Type A personality,
• 2:59
  um- I can be difficult to deal with.
• 3:01
  I, I, I understand that now as a over 40-year-old.
• 3:05
  Uh, so working, uh, under and for my mom and dad, um, there was a lot of
• 3:13
  tough lessons there, but had I not kind of had that initial experience
• 3:17
  at Fidelity, um, I think things would have went a little bit more difficult
• 3:22
  in kind of going into that, that role as, as working, you know, for them.
• 3:28
  Um, so I mean, to answer your question, I think it's a blend.
• 3:32
  You know, we're never done growing into the, the leader that we're eventually
• 3:37
  gonna be tomorrow or the next month or the next year, and I think that's
• 3:40
  one of the really fun things a- about being an entrepreneur is it, it's
• 3:44
  you're constantly growing, um, as a person within your organization,
• 3:48
  within your community, everything else.
• 3:50
  Um, so it's, it's, it's definitely been a challenge.
• 3:55
  You know, the other kind of challenge specific to me since we are four
• 3:58
  generations deep, um, you know, one of our core values is, is family.
• 4:05
  We have employees that have been here for over 44, 45 years.
• 4:10
  Um, so they're they're people that have literally been in this
• 4:13
  business and have watched me, um, f- from infancy grow up, right?
• 4:18
  So that always adds kind of an added layer of, um, I guess it's not really
• 4:26
  a challenge, but in the back of my mind, right, like, these are, these are
• 4:30
  people that I, I've seen my entire life.
• 4:33
  And as you kind of work through the different, um, different departments and,
• 4:38
  um, you know, my, my dad really was smart in how he did it and, and really make
• 4:43
  me work from the ground up, um, to, to really earn it and then, you know, get
• 4:48
  that buy-in and, and just kind of make everyone see that, like, I've done, you
• 4:53
  know, for the most part, um, a lot of the aspects of what we do day in and day out.
• 4:59
  So I, and I know what they have t- to go through.
• 5:01
  I know what we're asking of them.
• 5:03
  Um, so that kind of helped as I started to, to grow into the leadership, um, is
• 5:08
  really living it, walking a mile in their shoes and, and understanding what it is
• 5:11
  that, that, you know, me and my management team ask of them on a, on a daily basis.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: So there's a few things that I wanna delve into a little
• 5:21
  bit here because that was such a great amount of information that a
• 5:26
  couple things I want to point out.
• 5:27
  So you knew from an early age you were going to join the family business and
• 5:36
  wanted to get that outside experience, or were you faltering and thinking,
• 5:41
  "Maybe I wanna do my own thing"?
• 5:44
  Speaker: Yeah, I think, you know, early on when I was a young kid, I kinda see
• 5:47
  it in, in my children, like you see all the arcade games and you're like, "I
• 5:51
  wanna do this. This is awesome." Like my, my family puts arcade equipment out.
• 5:56
  Like, yeah.
• 5:57
  Um, but as I kinda grew up and, and was going through business
• 6:01
  school at Xavier, um, I, I was kind of wavering a little bit.
• 6:07
  Like, do I really wanna spread my wings and kinda try and do my own thing?
• 6:12
  And what I really kind of learned, um, after getting into corporate America for
• 6:17
  a little bit, I really crave, um, like one-on-one interactions, like actual
• 6:23
  conversations with customers and, and, and like really belonging to a family
• 6:30
  environment with, with my coworkers.
• 6:32
  And I just... I didn't find that at Fedel- at Fidelity.
• 6:35
  I knew that we had that here at, at Pioneer Vending.
• 6:39
  And so that was kind of what really drew me back in, was knowing that that is
• 6:44
  what I want in my career, um, so that I get up every day and I'm energized
• 6:50
  and excited and, and just really looking forward to, to interacting.
• 6:54
  I mean, sure, there's always gonna be those difficult customers, but there's
• 6:57
  nothing more rewarding than, than leaving a meeting, uh, with a difficult
• 7:01
  customer and having won them over.
• 7:03
  Um, like that, that definitely is, is one of the more exciting things,
• 7:08
  you know, kinda turning a, a sour situation into, into something positive.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 7:16
  So with four generations, right, that, that's, that's a legacy.
• 7:20
  That's a massive legacy.
• 7:22
  And you thought about... You, you got some outside experience.
• 7:26
  You're like, "Nope, this is home for me." How much pressure, and you kind of
• 7:32
  alluded to it a little bit, of carrying that legacy on do you kind of take on?
• 7:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 7:41
  So I have, um, I have three sisters and a brother.
• 7:47
  Everyone kinda worked in the business as we were going through, um, you
• 7:51
  know, high school or in my case, you know, middle school, kind of putzing
• 7:54
  around, helping out around the shop.
• 7:57
  Um, everyone kinda decided to go their own separate ways, right?
• 8:01
  I was the only one that really kinda saw it through and, and, and really
• 8:06
  wanted to, to turn this into my career.
• 8:09
  Um, so as we were starting to kinda talk about, you know, what
• 8:14
  a transition looks like, I mean, gosh, this was, you know, 2013
• 8:22
  or '14 when, when my, my dad and I started kinda having these conversations.
• 8:27
  Um, I didn't really fully understand the weight of what, like that kind
• 8:32
  of means to, to carry on a legacy like this until you start kinda
• 8:36
  working through, um- You know, what that, what that looks like, you know?
• 8:42
  So at the time, I mean, I was, I was the sales manager, um, eventually moved
• 8:46
  into the general manager role and was just kind of running the daily ops.
• 8:50
  Didn't really fully appreciate like the weight of what, um, what it means
• 8:57
  to, to, you know, be the owner and, and really care for all these people
• 9:00
  as if they're part of your family, uh, until we really started sitting down
• 9:05
  and, and, and carving out like what a, what a, a buyout would look like.
• 9:11
  Um, one of the best things that we did was here in Cincinnati there's what's called
• 9:15
  the Goering Center, um, which is a, a, uh, a program that you go through and it's
• 9:22
  specifically designed for small fam- small mid-sized family businesses to help with
• 9:27
  that generation to generation, uh, buyout.
• 9:30
  Um, so we brought in an incredible consultant, um, Mark Cignarelli
• 9:34
  from Cincinnati Growth Partners, and he really helped kind of...
• 9:40
  I, I'll be honest, like this was a self-aware moment for me.
• 9:42
  I thought I was ready like to take this on.
• 9:44
  I, I, I didn't have a clue what I was doing.
• 9:46
  I thought just 'cause I was the daily general manager, like, "I can do this.
• 9:49
  Like, this is, this is simple." Um, Denise, it took me almost three years
• 9:56
  of working with Mark to get to the point where I was truly actually ready
• 10:02
  to, to take on this responsibility.
• 10:05
  Had we not done that and I just kind of, you know, shoot my way in, if you will,
• 10:10
  and, and said, "Dad, all right, time to go out to pasture. I've got this,"
• 10:14
  I think it would've set me up for not necessarily failure, but it would've
• 10:19
  really made things a lot more rocky.
• 10:21
  So, you know, going through that three years of working with Cincinnati Growth
• 10:25
  Partners, it really was eye-opening for me to, to realize like my
• 10:31
  communication style needs to change.
• 10:33
  Um, I need to bring my brothers and sisters in on, on a lot of these
• 10:37
  details so that in 15 or 20 or 30 years down the road there's no animosity.
• 10:42
  Like I, I really wanted them to know, you know, "This is how
• 10:45
  I'm gonna run this business.
• 10:46
  Here's the financial kind of layout." Um, so that was a really healthy way
• 10:51
  of kind of taking some of that pressure off that I would've felt had we just
• 10:56
  kinda jumped into a, a, a transition without kind of having that support
• 11:01
  and kind of having that aha moment of myself like, "Hey, man, you've got a
• 11:05
  lot to, to learn here and a lot to, a lot of room to grow before you're ready
• 11:09
  just to, to move in as, as owner."
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 11:14
  And obviously At the GrowthPro group, we believe in growth, uh, and finding a
• 11:21
  way to work through things, and that we can all learn and grow and be better.
• 11:26
  And so I love that.
• 11:29
  I love that so much.
• 11:30
  I do wanna ask, though, about, you make mention of two things, one, that your
• 11:36
  dad kind of put you through the paces and, and you worked there as a kid, as a
• 11:41
  teen, uh, and, and then, uh, again, you came back and you had various different
• 11:47
  roles, and that you've done almost any of the roles within your company.
• 11:51
  You have done them yourself.
• 11:54
  But you also mentioned you've got employees that have been there
• 11:57
  as long as you've been alive, and remember when you were born, and
• 12:01
  now you're in the corner office.
• 12:05
  How hard is that for both you and kind of for them?
• 12:10
  Speaker: So the, the way that we kind of structured the buyout was,
• 12:15
  was, uh, really, really smart.
• 12:17
  Um, I purchased the business.
• 12:20
  We didn't tell our employees for an entire year, right?
• 12:24
  So there were, there were kind of changes to how our, our different
• 12:29
  management meetings and stuff would go, but we had kind of put some of
• 12:31
  those changes in place a year prior.
• 12:34
  Um, so the joke was, like, the way that my, my dad ran the business, right?
• 12:39
  Um, old school, 45 plus years of experience, could
• 12:44
  run it from his instincts.
• 12:47
  Um, and so he would have these management meetings or sales meetings or department
• 12:50
  meetings, and, uh, it was a lot of him telling people kind of what to
• 12:55
  do, where we're going, this is what I need you to do, this is how to do it.
• 12:58
  And I obviously don't have that type of experience, so I needed my management
• 13:03
  team and the leaders within the ind- uh, within our business to kind of
• 13:07
  start to find their own voices, right?
• 13:09
  So I took over the, the weekly meetings and the monthly department meetings.
• 13:15
  Um, and specific to the weekly management meetings, my dad could
• 13:20
  sit in the, in the, in the boardroom, but he wasn't allowed to talk, and
• 13:24
  we would debrief afterwards, right?
• 13:26
  So for a year, year and a half, like, everyone kind of got used to
• 13:29
  this running joke that Dad's in the room, but he's not really in the
• 13:32
  room 'cause he's not allowed to talk.
• 13:34
  So we execute the buyout, and we keep having these meetings the same
• 13:40
  way, and don't tell anybody, right?
• 13:43
  So they get used to kind of me running the, the meetings and, and,
• 13:48
  um, we implemented some departmental, um, like budgets and cash flow
• 13:53
  forecasting, stuff like that.
• 13:55
  Like, that's how by the gut my dad ran things.
• 13:57
  Um, we didn't have any of that stuff at the time.
• 14:00
  So when we- Kind of have this company-wide meeting that, "Hey, I-
• 14:04
  I've sold the, the business to Luke.
• 14:06
  Oh, by the way, he's owned it for a year.
• 14:08
  Nothing's changed.
• 14:09
  Guys, don't freak out.
• 14:11
  This is literally gonna be... Like, you can see the things that
• 14:13
  he's been implementing over the last, you know, 12 to 18 months.
• 14:19
  Like, I support him in all this, and he hasn't flipped the company upside down.
• 14:23
  There hasn't been, like, giant turnover.
• 14:25
  Like, the core values are still the core values, and all that, all that
• 14:28
  has remained the same." So a lot of the tenured guys came up afterwards and
• 14:32
  was like, "Man, you got one over us.
• 14:33
  We had no, we had no clue that you had already bought the business."
• 14:37
  So it kind of put everyone at ease that we'd already been doing it
• 14:41
  for a year, and the changes that, that, that I was making were, um,
• 14:47
  slow, methodical, well thought out.
• 14:49
  There weren't many knee-jerk reactions.
• 14:52
  Um, and so that's what I think kind of helped with the buy-in that put them at
• 14:56
  ease to know that I'm not gonna come in and just flip this thing upside down.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's great.
• 15:02
  That's, that's really, really smart.
• 15:04
  And very... I mean, you mentioned methodical.
• 15:07
  Methodical.
• 15:08
  There was a plan.
• 15:10
  You knew anytime there's change, people freak out, whether
• 15:14
  they should or shouldn't.
• 15:15
  It's a natural knee-jerk.
• 15:16
  And so the, "Oh, by the way, I've been doing it for over a year, and
• 15:21
  everything's still good," is...
• 15:23
  That's a great way to do that.
• 15:26
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:27
  I gotta give credit to, uh, Mark Signorelli for that one.
• 15:29
  That was his idea, and it, it ended up being a really good plan.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:35
  Now, was there a moment that you kind of finally felt like,
• 15:40
  "Yeah, I've proved myself"?
• 15:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:43
  Uh, that would be coming out of the pandemic.
• 15:47
  Um, 'cause I mean, 2018, 2019, um, we had, we had implemented, like, all of
• 15:55
  the kind of normal business function stuff that we didn't have prior to that.
• 16:02
  Um, so I'm talking, you know, different 12-month rolling forecast, cash flow
• 16:06
  forecasting, departmental budgets, like all that stuff was in place.
• 16:10
  Um, we had created a new bonus program based on our EBITDA that got, you know,
• 16:15
  company buy-in, and everyone was real- Like, the business was, was really
• 16:19
  performing well at that, at that point.
• 16:22
  COVID hits, um,
• 16:26
  everything's closed.
• 16:27
  I mean, I'm in Ohio, Michigan, uh, Indiana, and Kentucky.
• 16:32
  Um, not great states to be in during that.
• 16:36
  Uh, we actually, the Ohio, uh, Coin Machine Association, we had to sue, uh,
• 16:42
  the State of Ohio to, to basically reopen.
• 16:46
  Um, had our issues up in, in Michigan for a long time.
• 16:50
  Indiana was, was, um- Depending on where you were was, was pretty,
• 16:54
  was pretty open actually, and Kentucky was kind of hit and miss.
• 16:57
  So, you know, you go from having this, this thriving business with,
• 17:01
  at the time, I don't know, 50-ish, 40, 40, 50 employees or so, to,
• 17:07
  like, there's no revenue coming in.
• 17:09
  Like, we gotta really rethink this.
• 17:12
  Um, I took... So we were clo- we were f- totally closed for about eight weeks.
• 17:17
  I took those eight weeks to really look at the business
• 17:22
  with a completely blank slate.
• 17:24
  Like, assuming we come out of this, right?
• 17:27
  Like, I was trying to, I was 100% trying to stay completely positive.
• 17:32
  What do I want this, this company to look like, right?
• 17:35
  So I kind of basically by myself went through and redesigned our strategic plan,
• 17:41
  looked at what the core values need to be, knowing that there's gonna be some
• 17:46
  turnover here because I don't know what we're gonna come back to, which it did
• 17:50
  take a long time, um, to see revenue start coming back in a way that, that
• 17:56
  we were, you know, financially healthy.
• 17:59
  Um, it was going through that process, that painstaking process
• 18:04
  of, of redesigning departments and kind of restructuring what it
• 18:08
  means to, to work at Pioneer and what customers we want, you know.
• 18:12
  So I was starting to kind of develop a lot of the stuff that we
• 18:16
  actually ended up implementing with your team, uh, about a year ago.
• 18:20
  Um, but that was when in the back of my mind I knew that there was a
• 18:24
  next layer of growth that I had to go through, um, to make sure that, that
• 18:29
  this legacy didn't end, um, because of a, a bad move or a mistake that I
• 18:34
  would make coming out of the pandemic.
• 18:37
  Um, so fast-forward about a year, and we're kind of back on our feet
• 18:41
  again and, and things are, are going well, and we've got the right people
• 18:46
  in the right seats at that point.
• 18:48
  Um, and the, the, the kind of beginnings of knowing I need to do annual
• 18:54
  strategic planning and, you know, bring my people in on that plan, right?
• 18:59
  So I basically ended up doing the strategic plan by myself for the next
• 19:03
  couple years, which in hindsight I wish I would've brought my people in
• 19:06
  a little bit sooner, um, because it, it sure is a lot easier when you've
• 19:10
  got everybody rowing with you versus, like, "Hey, this is the vision.
• 19:14
  This is where we're going.
• 19:16
  Help me figure it out," right?
• 19:17
  Well, they, they were kind of missing some of those details
• 19:19
  that I may have had in my head.
• 19:21
  So coming out of that and starting to feel that next evolution of my
• 19:27
  growth and what I needed my team to, you know, to grow into, that was when
• 19:32
  I kind of really felt like, okay, I, I th- I think I've, I, I've turned a
• 19:38
  new page, and I'm much more confident with my people, with the customers,
• 19:43
  within the industry as a whole really.
• 19:46
  Um, it was kind of forced growth.
• 19:47
  It was painful at the time, but looking back, like I'm I'm glad I went
• 19:51
  through it the way I went through it
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 19:54
  And so many people didn't come out of COVID.
• 19:56
  Yeah Businesses did not make it through, and, uh, depending upon what state
• 20:00
  you're in de- determined how long it was open or closed or, you know.
• 20:06
  Yeah.
• 20:06
  I was in Michigan during the pandemic, and it was shut down
• 20:10
  pretty much for two years.
• 20:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, just that's, that's, that's what it was.
• 20:15
  Whereas my family in Texas, it's like, "What are you talking about? We spent
• 20:19
  two hours inside," and then it was like, "What pandemic? We're fine." Yeah.
• 20:23
  Um, so, you know.
• 20:25
  Um, uh, but a lot of, of people either didn't change strategy or
• 20:30
  didn't realign or just weren't able to make it through to the other side.
• 20:35
  So what do you think... Was that a, a, a challenge to figure out you wanna
• 20:45
  preserve but you know you have to change?
• 20:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: How do you make those decisions?
• 20:51
  Speaker: That was the hardest part, right?
• 20:53
  Because when, when it was time to kinda restructure the business,
• 20:57
  um, there were a lot of... I mean, we did have some cutbacks.
• 21:02
  Because when you look at a business with a complete blank slate and you just
• 21:05
  keep asking yourself, "Why are we doing it this way?" In our case, like, it's
• 21:10
  because that's how we've always done it.
• 21:12
  Well, w- we started business in 1909, right?
• 21:15
  Things have changed quite a bit since then.
• 21:18
  So that was the hardest part, um, coming out and kind of restructuring the, the
• 21:25
  different departments and the right persons in the r- or right people in the
• 21:28
  right seat, um, because there were some really difficult conversations that I
• 21:33
  had to have with a dozen or so people, um, some of which had been with us for,
• 21:39
  you know, 25, 30 years, that, "Hey, we're reopening Pioneer, but it's changed."
• 21:49
  And, you know, when you try to live by core values with, with, you know,
• 21:53
  with family kind of as one of the, the centerpieces, like, that, that's a trying
• 21:59
  and difficult conversation to have, especially, like, you can't explain it in
• 22:05
  a way that, that, that really resonates the right way when you're, when you're
• 22:10
  the person on the other side of the table being told, "Hey, we don't have a spot for
• 22:14
  you anymore because we've restructured."
• 22:17
  Um, those were, those were difficult conversations, for sure.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:23
  And, and regardless of if they've been there for 30 years or three days,
• 22:29
  they're hard conversations to have.
• 22:31
  But when you have that history of you grew up with these people-
• 22:36
  Speaker: Yeah
• 22:36
  ... Speaker 2: that makes it, that makes it even more challenging.
• 22:40
  Do you think getting to the other side of all of that-
• 22:46
  What biggest change do you think you see for Pioneer from
• 22:50
  sort of pre-2018 to today?
• 22:55
  Speaker: Um, we're a lot more analytical.
• 22:58
  We don't make business decisions, um, based off our gut.
• 23:03
  I think one of the, a couple of the, the best things that I've
• 23:05
  done here recently, um, obviously I gotta give you guys a plug, like
• 23:10
  bringing you on last year was great.
• 23:13
  I've seen my management team grow leaps and bounds.
• 23:15
  But the other interesting thing in, in going through our first iteration of
• 23:20
  our strategic plan as a team was that we had a, a severe blind spot on our
• 23:25
  financial strategy portion of, of the business, the growth strategy, everything.
• 23:31
  So my team knew where we wanted to go.
• 23:32
  We all were in alignment with, you know, this is how we're going to eventually
• 23:36
  achieve this, the big, hairy, audati- audacious goal in, in 10 years.
• 23:42
  But we didn't have the financial person on our team yet, right?
• 23:45
  So, um, I belong to a Vistage group.
• 23:48
  Um, anybody listening to this, I highly recommend reaching
• 23:52
  out in your local community.
• 23:53
  It's, it's a, a CEO peer group.
• 23:56
  And so I started asking questions about, you know, I, I have this
• 23:59
  need for financial strategy, um, I don't necessarily have the
• 24:04
  volume yet for a full-time CFO.
• 24:07
  W- what do I do?
• 24:09
  And four of the, the peers in my group said, "We went fractional CFO,
• 24:15
  and it's, it's been great." And so I interviewed, um, four different CEO
• 24:22
  firms, but fractional CEO firms, and, um, I was really intent f- kind of what
• 24:27
  I learned from talking to these people who, who went through it, I was really
• 24:31
  intent on hiring for culture, right?
• 24:32
  'Cause anybody that's a great CFO mind can do the f- the functions of the CFO,
• 24:38
  but when they're fractional, you need them to feel like they're part of the team.
• 24:41
  They need to be part of the team for it to, for it to work.
• 24:44
  And so, um, I hired an absolute home run, and, um, that's really drove our
• 24:52
  business decisions, our budgeting, our equipment purchases, our hiring
• 24:56
  process, um, pay bands, all that stuff.
• 25:00
  Having that person on the team who, you know, really feels a part of the team, uh,
• 25:05
  was a huge step forward for us as we look into the future over the next one to three
• 25:08
  years as we try to figure out, you know, whether it's via acquisition or partnering
• 25:13
  with the right FEC, um, locations who, who want to partner with an operator.
• 25:19
  You know, those are, those are big-ticket items, um, and, and if you don't have
• 25:25
  the right plan and don't have the right core values to find the right partners,
• 25:30
  right, it- you're gonna, you're gonna set yourself up to, to struggle.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:35
  Absolutely.
• 25:36
  So look, as we wind down, uh, and, and all the insight you've provided has just
• 25:41
  been fantastic- You know, my, my final question to you is what does it mean to
• 25:49
  you to carry your family's legacy forward?
• 25:53
  You've gone through all of this, and you've made the transitions,
• 25:58
  you've made the changes.
• 25:59
  You guys are growing by leaps and bounds at a time where a lot of
• 26:03
  companies, if they break even for a quarter or a year, they're thrilled.
• 26:07
  You guys are growing.
• 26:09
  How does it feel to carry that family's legacy forward?
• 26:15
  Speaker: Um, it's,
• 26:18
  it's, it's a,
• 26:21
  I guess, a feeling of, of pride and, um, I mean, my family's
• 26:28
  been blessed, uh, immensely.
• 26:31
  Um, unfortunately, we lost my dad about a year and a half ago, and so the
• 26:36
  bittersweet part of it is he got to see me grow into, to, to, to that point, right?
• 26:41
  And we kind of got to do it lockstep together.
• 26:43
  Um, and, and knowing that I have, you know, those three generations
• 26:49
  of, of business owners and leaders, um, to step in those shoes, and
• 26:55
  I'm never gonna replace them.
• 26:57
  Like I, I'm, I'm, I, I, I get that.
• 27:01
  But to carry on what they have and to, to continue that, um, that
• 27:08
  faith-based and family-based, uh, business, you know, that's, it,
• 27:13
  it's, it's a pretty unique feeling.
• 27:15
  I don't know if there's necessarily a word like that I can find right now.
• 27:19
  Um, but it, it just... It's, it's, it's such a blessing to
• 27:25
  have, you know, great people.
• 27:27
  Um, my brothers and sisters who aren't in the industry, like every time we get
• 27:31
  together, they're, "Hey, how's Pioneer doing?" Or, "How's this person doing?"
• 27:34
  Like they, they all still are really rooting for me.
• 27:37
  Um, same with my mom.
• 27:40
  So yeah, it's a, it's a great feeling.
• 27:44
  Um, very humbled to be, to be in this position.
• 27:48
  I know there's lots of people out there that, that maybe not had
• 27:51
  the, the opportunity to take over a fourth-generation business,
• 27:54
  but, um, it's, it's been great.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: And what advice would you give to your kids or other
• 28:05
  people who are thinking about taking over a family business?
• 28:08
  What, what would you say that they should do before they try?
• 28:12
  Speaker: Uh, check your ego at the door.
• 28:14
  Even when you think you're ready, you're probably not, 'cause I thought
• 28:19
  I was ready and it took three years for me to get some sense knocked into me.
• 28:23
  Um, surround yourself with people that are smarter than you, and shut up and listen.
• 28:30
  You'll, you'll learn a lot by just, by listening and asking questions and
• 28:35
  taking advice humbly and- Even if it's negative, like find the positive in, in
• 28:43
  that feedback, um, because that's really how you're gonna evolve and grow as a,
• 28:48
  as a business owner, as a, you know,
• 28:52
  m- m- member within our industry.
• 28:54
  Um, like those are all definitely learning points and lessons that it, it took me
• 28:59
  a while to, to figure that stuff out.
• 29:02
  So if, uh, anyone wants a little bit of a shortcut, those are the, those
• 29:05
  are the things that I would suggest.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 29:08
  Well, Luke, congratulations on your success and- Thank you ... the
• 29:12
  incredible legacy that you have at Pioneer and the legacy that you're
• 29:17
  gonna leave at Pioneer, too, because you're, you're doing some great things
• 29:20
  there, so you should be proud of that.
• 29:21
  But thank you-
• 29:22
  Speaker: Thank
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: you ... for sharing all this insight with us, and I
• 29:25
  think it's, it's something that resonates with a lot of folks.
• 29:28
  So thank you so much, Luke.
• 29:30
  Speaker: You got it, Denise.
• 29:30
  Thank you.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Well, we hope today's conversation has given you some
• 29:35
  practical tools to help you sharpen your edge and accelerate your growth.
• 29:41
  If you're ready to grow your team, your business, or yourself, contact us at
• 29:46
  thegrowthprogroup.com and set up a free growth call with one of our coaches.
• 29:52
  Once again, a special thanks to our sponsors, Embed, Party Center
• 29:56
  Software, A&A Global, Betson, Semnox-