Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 19 - The Transformative Power of Vision and Transparency in Business with JS Bull

Transcript

Ep. 19 - The Transformative Power of Vision and Transparency in Business with JS Bull · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:05
  Mark Zweig: Hey everybody, this is Mark Swig, and I'm back here with my buddy, eric Howerton and his business partner, js Bull.
• 0:16
  Mark Zweig: I don't know anything about JS, other than what Eric's told me.
• 0:21
  Mark Zweig: That's the way we planned it, so this should be an interesting show.
• 0:25
  Mark Zweig: This is another episode of Big Talk About.
• 0:29
  JS Bull: Small Business.
• 0:32
  Eric Howerton: He hasn't been practicing that.
• 0:33
  Eric Howerton: We hearse that every time we do.
• 0:35
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, we're getting better.
• 0:36
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, at first it was like Eric said business and I said business.
• 0:40
  Mark Zweig: Then I started saying business and he said business.
• 0:42
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, I think we've got it down now it's a disruptor.
• 0:46
  Eric Howerton: It is, yeah, you were it.
• 0:47
  Eric Howerton: Oh, yeah, sure, this is good for you.
• 0:49
  Mark Zweig: Let's throw some other cliches out.
• 0:51
  Mark Zweig: Can we be storytellers today?
• 0:53
  Mark Zweig: Ooh, I like that.
• 0:54
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, we pivot or take a deep dive into JS Bull's background.
• 1:01
  JS Bull: I read the things not to do and this is basically the whole list, right?
• 1:06
  Mark Zweig: I just have to poke fun at that.
• 1:08
  JS Bull: No acronyms and cliches.
• 1:09
  JS Bull: Let's do it, let's go.
• 1:13
  Mark Zweig: We're part of a cohort today.
• 1:14
  Mark Zweig: It's never a group anymore, it's a cohort, co-hort.
• 1:17
  Mark Zweig: Everything's a cohort.
• 1:18
  Mark Zweig: I like that.
• 1:19
  Mark Zweig: We're a cohort of three here in the studio today and I guess pairs of each other know each other here.
• 1:27
  Mark Zweig: Eric and I know each other, and Eric and JS know each other.
• 1:31
  Eric Howerton: I was actually thinking on the way to this podcast.
• 1:34
  Eric Howerton: I was like this is actually a really special podcast for me individually.
• 1:39
  Eric Howerton: I got two of my probably favorite business people that I've ever met two incredible leaders and fantastic entrepreneurs that I've known for a long time, each in separate, kind of like separate lives, but all in the same town and you'll never met.
• 1:56
  Eric Howerton: That's what's, nuts man, crazy, right?
• 1:58
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it is absolutely crazy, but I mean it's awesome.
• 2:01
  JS Bull: I'm pretty sure I've heard your name more than you've heard my name.
• 2:05
  Mark Zweig: I've heard your name.
• 2:05
  Mark Zweig: I said no, worries about that.
• 2:07
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I talked about you a lot, so let's talk a little bit.
• 2:12
  Mark Zweig: How did you two guys get acquainted?
• 2:15
  Eric Howerton: Do you want to tell the story to us?
• 2:16
  Eric Howerton: Well, I can tell it real quick.
• 2:18
  Eric Howerton: I was basically back at one of my agency companies back in like 2008 or nine or somewhere around there.
• 2:25
  Eric Howerton: Okay, and it was a small two person team, three person team ahead of the time and I and JS was working at PACE Industries leading sales there, and I walked in and we actually got introduced by a friend, oh, nicholas J McLeod.
• 2:41
  Eric Howerton: Oh, yeah, right, and we were on the rocks down in Dixon and when he introduced us and then I set up a meeting with you, so I went down there to pitch him some photography creative services back in the day and JS got along pretty well and then he actually did some work.
• 2:57
  JS Bull: But then I, when Eric decided to come back in and we were going to say, yes, you got the work.
• 3:02
  JS Bull: And he said oh, actually I can't do it.
• 3:04
  JS Bull: No.
• 3:06
  Eric Howerton: It's like well, I'll tell you another job.
• 3:08
  Eric Howerton: It's the pull away.
• 3:09
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's the job.
• 3:11
  Eric Howerton: I worked at Rockfish Interactive Up here for not very long, but I went on the board there and out quickly.
• 3:18
  Mark Zweig: Isn't that the one I think my brother's company ended up buying.
• 3:21
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, the WPP, yeah, yeah, rockfish, I knew it.
• 3:24
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, they were a really great digital company here in town.
• 3:27
  Eric Howerton: They did a lot of stuff for Walmart suppliers, and so JS had actually worked there before too, and so, anyway, I did a little stint there.
• 3:33
  Eric Howerton: Then I went back out on my own like not very long after that, and then, uh, then you went to work for Swag Group.
• 3:39
  Eric Howerton: Then I went to Swag Y, swag Group yeah, swag Y with you, yeah, so we got introduced in 2010.
• 3:44
  Eric Howerton: So it was like 2008 with JS, then 2010 with Mark, and then we did the white spider thing and we continued working with Mark and then JS, I went back and approached them about some services through white spider with pace industries.
• 3:59
  Eric Howerton: We did some work with JS then, and then JS also had one of his side gigs uh, kobe valve, that you're doing.
• 4:08
  Eric Howerton: What's that?
• 4:11
  JS Bull: Kobe valve was a startup along the way and, uh, a local inventor came up with the concept.
• 4:15
  JS Bull: It was an emergency tire valve, okay, which we probably no one thinks is actually at need, right, um, but this tire valve, it was innovative because you could stick it from the outside of the wheel in, okay, and what it was really good for was off-road riding.
• 4:30
  JS Bull: So if you hit a stump or a rock and you shear off a valve stem, which happens more often than you'd think, yeah, typically, your, your seat, aatv would be done, right, and in this case, you know, as long as the tire hadn't been unseated, um, sticking in from the outside, you tighten it up, create the seal from the backside and air it up.
• 4:49
  JS Bull: Interesting Air can, and never heard about that.
• 4:51
  JS Bull: How do you do it?
• 4:53
  JS Bull: Uh, so, uh, very, uh, beneficially, sold it to the inventor, um, and that gave us the money to buy into white spider.
• 5:03
  Eric Howerton: Awesome, yeah.
• 5:04
  Eric Howerton: So along the way, js White Spider was a white spider client, so was pace industries, uh-huh.
• 5:08
  Eric Howerton: And I tell you I was actually talking with somebody earlier today about us meeting and I was in in in kind of the when JS came aboard, white spider.
• 5:17
  Eric Howerton: But I was, like, you know, the one thing I knew about JS when he was a client but he's also on our board of advisors as well, but as a client I remember JS coming into our office with work, right that we were, that our team was doing.
• 5:30
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I've never seen a client that would sit down with my team you know who who was paying in like coach them and mentor them, and I just thought that was one of the coolest things.
• 5:39
  Eric Howerton: I was like man that's.
• 5:40
  Eric Howerton: You know, that is a class, a leader right there you know.
• 5:44
  Eric Howerton: So it just really impressed me.
• 5:44
  Eric Howerton: And then, but of course, uh, when I bought out McColl, founder, alex and Maude with from white spider, I was just went over to JS and for advice, I'm like hey man, I was like, look, this is what we're doing, this and that.
• 5:57
  Eric Howerton: And then just it starts kind of a lawn to where it's good timing for JS to hey, you already decided to go.
• 6:02
  Eric Howerton: Worst timing for me ever.
• 6:03
  JS Bull: Which was absolutely the worst timing.
• 6:04
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, yeah, tell that little story.
• 6:06
  Eric Howerton: That's a good one, yeah, so go ahead.
• 6:08
  Eric Howerton: I'm just going to ask, did you already decided to go in the software business, then yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, cause we already had software about a year or so that we're developing and yeah, we're turning it to Q news.
• 6:20
  JS Bull: It probably had four to six kind of features or products in it, um, and we get into more later, but probably 32.
• 6:26
  JS Bull: That had been started but not finished.
• 6:28
  JS Bull: Right, my fault.
• 6:29
  JS Bull: Yeah, scroll, chasing nuts yeah, scroll, yeah.
• 6:32
  JS Bull: And so we got this concept and so, as he starts to lay it out for me, it was a really good time for me in my career at pace industries but I was really itching to get back in the world of Walmart but also had a daughter on my first child on the way, yeah, um, and it was very comfortable and my income and set up in life and everything else.
• 6:54
  JS Bull: And he came over and started talking to me about this and I just got a little bit jazzed up, right, and I mean I was like man, this is, I missed this stuff.
• 7:02
  Mark Zweig: Right yeah.
• 7:04
  JS Bull: I was like I missed the company's and software in the past.
• 7:06
  JS Bull: So, um, you know, I just said just thinking through it, thinking, oh man, I wish I was doing this exciting stuff.
• 7:13
  JS Bull: Right, I was like man, I kind of wish you'd asked me to help you buy Alex out.
• 7:16
  JS Bull: And he stood up and slapped the bar and said let's do it.
• 7:21
  Mark Zweig: I'm not too late, brother.
• 7:22
  Mark Zweig: Sit down my friend.
• 7:23
  Mark Zweig: Sit down my friend.
• 7:24
  Mark Zweig: He is decisive.
• 7:26
  Mark Zweig: I like that.
• 7:26
  Mark Zweig: I guess that's why you came over here.
• 7:27
  JS Bull: Okay yeah, it wasn't to come over and drink my beer, it was to recruit me To recruit me as a partner.
• 7:33
  JS Bull: Yeah, but over the next, and that was probably January or February.
• 7:37
  JS Bull: Yeah, like.
• 7:37
  Eric Howerton: February of 2019.
• 7:39
  Eric Howerton: Yep, and then, quickly, we made the deal.
• 7:42
  Eric Howerton: We were closed up mid-April, mid-april, and I'm bottoming the beginning of.
• 7:46
  Mark Zweig: May Wait a minute Now.
• 7:46
  Mark Zweig: You had your first kid in 2019?
• 7:48
  Mark Zweig: I did.
• 7:49
  JS Bull: You went into Wildwatch?
• 7:49
  JS Bull: Oh, I did.
• 7:50
  JS Bull: Yeah, you know this.
• 7:51
  JS Bull: Pros and cons to both.
• 7:52
  JS Bull: Yeah, that's not what we're here to talk about, but like that was about, it all, it's nice Like having a steady income.
• 7:58
  JS Bull: Of course I gave that up to George.
• 7:59
  JS Bull: Sure.
• 7:59
  JS Bull: But it's nice to, like you know, be kind of established, absolutely ready.
• 8:03
  JS Bull: You do a lot of stuff.
• 8:04
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you know, people are like you'll never be ready to have kids.
• 8:07
  Mark Zweig: I'm like, no, you actually can be ready.
• 8:10
  Eric Howerton: I was pretty great.
• 8:10
  Eric Howerton: You're a late bloomer too.
• 8:12
  Eric Howerton: Well, I mean.
• 8:14
  Mark Zweig: I had him over a long period of time.
• 8:16
  Mark Zweig: My kids span 24 years, wow.
• 8:20
  Mark Zweig: So yeah, try them.
• 8:21
  Mark Zweig: But I got a 12 year old.
• 8:22
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, bro, had her at 53.
• 8:25
  Mark Zweig: So I was older than you.
• 8:26
  Mark Zweig: There you go.
• 8:27
  Eric Howerton: Wow, yeah, so we JS joins mid-April 2019.
• 8:29
  Eric Howerton: As a partner, 2019.
• 8:31
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, so we joined mid-April 2019.
• 8:34
  Eric Howerton: Then in May he came full time at White Spider because he had to kind of close up the stuff and pace because he'd been there so long and leading the company in a lot of ways Well, leading the sales of the company, excuse me.
• 8:45
  Eric Howerton: Well, not in all sales, but, yeah, north America sales yeah, like five of the, like 10 divisions.
• 8:52
  Eric Howerton: Okay, let's, let's half.
• 8:53
  Eric Howerton: That's a lot of sales.
• 8:55
  Eric Howerton: That's a lot of sales.
• 8:55
  Eric Howerton: So he's telling something, though it's just not overstate Right?
• 8:59
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I know you're right.
• 9:00
  Eric Howerton: You gotta watch him on that.
• 9:03
  Mark Zweig: You know, accuracy is a gray area.
• 9:04
  Mark Zweig: You're right.
• 9:04
  Mark Zweig: Oh, and Z-generation never all entrepreneurs do.
• 9:07
  Mark Zweig: It's all good.
• 9:08
  Mark Zweig: It's like how many people do you have?
• 9:09
  Mark Zweig: They got 10.
• 9:10
  Mark Zweig: It's like, well, I've got about 15 or 20 back there, yeah, yeah.
• 9:14
  Eric Howerton: Most of you are in the process.
• 9:16
  Eric Howerton: It's like what is it?
• 9:17
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 9:18
  Eric Howerton: So I mean, by the time that somebody would look into it, it's gonna be 15.
• 9:21
  Eric Howerton: I'm like 15.
• 9:21
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, exactly, that's the way I was thinking it's always the way it is.
• 9:24
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I'm kind of a factor.
• 9:28
  Eric Howerton: You know well, he came in May, and then it wasn't two months later that we were having a bologna sandwich at the Amish restaurant in downtown Springdale where our office was.
• 9:37
  Mark Zweig: I didn't even know there was an Amish restaurant there.
• 9:39
  Mark Zweig: There was, yeah, it was.
• 9:40
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, because he's not there anymore.
• 9:42
  Eric Howerton: It was fantastic.
• 9:43
  Eric Howerton: But they had whole main sandwiches and stuff in Paws too.
• 9:46
  Eric Howerton: Their Paws were unbelievable.
• 9:47
  Eric Howerton: Paws were good.
• 9:47
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, pie, we like pie.
• 9:49
  Eric Howerton: And so I sit there over that bologna sandwich.
• 9:51
  Eric Howerton: I go JS.
• 9:52
  Eric Howerton: You know I was like man.
• 9:53
  Eric Howerton: It's like I really think you should be CEO, because I was CEO at that time.
• 9:57
  Eric Howerton: The company, the name was COO.
• 9:59
  Eric Howerton: At the time I was like I think you really need to be CEO.
• 10:01
  Eric Howerton: I think you can take this place where it needs to go, like you're the man.
• 10:05
  JS Bull: And he didn't just ask me, he asked me mid-bite of the sandwich, of course.
• 10:09
  JS Bull: Right, so basically choke on bologna.
• 10:11
  JS Bull: That was a lot of bologna.
• 10:13
  Mark Zweig: But I'm sorry, I just do that.
• 10:16
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, no cliches, it's too easy.
• 10:18
  Mark Zweig: Bologna is really like a giant hot dog.
• 10:20
  Mark Zweig: Did you ever ponder that?
• 10:21
  Mark Zweig: It's like a giant flat one.
• 10:23
  Mark Zweig: It's like a giant uncooked hot dog.
• 10:25
  Mark Zweig: It's a guilty pleasure.
• 10:28
  Eric Howerton: Yeah.
• 10:28
  Eric Howerton: So I asked him.
• 10:29
  Eric Howerton: He's like you know, I mean I'd be interested in them, like great, let's go tell the team, mike right now.
• 10:33
  Eric Howerton: Let's go, yeah, you're decisive, js is very thoughtful and considerate and planning.
• 10:41
  Eric Howerton: And he's like, hold on.
• 10:42
  Eric Howerton: He goes, let's, we need to get some things together for him.
• 10:44
  Eric Howerton: I'm like, okay, I'll be patient with this, but anyway, he obviously took the CEO realm.
• 10:48
  Eric Howerton: I mean, and just I mean the rest is history.
• 10:51
  Eric Howerton: I mean just fantastic leadership.
• 10:53
  Eric Howerton: I mean I've learned so much.
• 10:55
  Eric Howerton: You've got to be in that and I'm the biggest.
• 10:58
  Eric Howerton: The smartest thing I did was get the hell out of this way.
• 11:01
  Mark Zweig: Well, you're not egocentric, which is why you've been able to build a business and find people like just to be partners.
• 11:07
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, so true.
• 11:08
  JS Bull: I mean Eric's got.
• 11:09
  JS Bull: He's one of the most self-aware people, just understands what he's good at and wants to do that and understands if someone else is because somebody else is always better at something than you right, right, exactly, and then just letting them go do what they're great at.
• 11:25
  JS Bull: Right, and I made it.
• 11:27
  JS Bull: Throughout the time, the four or five years we've been together at White Spider, you've done it in multiple ways and shifted your focus to where you could add the most value and we built a great team around it.
• 11:38
  Mark Zweig: Yep sure did yeah been unbelievably successful.
• 11:41
  Mark Zweig: Are you still running White Spider now?
• 11:43
  Mark Zweig: I am?
• 11:45
  JS Bull: on my way out.
• 11:45
  JS Bull: Okay, so when we sold, we sold in November of 21.
• 11:51
  JS Bull: Yep, right.
• 11:51
  JS Bull: And then we had a two-year earn out period, so contracted for two more years and that ends at the end of December this year.
• 11:59
  JS Bull: And so you know, I had discussions with them about what I could do, but the reality is we've been integrated into a central leadership team and I'm pretty comfortable in my role as CEO, and they've already got a CEO or two there, so you know Little redundancy.
• 12:18
  JS Bull: Yeah, yes, but you know, really, I think you know we put our head down and pushed really hard for the few years.
• 12:27
  Mark Zweig: Oh yeah, it was unbelievable.
• 12:28
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you've been so successful, it really it's a tremendous experience.
• 12:32
  Eric Howerton: Well, it's been cool because Mark's been watching the style line.
• 12:33
  Eric Howerton: I know he didn't know you, but I mean you know watching what we're doing and the flips and the moments that were made.
• 12:40
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, but the trajectory was awesome.
• 12:43
  Mark Zweig: I have it on this, buddy.
• 12:44
  Mark Zweig: That's what I'd like to say.
• 12:45
  Mark Zweig: But no, you guys did an amazing job.
• 12:49
  Mark Zweig: Now, who was it that bought the company again?
• 12:52
  JS Bull: I know they're British, right, yeah?
• 12:54
  JS Bull: So Essential is the name that came out of the bodice, which had a traditional events and marketing kind of side of the business and then a digital commerce side.
• 13:02
  JS Bull: And so the digital commerce side has been, is being divested and sold to Omnicom now, and it's branded Flywheel, which was the largest acquisition that Essential made in the digital commerce side.
• 13:16
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, flywheel was kind of like what we were for Walmart, but they were on the.
• 13:19
  Mark Zweig: Amos yeah, yeah.
• 13:20
  JS Bull: Amos, larger and bigger, yeah, yeah, actually the number one DSP buyer in the world.
• 13:25
  Mark Zweig: Wait, what's a DSP now?
• 13:28
  Mark Zweig: Okay.
• 13:29
  JS Bull: Manside platform.
• 13:30
  JS Bull: Okay Advertising Advertising trade.
• 13:33
  Mark Zweig: The rules.
• 13:33
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, no, I agree Well.
• 13:36
  JS Bull: I didn't think for a second on what it even stands for, because the acronym is the name of it.
• 13:43
  Mark Zweig: You came up with it quickly.
• 13:44
  Mark Zweig: I hope I got it right, what I do too.
• 13:48
  Mark Zweig: We can edit that list, so I'm just curious how did you guys find this buyer?
• 13:52
  Mark Zweig: Did they approach you?
• 13:55
  JS Bull: So you know it was like shoot.
• 13:58
  JS Bull: The week after I joined White Spider, my announcement of joining somebody at Nielsen Brand Bank saw it and thought you know what we've been thinking.
• 14:07
  JS Bull: We might you might be a good partner might as well reach out now with this.
• 14:11
  JS Bull: And you reached out to me, and so it was like people were just starting to hear about us in different ways at that time and were coming to us and saying, hey, we think that you guys are heading the right direction and you'd be a great synergy with what we've got.
• 14:28
  JS Bull: So we'd like to talk about buyer and I mean I can remember when we were on Emma in Springdale and the office that Eric picked out where I saw photos of it recently when the RV was our conference room because there wasn't room inside the building other than the bathroom.
• 14:44
  JS Bull: Famous fans for it.
• 14:45
  Eric Howerton: It's a bathroom.
• 14:45
  JS Bull: It's not a great conference call place.
• 14:46
  Eric Howerton: I'll put the bathroom in the center of a 2,000 square foot building or 3,000 square foot building, rotten, smacked-up center and there wasn't another room.
• 14:56
  JS Bull: Any other one is no other walls.
• 14:58
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, so Well, he used to do the podcast side of that motorbike too Exactly.
• 15:01
  JS Bull: Yes, I mean where you've come, I mean from there to here, I love it.
• 15:05
  JS Bull: It's amazing.
• 15:06
  JS Bull: Yeah, it is amazing Country place.
• 15:08
  JS Bull: So I remember sitting in that RV and taking multiple calls over a period of months, right, with people saying you know, we think we'd like to acquire you, and we'd always start the same way, which was it's too early, See, and I mean we'd literally talk about pivots.
• 15:24
  JS Bull: We literally kicked out all of our existing revenue, Right.
• 15:27
  JS Bull: I know and shifted to try to be a software company.
• 15:30
  Mark Zweig: That's amazing really.
• 15:31
  Mark Zweig: I yeah most companies don't have the guts to do that.
• 15:34
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean, I would have a hard time with that because Were there two smarts to do that.
• 15:38
  Mark Zweig: No, I love all revenue.
• 15:41
  Mark Zweig: Okay, I'm not one of those guys that microanalyzes every revenue stream and then goes well, we only made a 22% margin on that and we should make a 47%.
• 15:53
  Mark Zweig: Therefore, that goes because all that revenue goes to pay overhead and it's profitable, right, yeah, and it may.
• 16:00
  Mark Zweig: Nobody ever looks at what happens if I don't have that revenue.
• 16:04
  Mark Zweig: Okay, that's the thing with the MBAs.
• 16:07
  Mark Zweig: They just they microanalyze it, but they don't go.
• 16:10
  Mark Zweig: Okay, now it's gone, All right, it's completely gone.
• 16:13
  Mark Zweig: Now, how do I pay for all the overhead this is paying for?
• 16:16
  Mark Zweig: And they also don't understand necessarily the linkages, Like that business also brings in all this stuff that we make boatloads of money on.
• 16:26
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, you guys had the guts to do it and you focused and you pulled it off.
• 16:31
  Mark Zweig: It was a tremendous success, yeah.
• 16:34
  JS Bull: I'll tell you why we did it that way too, because I think I feel like this is a fairly interesting case study.
• 16:39
  JS Bull: People can learn from it, sure.
• 16:40
  JS Bull: So when I came in, we had a software company with three developers and one was part time and they're trying to build software while most of our income stream was building websites or other companies.
• 16:54
  JS Bull: Sure, that's crazy, yeah.
• 16:55
  JS Bull: And so I said, hey, I can't run a software company without developers dedicated to the software.
• 17:01
  JS Bull: Yeah, it kind of makes sense.
• 17:03
  JS Bull: And so, as we looked at the finances, we had a lot of accounts receivable, and some of it was just timing of terms, but some of it was it was poorly acted on and collected over time over the transition of Alex, so that was your runway, then was that AR that collect funding, right, yeah, like that was our money we needed.
• 17:22
  JS Bull: Now, the miscalculation that I made was that our sales cycle on the software was longer than I expected it to be, so I thought that was going to cover us until we had monthly recurring revenue from the software, right, and the sales cycle was six to eight months instead of three, right, right, and so that was just a misestimation on my part.
• 17:44
  JS Bull: But I mean, we literally I remember you pulled it off though January of 2020, we had $75,000 in expenses and $13,000 in revenue, right, and we're fielding a call from someone wanting to buy us on a multiple of our revenue.
• 17:58
  JS Bull: And, if I get, too, early.
• 18:01
  JS Bull: Yeah, right, but you know and so.
• 18:05
  JS Bull: But what's funny is back to like these people meeting with us.
• 18:09
  JS Bull: Everyone of them would say let us be the judge of that.
• 18:12
  Eric Howerton: Right.
• 18:13
  Eric Howerton: Yeah.
• 18:13
  JS Bull: Very like, kind, but a little bit condescending, but sure.
• 18:16
  JS Bull: I must be the judge of that.
• 18:17
  JS Bull: We're the experts.
• 18:18
  JS Bull: And guess what?
• 18:19
  JS Bull: Three weeks later, they're like you know what?
• 18:20
  JS Bull: I think it's a little early, yeah.
• 18:22
  Eric Howerton: That's what it comes in, I mean, I think another lesson here, though too you talk about the case study is a lot of folks don't understand the amount of time that it takes to field inquiries like that from an M&A or from an investment standpoint?
• 18:36
  Mark Zweig: No, it does, and it takes your time away from the business you're trying to run and you take the time away.
• 18:41
  Eric Howerton: Not only just someone, but the most important leader in the company is CTO Right.
• 18:45
  Eric Howerton: It takes your focus away from the operation.
• 18:48
  JS Bull: But you cannot do it Right.
• 18:49
  JS Bull: Yeah, because a lot of those, even though people said, hey, they stayed in touch, right, they were options Some of them came back to the table later when they decided we're going to sell Sure Right, and so you've got to do that from a networking standpoint and to learn too.
• 19:03
  JS Bull: You know, because I'm sorry, but every founder believes their company is worth more than it is.
• 19:10
  Mark Zweig: Right, oh gosh, I've been involved in hundreds of transactions and it's unbelievable.
• 19:14
  Mark Zweig: You see, these founders that when my industry I came out of, there's a lot of old farts and they're like 72.
• 19:22
  Mark Zweig: They've done nothing to develop any successors, they don't invest in technology, they don't invest in marketing, okay, and they think you're going to come along and pay them a huge price for their company, which is basically needs everything.
• 19:36
  Mark Zweig: You know what I mean?
• 19:37
  Mark Zweig: It's like no, you're not.
• 19:40
  Mark Zweig: Let me restart it from inside.
• 19:42
  Mark Zweig: I do this To make this something that you could sell, but anyway.
• 19:46
  Mark Zweig: So, yeah, everybody thinks it's worth more than it is.
• 19:49
  Mark Zweig: But I mean, I just wish I had been smart enough and I kicked myself every day and I did try to get in the software business a couple of times.
• 20:00
  Mark Zweig: But this whole idea of the valuation of these SaaS companies, yeah, and that's saying obviously that's the script, Sorry, the main reason I joined the audience.
• 20:08
  Mark Zweig: It just blows me away.
• 20:11
  Mark Zweig: I mean, it absolutely blows me away.
• 20:14
  Mark Zweig: But you know as well as I do, a lot of these companies are just based on air and you guys actually develop something that works and you demonstrated it by getting clients that pay you to do it and you filled a niche in the market that was unfilled.
• 20:31
  Mark Zweig: That was a really big niche, in a way.
• 20:33
  Mark Zweig: I mean Walmartcom, yeah, I mean after Amazon, I guess they're probably the biggest, aren't they?
• 20:40
  Mark Zweig: I mean not counting international competitors like Alibaba.
• 20:44
  Mark Zweig: But yeah, yeah.
• 20:45
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 20:45
  Mark Zweig: I mean, it was absolutely brilliant.
• 20:48
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and so I mean I think that you know, in addition to that time, though, I mean, what was also important about those conversations.
• 20:56
  Eric Howerton: It's just the approach to, though, and I mean JS was.
• 21:01
  Eric Howerton: I mean it's fantastic watching him.
• 21:04
  Eric Howerton: He's a good poker player, huh, I mean one of the best negotiators ever met.
• 21:08
  Eric Howerton: I mean he is, but it's very, you know, it's methodical, it's considerate, it's fair.
• 21:14
  Eric Howerton: I mean there's always a, you know, a three win there.
• 21:16
  Eric Howerton: Sure, and I mean it was awesome, right, and just I mean talking about get down the way.
• 21:21
  Eric Howerton: I knew that I was not, I was never going to be in that position, is, you know, especially with white spider, because it was so subjective, right, I mean I'm just the dude bleeding on the streets, you know screaming.
• 21:31
  Eric Howerton: You know that this is going to work.
• 21:32
  Eric Howerton: Letting on the street, yeah, I mean I will.
• 21:34
  Eric Howerton: I had visions of.
• 21:36
  JS Bull: Oh, it's the Walmart.
• 21:36
  JS Bull: I describe you Right.
• 21:38
  JS Bull: I describe, I say, for about 10 years Eric was the guy on the soapbox saying e-commerce is coming, e-commerce is coming to the Walmart community and everyone's like put your daughter, put your head down and keep walking.
• 21:50
  JS Bull: You know crazy guys here, you know, but he was working the whole time.
• 21:54
  JS Bull: He's just honestly like the failure any failures along the way were that you were too early.
• 21:59
  Mark Zweig: That's yeah, I believe that.
• 22:00
  Mark Zweig: Sure, I mean, I remember when Eric started white spider, he told me he wanted to work for these CPG companies and I thought I'm like Eric, you know more.
• 22:10
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you remember that, oh, that I was so wrong.
• 22:12
  Mark Zweig: Clearly it's like you know more about the professional services industries.
• 22:16
  Mark Zweig: Why not just work for them?
• 22:17
  Mark Zweig: They all need marketing help, you know.
• 22:20
  Mark Zweig: And how wrong was I?
• 22:21
  Mark Zweig: But he's like no, they're up here.
• 22:22
  Mark Zweig: You know, this is where the action is, we're in the heart of it.
• 22:25
  Mark Zweig: And then you know, I mean like West Arkansas.
• 22:27
  Eric Howerton: The reality is is Walmart had a and you know, still does have.
• 22:31
  Eric Howerton: I mean, all retailers have problems, like everybody has problems, right, and I mean it's just blatantly obvious and it's also you could see the trend.
• 22:37
  Eric Howerton: But anyway, I mean so, but being subjective in that, I mean I think that's another thing that's good lesson for founders or entrepreneurs too is, like you know, like the good ones can say okay, I'm not in the right position nor in the right mindset to approach the scenario, and especially when you have somebody that is like that, they can really do it.
• 22:59
  Eric Howerton: And so I believe you know JS would go off and he would have a lot of those conversations and I mean, even when we did go through, you know, the acquisition, I mean he just continued that on instilled us today, right, and so-.
• 23:13
  Mark Zweig: It takes trust that oh yeah, trust.
• 23:14
  Mark Zweig: I mean, obviously you felt like he was competent and he was representing your interests.
• 23:21
  Mark Zweig: Oh that's an intelligent and capable way, absolutely, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs, when you really come down to it.
• 23:27
  Mark Zweig: I mean, keep in mind, this is called big talk about small business.
• 23:31
  Mark Zweig: Small business people don't trust anybody.
• 23:34
  Mark Zweig: They are freaking control freaks, and this is why they don't grow and extract value, which is what an entrepreneur does with their business.
• 23:44
  Mark Zweig: Okay, they just make a living, okay, and then it peaks out somewhere along the way and then it declines and if somebody comes in with an idea they're so motivated about protection.
• 23:56
  Eric Howerton: Protection is my idea, like I mean I remember and speaking a lot during this I don't want to JS, but I mean I do remember a lot of folks saying you know, especially after we got acquired, well, that was your baby or whatever.
• 24:08
  Eric Howerton: I mean I left the baby scene years and years ago Like it was its own identity.
• 24:14
  JS Bull: We could have it, but it was really unique Like you can't sell yourself short on that.
• 24:18
  JS Bull: And I remember we said at crisis brewing out on the patio, and that's when we kind of hammered out the deal yeah, bought in, right.
• 24:25
  JS Bull: And I said, eric, there's one thing that we've got to be aligned on If we build this thing up, we're gonna sell it.
• 24:34
  JS Bull: There's not gonna be any of this, founder.
• 24:35
  JS Bull: No, I don't want to let my thing go.
• 24:37
  Mark Zweig: Oh, yeah, once we get it to the spot, you gotta have a cream in on what your exit strategy is gonna be and yeah, I promise you, like the entire time we were building it up, I was nervous that he was gonna go.
• 24:48
  JS Bull: I don't know, this is my baby, I don't want to let it go.
• 24:51
  JS Bull: But when we got the offers across, I mean he was more high five than yeah.
• 24:55
  Mark Zweig: well, he's smart, he's smart, yeah, yeah, he can figure all that out.
• 25:01
  Eric Howerton: Yeah well, I mean, you know.
• 25:02
  Eric Howerton: But you're right, People do have that.
• 25:04
  Eric Howerton: Try.
• 25:04
  Eric Howerton: You gotta think about the company as a company and it's filled of people and everybody's working to that same thing.
• 25:12
  Eric Howerton: Everybody needs to be rewarded, everybody needs to be blessed by it.
• 25:14
  Eric Howerton: Everybody needs to.
• 25:15
  Eric Howerton: You know, I mean that's what companies do.
• 25:18
  Eric Howerton: It's not about the founder mentality, I mean, I'm just you know, good companies do Right.
• 25:23
  Mark Zweig: I think the other thing is too like a lot of founders feel like oh, if I sell the company somehow I'm shorting my employees A lot of times, when you sell the company, you give your employees new opportunities they would not have had if you had not sold the company.
• 25:37
  JS Bull: Yeah, not only that, we shared from the proceeds of the sale.
• 25:40
  JS Bull: You were right exactly the entire thing and like seeing now, it changed a lot of the lives, was the most rewarding thing, the best thing of it.
• 25:46
  Eric Howerton: For me.
• 25:46
  Eric Howerton: The best two days of my entire career are still those two days Like when we, you know, had that sale JS and I got to sit down like we did.
• 25:55
  Eric Howerton: We scheduled 15 minute increments with everybody in the company After a day and a half and took a day and a half, but I mean it was just like did you have any?
• 26:03
  Eric Howerton: I mean we would bring people, folks in and, you know, let them know what their proceeds is.
• 26:08
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's like they just won the lottery, dude and it was, but it was like JS and I just look at it.
• 26:12
  Eric Howerton: I mean, man, it's just like this emotion, tears.
• 26:15
  JS Bull: It was funny cause different people reacting different ways.
• 26:17
  JS Bull: Some people were just psyched, you know.
• 26:20
  JS Bull: Some people just I mean just tears started falling.
• 26:23
  JS Bull: We're like, oh we gotta, we have to build them back up before they let us walk out.
• 26:26
  JS Bull: Free will be there.
• 26:27
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it looks like people are getting fired in here, right, did you?
• 26:31
  Mark Zweig: I'm just curious that.
• 26:33
  Mark Zweig: I know this might be a difficult question, but did anybody say like well, actually I expected more than this.
• 26:38
  Mark Zweig: That made you want to slap it we?
• 26:40
  JS Bull: had a person or two who was just like, oh okay, cool face, and walked out.
• 26:44
  JS Bull: And it's also like and I think after some reflection, it's like no one expected it and people respond different and they're you know it's that shock too, and so a lot of times it's not that they weren't grateful or they expected more.
• 26:59
  JS Bull: They probably just were like, oh, holy cow, yeah, they couldn't process it right at the time.
• 27:04
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's just like this reel or something right Went in the lottery man.
• 27:07
  Eric Howerton: That was part of the optional roller coaster cause.
• 27:08
  Eric Howerton: You'd have some of them that would break down and the other ones would be like okay, thanks, and we're like, okay, that was different.
• 27:14
  Mark Zweig: It was like my sister I don't know if I ever told you that story, but she went on Antiques Roadshow and she brought this little Buddha statue at and when they told her they thought it was worth like 80 to 120,000, she almost fainted cause she paying somewhere like 50 to 100 bucks for it.
• 27:30
  Mark Zweig: Eventually she sold it at auction for $2.1 million.
• 27:33
  Mark Zweig: Yes, okay so, but she was shocked.
• 27:37
  Mark Zweig: If you're looking for figuring that, out.
• 27:39
  Mark Zweig: When they said 80 to 120, she's like well you know, she thought I could take my kids on vacation and erupt, you know whatever.
• 27:46
  Mark Zweig: But, anyway.
• 27:48
  Mark Zweig: So yeah, that's shocked.
• 27:49
  Mark Zweig: That must have been so exciting for you, though.
• 27:52
  Mark Zweig: Honestly, what a great time.
• 27:53
  Eric Howerton: Oh, it was man.
• 27:54
  Eric Howerton: It was a huge blessing, I mean.
• 27:55
  Eric Howerton: So I wanna you know, one of the more important things I wanna make sure we get in this podcast when we got you here is you know, I don't know.
• 28:04
  Eric Howerton: Once you give any of your secrets away, js, I do.
• 28:07
  Mark Zweig: I want them to give secrets away.
• 28:09
  JS Bull: Probably not ever gonna write a book, so I might as well put it on.
• 28:11
  Eric Howerton: Well, yeah, as well, but you came in when you came in and we talked about this.
• 28:16
  Eric Howerton: You know small business entrepreneurs, right?
• 28:18
  Eric Howerton: I mean, it was a typical scenario.
• 28:20
  Eric Howerton: I didn't have a roadmap plan.
• 28:22
  Eric Howerton: All I had was I go to Walmart, get some freaking work, and I'd understand what the problems were and I'd run back to the team and I'd say this is where we need to go, like, this is the answer.
• 28:32
  Eric Howerton: Let's all, everybody, migrate toward this mission.
• 28:36
  Mark Zweig: Right.
• 28:37
  Eric Howerton: And I go do it again the next week and the next week.
• 28:39
  Eric Howerton: Well, js comes in and quickly realizes this after the poster boards of ID.
• 28:43
  Eric Howerton: Oh my gosh, this is a great story.
• 28:45
  Eric Howerton: It's a great story.
• 28:46
  Eric Howerton: Tell that story, because this thing can be better for you.
• 28:49
  JS Bull: Yeah, so I mean this is such an epitome of Eric and his personality and vision he's got.
• 28:54
  JS Bull: But also, you know how the vision continues to build more vision before it executes anything right.
• 29:01
  JS Bull: So we got in and I kept hearing these names of these different products and so in our software there are different tools and I always have referred to them as the products, right.
• 29:10
  JS Bull: And so Ski NUJA has 20 something tools.
• 29:12
  JS Bull: He does a software name, right, sure Software product, and I call them, like you know, it's 20 something different products now, but at the time there were about four or five that were live and so I knew of those.
• 29:24
  JS Bull: But then I kept hearing these other names, you know, spider Crush and Itemtron, and I'm just sitting here and I'm like wait, wait, wait.
• 29:31
  JS Bull: Which one is Spider Crush?
• 29:33
  JS Bull: What does that do?
• 29:34
  Eric Howerton: Which one is the average?
• 29:35
  Eric Howerton: One is just one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one one, and I was just like.
• 29:38
  JS Bull: I still don't understand that, but okay, so anyway, you know.
• 29:43
  JS Bull: So at the time, you know, roger Dickey was our head of development and Suzy Owens was our head of product, product and product, yeah, and I don't remember what the official title was, but she was, you know, customer support and kind of like project management, yeah, yeah, what she was doing a lot of.
• 30:02
  JS Bull: And so they start training and I'm like, okay, time out, like let's go get some big posted notes, put them on the wall.
• 30:10
  JS Bull: And at the time we're in this temporary office and it was smaller than the shrimp right here that we're in, right, yeah, but I was like let's write up the name of whatever we're gonna build.
• 30:21
  JS Bull: I wanna know what it does, how important it is to the customer, how much work has been done, how much work has yet to do, and is the work that needs to be done front end or back end?
• 30:33
  JS Bull: So user interface side, or like like make it work, right.
• 30:38
  JS Bull: And then I wanna go through and prioritize them.
• 30:43
  JS Bull: And so we go through one.
• 30:44
  JS Bull: What a logical approach.
• 30:46
  JS Bull: I know it was crazy.
• 30:47
  JS Bull: It took two days to walk through these and I had nothing else to do.
• 30:52
  JS Bull: I just joined the company, right, this was like three days in, and so we start putting up the posted notes and, I kid you not, we covered up one wall, we covered up a second, we covered up a third and we started on the fourth wall in the place, and at one point I was wondering if we could run out of walls in here.
• 31:09
  JS Bull: We'd have to go to the next room or something.
• 31:11
  Mark Zweig: Lots of ideas.
• 31:12
  JS Bull: Oh, lots of they were started ideas there were probably 26 or so that we had done development work on but had not gotten out the gate Right, and so what I started doing is going all right, this one is important and it's only got eight hours of work To bring it to total fruition.
• 31:29
  JS Bull: So let's get it in the software Right, let's wrap it up, and we started prioritizing and then this one's really important, but it's not as far along, but it really is truly important and this makes us, this differentiates us from others, so let's go ahead and invest the time in it.
• 31:44
  JS Bull: But we started cranking out these pieces, so I think that gets to where your story goes.
• 31:51
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it does.
• 31:51
  Eric Howerton: I mean yeah because like it's.
• 31:52
  Eric Howerton: And then your approach to that, and then you're able to then not only the product side, but then you start looking at the people and what the people are doing, what the positions and the roles that they're playing, and then what are their goals, and then how do you assign metrics to achieve those goals that all roll up to the company.
• 32:10
  Eric Howerton: I mean, it is just, it is fantastic.
• 32:12
  Eric Howerton: Like you know, it's nothing that I could really I didn't ever have, obviously didn't have the playbook for it, but also never had the time in my mind for it, because I mean there was more products that needed to be invented, right, there's no playbook ever for this stuff, but I mean, that's the thing.
• 32:28
  Eric Howerton: But he has prior experience.
• 32:30
  Mark Zweig: He did.
• 32:31
  Eric Howerton: Okay, he did, but he came in and playbooked this thing and it was Layed out the road.
• 32:36
  Eric Howerton: I wish you could do a movie about the transition of the culture.
• 32:40
  Eric Howerton: I mean, we always had a really fun and invigorating culture.
• 32:43
  Eric Howerton: We know, we know, we know and it's gonna be fun.
• 32:45
  Mark Zweig: Absolutely Always.
• 32:46
  Eric Howerton: Great times and everybody is loving what we're doing, but what JS was able to do was then attach like a roadmap to it, so people knew, like, what was?
• 32:55
  Eric Howerton: What's your statements on it?
• 32:56
  Eric Howerton: Like you have three things.
• 32:57
  JS Bull: Yeah, so, four things so, and what it really boils down to and I learned a lot of those at PACE Industries or figured it out at PACE Industries Tell people what PACE Industries is.
• 33:05
  JS Bull: Yeah, so PACE Industries, so it's very non-Walmart, right.
• 33:08
  JS Bull: Right?
• 33:09
  JS Bull: So PACE Industries is aluminum, magnesium and zinc die casting.
• 33:12
  JS Bull: So you're making components for manufacturers.
• 33:14
  JS Bull: So Harley-Davidson's one of their top customer was, when I was there, one of their top customers Weber Gas Grills.
• 33:20
  JS Bull: Okay, you know, Tier 2 automotive Guys made wheels, didn't you, or did you?
• 33:25
  JS Bull: That was superior.
• 33:26
  Mark Zweig: I knew it was superior too but okay.
• 33:28
  Mark Zweig: That's a different.
• 33:29
  JS Bull: yeah, it's a different process, but a very similar business, right A?
• 33:32
  JS Bull: Very similar type of business Like foundry work, I mean yeah it's tough work, Right?
• 33:36
  JS Bull: I mean it's very blue-collar, I understand.
• 33:39
  JS Bull: In the summer in Harrison, Arkansas, I'll make the die castings, I mean the aluminum's, at 1200 degrees You're sitting next to a machine and I mean it's probably 140 degrees, it's pretty old, you know, working in front of that machine.
• 33:51
  JS Bull: Okay, so you were at.
• 33:52
  Mark Zweig: So anyway, yeah, I just wanted to give people something.
• 33:55
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's great, I appreciate it.
• 33:56
  Mark Zweig: How did you know so much about software coming from that?
• 33:59
  JS Bull: Well, yeah, I had done that before, and so you know my first real startup was during the first internet boom, you know, in like 98.
• 34:07
  JS Bull: And I was in college at the University of Oklahoma, and started a comparison shopping engine, which is so funny because it was all based on scrape data, which is what Ski Ninja a lot of Ski Ninja tools are based on.
• 34:18
  JS Bull: So it was weird.
• 34:19
  JS Bull: Yeah, it's been around 20 years later, but you know it was software.
• 34:24
  JS Bull: And then I was one of the founders of Field Agent, which was the first app that actually pays users right, and they're still doing great here in Northwest Arkansas.
• 34:31
  JS Bull: But you know, a lot of it goes back to employee engagement and it's, like you know, one of the and I could throw out some crazy statistics about us, but one of the reasons we were so successful is because we retained our employees.
• 34:48
  Mark Zweig: It pays.
• 34:48
  Mark Zweig: You're talking about?
• 34:49
  Mark Zweig: No, I'm talking about it.
• 34:49
  Mark Zweig: Why it's better?
• 34:50
  Mark Zweig: Oh, I believe this is true.
• 34:52
  JS Bull: Absolutely.
• 34:52
  JS Bull: If you're gonna retain your employees, you have to high level of engagement, right, right and so.
• 34:58
  Mark Zweig: People wanna be part of the process.
• 34:59
  Mark Zweig: They wanna know what's going on.
• 35:01
  Mark Zweig: It's super critical.
• 35:02
  JS Bull: Yeah, and so I believe there are four keys to having a high employee engagement, and there are a lot of other things to play into, but four things are really important.
• 35:11
  JS Bull: Number one you have to have a clear vision of the goals of the company.
• 35:15
  JS Bull: Amen to that.
• 35:16
  JS Bull: People have to be able to understand it and it needs to be transparent.
• 35:18
  JS Bull: Number two they need to know what's expected of them.
• 35:24
  JS Bull: Right, all right, so that comes down to personal KPIs.
• 35:27
  JS Bull: Yep, thank you.
• 35:28
  JS Bull: They have to be able to see how what is expected of them contributes to the goals of the company.
• 35:34
  JS Bull: This gives them meaning, right and purpose, I agree.
• 35:37
  JS Bull: And finally, they need to know where they stand at all times.
• 35:41
  JS Bull: Sure, and so if you do this, then there's a path to what I'm.
• 35:48
  JS Bull: I know how I'm doing.
• 35:49
  JS Bull: I know that because I'm doing it well.
• 35:52
  JS Bull: I know how it contributes to the goal of the company, and so I have meaning and I have purpose and there's a reason I'm here, right, sure, and so what we did in the fourth piece there and you know how they stand at all times you know our KPIs were 90% objective metrics that they could measure, right, and then 10% was are you playing well with the team.
• 36:13
  JS Bull: Sure, right, if you don't get the 10%, there's a problem, right, yeah, and so it's very objective and that's very easy with sales.
• 36:21
  JS Bull: Mm-hmm, sure, how many calls are you making, how many weeks?
• 36:23
  JS Bull: It's a lot harder with developers, which are close ratio.
• 36:25
  JS Bull: Yeah, and so the goal is brought in.
• 36:27
  JS Bull: Sure, with developers, we found some ways to like gears, software on hours and analytics of things they knocked out.
• 36:33
  JS Bull: But it's hard because you have different group.
• 36:37
  JS Bull: You have to figure out how to make it objective, right, and with some it's tough.
• 36:41
  JS Bull: Yeah, right, oh, yeah, I bet.
• 36:43
  JS Bull: But a lot of that came.
• 36:44
  JS Bull: The goals of the company.
• 36:46
  JS Bull: It goes back to what I referred to strategic deployment, yeah, and so this is lean manufacturing, technicality production system.
• 36:52
  JS Bull: This is what I learned at PACE Industries and because we were manufacturing and automotive and that's what you had to do back then, right, yeah.
• 37:00
  JS Bull: Now I hated it there, right, I was just gonna be honest, like this was these were very long meetings, stuff that I did not feel like was the best use of my time to sit in and hear it all all the time.
• 37:12
  JS Bull: Sure, and we were doing some other stuff for the sales group within sales force to track metrics and stuff, and so I just I felt I kind of resented it back then, right, sure.
• 37:22
  JS Bull: And so when I joined, I remember this moment where I'm thinking what do we need here to bring this company together and have a vision and move a direction?
• 37:31
  JS Bull: And I was just like crap, it's SD Strategic deployment, and we call it SD.
• 37:38
  JS Bull: Like crap, it's SD.
• 37:39
  JS Bull: And so.
• 37:40
  JS Bull: But what I did was an abbreviated version of it.
• 37:43
  JS Bull: Right, so it wasn't long meetings, but what we did is we set four breakthrough objectives and it was a amount of revenue, number of subscribers, reduction of churn, reduction of churn and best in class products within Skiu Ninja.
• 37:59
  JS Bull: Right, because at the time we're just gonna be soft.
• 38:01
  JS Bull: That's the hardest one to determine.
• 38:03
  JS Bull: I would think it was tough in general and it was really hard to get.
• 38:06
  JS Bull: We still never got that to a true objective measurement, right, but I feel like we were very honest with ourselves about it, yeah, and we could justify if we thought it was best in class.
• 38:17
  Mark Zweig: I mean that all makes great sense to me and I'm I'll be honest with you.
• 38:23
  Mark Zweig: I'm very skeptical of some of these programs like EOS that everybody talks about, because they do result in a million frigging meetings that suck the life force out of you.
• 38:34
  Mark Zweig: But this seems like a good approach, what you just described, because it's common sense.
• 38:39
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you don't have to name it, it just you have to do it, right.
• 38:42
  Mark Zweig: But let me ask you this so let's say your vision is absolutely clear.
• 38:48
  Mark Zweig: You're gonna go here this is how big the company's gonna be, it's what it's gonna be like, these are the types of clients you serve and things you do, whatever.
• 38:55
  Mark Zweig: It's crystal clear, everybody knows that.
• 38:57
  Mark Zweig: And then you go to the next level.
• 38:59
  Mark Zweig: You said the individual and how they contribute to it and what's expected of them.
• 39:04
  Mark Zweig: What if what's expected of them is just, they're just not frigging, willing to do it?
• 39:09
  Mark Zweig: It's like you know what?
• 39:11
  Mark Zweig: I'm totally comfortable right now with what we're doing as a company.
• 39:16
  Mark Zweig: You know, I think it's easier when it's a younger company, Cause you're bringing new people in and they get it's already established.
• 39:22
  Mark Zweig: It's already established.
• 39:24
  Mark Zweig: But what if you got a company?
• 39:25
  Mark Zweig: That's been a certain way for 10 years and this is the way we've always done it.
• 39:29
  Mark Zweig: It's always been good enough.
• 39:30
  Mark Zweig: Now you're coming in here telling me this place has to be five times bigger than it is.
• 39:34
  Mark Zweig: How do you deal with that person?
• 39:37
  Mark Zweig: I'm really curious.
• 39:40
  JS Bull: They're probably in the wrong organization if they're not willing to get on board with a new plan Right.
• 39:45
  Mark Zweig: They're really capable and they're good people and they're honest and that's a tough leadership call.
• 39:50
  Mark Zweig: And they work well with their peers, you know.
• 39:54
  Mark Zweig: But they just don't wanna do what they have to do to contribute to this bigger goal out there.
• 40:01
  JS Bull: They just they don't have a seat on the bus.
• 40:03
  JS Bull: Yeah, that's my opinion.
• 40:05
  JS Bull: And maybe it takes time to replace them with someone who is willing to get with the program, and so I don't say if they feel that way, you just fire them right away.
• 40:15
  JS Bull: Right, right, but you find a way to either get them on board or get them out.
• 40:20
  JS Bull: I just don't have patience for it.
• 40:23
  JS Bull: Like if we've got a plan, we're a team, right, and then we're all going the right direction, right, you know there's the Do people so?
• 40:31
  Mark Zweig: when you've been in that position again, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
• 40:33
  Mark Zweig: No, no.
• 40:34
  Mark Zweig: But when you've been in that position let's say you made some of those tough calls in a place that historically has had low turnover what was the reaction of the other people?
• 40:44
  Mark Zweig: Did they go gosh?
• 40:44
  Mark Zweig: That JS is a real asshole.
• 40:46
  Mark Zweig: He's harsh, he's brutal.
• 40:49
  Mark Zweig: Well, not to my face, I mean.
• 40:53
  Mark Zweig: I'm just curious.
• 40:54
  Mark Zweig: I mean, did you get any of that?
• 40:56
  Mark Zweig: Did you hear any of that?
• 40:57
  Mark Zweig: Do you think people thought that about you?
• 41:00
  JS Bull: In there.
• 41:00
  JS Bull: I'll let you comment on it.
• 41:02
  JS Bull: But my take on it was that we're doing the right things for the right reasons.
• 41:06
  JS Bull: And.
• 41:09
  JS Bull: I'm very strongly in transparency and so anytime there was something that I knew people weren't gonna respond to, I would walk them through the reasons why the decision was made Right.
• 41:19
  JS Bull: And we had smart people and they understood it.
• 41:22
  JS Bull: And there were people who we said goodbye to, who everybody loved, sure, but I had people come to me and say that was a really hard thing to do, but it was the right thing to do and we all see that.
• 41:35
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 41:36
  JS Bull: Right.
• 41:36
  JS Bull: We know that they were not on the same page with everybody else, even though we all like them.
• 41:41
  Mark Zweig: Do you, and I know this may be difficult to answer too, but so you've developed this software company right At White Spider.
• 41:49
  Mark Zweig: You come out of a pace industries which has a lot of blue collar workers, machinists, machine operators, whatever you know these people are.
• 41:57
  Mark Zweig: I'm sure some of them are more skilled than others.
• 42:00
  Mark Zweig: You know like somebody's gotta take the aluminum shavings and throw it in the bin to get recycled or whatever right.
• 42:06
  Mark Zweig: But I mean, do you see a difference in those kind of people versus these professional white collar workers, or are they really all essentially the same and respond to sort of the same idea of a vision and how you contribute to it?
• 42:21
  JS Bull: I'm just curious, it's really hard to compare the two.
• 42:22
  JS Bull: I mean, one was a 3,000 person organization.
• 42:26
  JS Bull: At White Spider, when I joined, it was 13 people, and so you know, I think people inherently are the same.
• 42:32
  JS Bull: They want the transparency, they want to understand.
• 42:34
  JS Bull: One of the things we did a pace that I was really proud of is we didn't try to dumb down the vision and the plan for the baseline, the rack and file work.
• 42:46
  JS Bull: We said, hey, man, this is their role, doesn't mean they're not just as smart as the executives, right, okay, and so don't treat them like they're less people.
• 42:58
  Mark Zweig: I really believe that I like that and I think that our listeners need to hear that.
• 43:05
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, because sometimes you treat those people and then they respond in kind Sure, right.
• 43:11
  Mark Zweig: But a lot of small business owners again figure they're just dumb, they're a number out of spreadsheets, so many dollars per hour will replace them.
• 43:20
  JS Bull: And you do have to show people you care about them.
• 43:22
  JS Bull: I mean, that's something like one of our values at White Spider has been hospitality, yeah, and when it was first mentioned to me that someone felt like one of our values is hospitality because there's never written down, it's just one of them that we see them model I kind of laugh and say, well, I'd be great if we were a hotel or a restaurant, right.
• 43:41
  JS Bull: But then I started thinking about it and I'm like what is more important than hospitality for your employees, partners and clients?
• 43:50
  JS Bull: It's making them feel welcome, making them feel wanted, making them comfortable.
• 43:54
  JS Bull: I like that, making them like to be there.
• 43:56
  JS Bull: Good term, and I don't think you'll see it on many Fortune 500 values charts, but I really think it encompasses some of the great things about White Spider.
• 44:07
  JS Bull: But the crazy statistic to me is when I joined in 2019, we were 13 people.
• 44:13
  JS Bull: We're almost at 150 today and I think we've lost eight people along the way.
• 44:19
  JS Bull: Wow.
• 44:20
  Mark Zweig: That is to like Five years, Get a very competitive employment market.
• 44:23
  Mark Zweig: Incredible.
• 44:24
  Mark Zweig: You mean the industry and the locale combined.
• 44:30
  Mark Zweig: That is really incredible.
• 44:32
  Mark Zweig: What's the testament to the two of you and how you treat people Well it?
• 44:35
  Eric Howerton: is.
• 44:36
  Eric Howerton: I think I got some comments on what we've been talking about because, sorry, no, no, no, no.
• 44:40
  Eric Howerton: What I think is important is is like you have somebody like myself and even Alex Co-founder who we have really genuine Like.
• 44:53
  Eric Howerton: I can say a lot about Alex Maude, my co-founder.
• 44:55
  Eric Howerton: He was just he's a great guy.
• 44:57
  Eric Howerton: We love Alex Great guy.
• 44:58
  Eric Howerton: He's a genuine, honest, truthful.
• 45:00
  Eric Howerton: You shook his hand, he meant it and he followed through with it, and then he had myself, which I believe in the same thing.
• 45:06
  Eric Howerton: Right, I had those values Like.
• 45:08
  Eric Howerton: My intentions are 100% solid too.
• 45:11
  Eric Howerton: I wanna see people grow all that stuff, make money and blah blah blah and be successful.
• 45:16
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, but the difference was in what JS came in and did and what I think is really important for our audience to understand Because this is one of my greatest lessons and being a JS partner is you have to make those things objective.
• 45:30
  Eric Howerton: You have to put it on paper, you have to, and then and not only that, we talked about the spreadsheets, but then what JS would do right is this is the additional part, and JS probably doesn't even know how valuable it is.
• 45:43
  Eric Howerton: Not only did we set the plan, but then you would work with the team to develop that, and so everybody's I mean they're contributed to it.
• 45:51
  Eric Howerton: I always believe in that.
• 45:52
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, participate in any of the plans, the individuals owning what they're involved, but then everybody that came in that company, if they're brand new, and then everybody that was working there on a very frequent, repetitive basis.
• 46:04
  Eric Howerton: We would have dialogue about it In open dialogue, probably in training sessions.
• 46:11
  JS Bull: The training is an hour we spend and I'd bring them teach them.
• 46:14
  JS Bull: Yeah, sd concept.
• 46:16
  Eric Howerton: Exactly.
• 46:16
  Eric Howerton: It was like the first thing that you do, and then, even as the company grew, we'd bring on 10 people at a time, or, like I, would walk by and you'd see JS in the boardroom with 10 people there and 20 on the virtual explaining this and going down it, and it was very engaging, but what it does is that it allows people to know where they're standing, and I don't think I think that that's what maybe a lot of entrepreneurs and myself included.
• 46:40
  Eric Howerton: If I would have been able to grasp that from the beginning, there's a lot more, I could have done a lot faster, but it wasn't until then.
• 46:47
  Eric Howerton: That's what was the alignment to it.
• 46:49
  Eric Howerton: I mean, it was absolutely fantastic.
• 46:52
  Mark Zweig: Look fantastic.
• 46:53
  Mark Zweig: You know I'm a big believer in business planning and, given it every year, I'm a big believer in open book management.
• 46:59
  Mark Zweig: Those are the key metrics, right?
• 47:01
  Mark Zweig: Yep, I think the problem, though, with a lot of companies and obviously this wasn't a problem for you, or, if it was, you solved it they don't have good gauges on the overall company.
• 47:13
  Mark Zweig: So I sure as hell cannot get down to the individual, because the overall company doesn't know things like how many leads do we're getting right now?
• 47:22
  Mark Zweig: Right, you know what's our rework cost.
• 47:26
  Mark Zweig: How much warranty work or service related work do we have to do?
• 47:31
  Mark Zweig: You're solving customer problems for things we've already sold.
• 47:34
  Mark Zweig: You know these sort of critical metrics.
• 47:37
  Mark Zweig: If the company doesn't have any freaking idea of any of this stuff, then it's really hard to get those goals.
• 47:44
  Mark Zweig: So it seems like if you were to make a recommendation in sort of the order you seem very sequence oriented.
• 47:51
  Mark Zweig: Based on what you described to me, wouldn't you say that getting the company's plan and metrics has to resume?
• 47:59
  JS Bull: this oh it's top down, without a doubt, okay, without a doubt, good, good.
• 48:02
  JS Bull: And in the way we structured SD, you had four breakthrough objectives and then each one had a list of targets and the target matrix right, and we'd have, within a breakthrough objective, you had improvement priorities, which the things that we need to get better at, and then each of those would have an objective target.
• 48:20
  JS Bull: Oh, Pulling three right yeah.
• 48:22
  JS Bull: And then the KPIs would feed into one of those specific targets.
• 48:27
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 48:28
  JS Bull: If, as a company, we need to have 500 subscribers by the end of the year, you know, then we're gonna track monthly.
• 48:37
  JS Bull: Where's our starting point?
• 48:39
  JS Bull: Where's our ending point?
• 48:40
  JS Bull: How many per month do we need?
• 48:41
  JS Bull: How are we gonna do that?
• 48:42
  JS Bull: And then it comes into marketing on how many leads they're generating as a KPI, which leads to this right and its sales team with a close ratio.
• 48:50
  Eric Howerton: It looks like we can have reviews with the team individually, Like when reviews come up.
• 48:53
  Eric Howerton: Are we talking about?
• 48:53
  Eric Howerton: I mean, a lot of this was tied to bonuses, right, All of it was tied to.
• 48:57
  JS Bull: Yeah, that's another critical piece here.
• 48:59
  JS Bull: To start to interrupt, another critical piece here is if you don't tie it to anything other than just you have your review.
• 49:08
  JS Bull: You're like, well, you missed your numbers.
• 49:09
  JS Bull: They're like, oh, sorry.
• 49:10
  JS Bull: Like, oh, it's okay, let's do better this time.
• 49:12
  JS Bull: No, it's, I'm sorry, but instead of $10,000 of a bonus, you've hit 60%, you're getting 6,000.
• 49:20
  JS Bull: Yeah, yeah, or, you know, and we usually have minimum like qualification to even qualify in those percentages and you could identify, like if somebody.
• 49:29
  Mark Zweig: That's one place I would depart with you guys.
• 49:31
  Mark Zweig: What's that?
• 49:32
  Mark Zweig: Bonuses?
• 49:32
  Mark Zweig: No, I mean.
• 49:33
  Mark Zweig: I do think the numbers have to precede it and that's really critical.
• 49:37
  Mark Zweig: But I'm not.
• 49:39
  Mark Zweig: I think there's a lot of people think that management's doing its job when it says you did a good job, you get 10 grand, you didn't do so well, you get five.
• 49:48
  Mark Zweig: That's not management's real job.
• 49:51
  Mark Zweig: Management's real job is to get the five to perform where they want them to.
• 49:55
  Mark Zweig: And a lot of companies and I'm not saying that you guys did this a lot of companies sort of end it right there.
• 50:01
  Mark Zweig: It's like okay, we did our job.
• 50:04
  JS Bull: You don't want to say find your way to improve and get your full bonus.
• 50:07
  JS Bull: I think, yeah, it's not that person.
• 50:10
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you know what I'm talking about there.
• 50:11
  Mark Zweig: I don't know what you're talking about.
• 50:12
  Mark Zweig: It's that next part is really, you're real.
• 50:15
  Mark Zweig: So I'm a big believer in sort of more socialistic rewards that if the company hits its goal everybody's gonna get their pro-ratashire.
• 50:24
  Mark Zweig: But that creates the pressure on management and the employees that if somebody's not performing we're all gonna be on them.
• 50:33
  Mark Zweig: Okay, I just got money didn't deserve.
• 50:36
  Mark Zweig: Now we're all on the problem.
• 50:38
  Mark Zweig: It's not just your problem.
• 50:40
  JS Bull: And if you get a culture that enables that, then that's a very positive thing.
• 50:43
  Mark Zweig: Maybe you can do that.
• 50:44
  Mark Zweig: Maybe it takes a really small company for that to work, but well, I've seen it work in larger settings.
• 50:51
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, it is, regardless of how you do it.
• 50:54
  Mark Zweig: Next step of try to get those people to perform I think is and I'm sure you worked on that, but you still want to do it.
• 51:03
  JS Bull: It came in at 50%.
• 51:03
  JS Bull: The next question is is this something we're filling them on, or is this the right they're filling us on?
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: And I'll be honest with you a lot of times folks.
• 51:13
  JS Bull: There were people very focused on their bonus metrics right and legit would hit every number on the dot, and it wasn't that they were faking it, it's that they literally were like now I'm moving on to the next one to make sure I get it done in this period, and one of the other things we did is we paid out every six months, and so that was was guaranteed More frequent.
• 51:34
  Mark Zweig: I have a big goal every six months.
• 51:35
  Mark Zweig: Once a year is too long, yep.
• 51:37
  JS Bull: And too long, and in software it moves so fast too.
• 51:39
  JS Bull: You want to be able to adjust targets for things if needed, or even sometimes there were times where we were like, well, this was one of your KPIs in January, here we are in July.
• 51:47
  JS Bull: I remember in April we told you to stop working on that.
• 51:50
  JS Bull: Right.
• 51:50
  JS Bull: And it moved.
• 51:51
  JS Bull: So we're gonna give you credit for it Because we told you to change it Right.
• 51:56
  JS Bull: But I think a lot of times those objective metrics started calling out who the underperformers were.
• 52:04
  Mark Zweig: Yes.
• 52:05
  JS Bull: And a couple of decided to find a new role because they realized they weren't cutting it Right.
• 52:10
  JS Bull: Yeah, and that's fun firing someone.
• 52:13
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 52:14
  JS Bull: You think you need to fire them other than they decide to leave?
• 52:16
  Mark Zweig: right yeah, self-selection Every time it works better, Although when it goes too long, they were like, ah, thank God.
• 52:23
  Mark Zweig: Then you're like why did we let it go so long?
• 52:27
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, those problems the sooner you get I mean the sooner you can address it, the better.
• 52:31
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's good news.
• 52:33
  JS Bull: About doing it every six months is there's a and there should be reviews monthly with leadership, right, but with top leadership it was twice a year and I mean until we got up over 100 people.
• 52:43
  JS Bull: I sat in on every review with every person.
• 52:46
  Mark Zweig: You were super involved man, I mean that's I know the business and to run the business you gotta pay for it.
• 52:51
  Eric Howerton: You made something earlier about knowing the business, this guy the business in and out right.
• 52:55
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I believed that.
• 52:56
  Eric Howerton: You know, I absolutely believe that.
• 52:58
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I think, man, I just sit over here, I knew this was a special one for me, right?
• 53:02
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, because I just sit over here Well, you're special, I can see.
• 53:04
  Eric Howerton: So both of you are special.
• 53:06
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, you're special, yeah, you're hard special.
• 53:07
  Eric Howerton: This is a special table.
• 53:08
  Eric Howerton: This is special.
• 53:09
  Eric Howerton: I feel you love.
• 53:09
  Eric Howerton: This is a special moment.
• 53:10
  Eric Howerton: There should be a lot of love, because I'm throwing a lot of love at you guys right now.
• 53:13
  Eric Howerton: Thanks, it feels good.
• 53:14
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, you're well.
• 53:15
  Eric Howerton: Hospitality when you're value that's nice.
• 53:18
  Eric Howerton: But I mean, I think that what I want to if there is a listener out there, right, you know, if there's one way I can help in this is like, man, I mean, you don't have to do it alone and you don't need to expect of yourself to know everything.
• 53:36
  Eric Howerton: Like I can sit here and admit fully and you guys know me, like the way Mark can rate a P and L and all the reports, and I mean like you can just spit out stuff.
• 53:43
  Eric Howerton: I'm like, uh-huh, sounds great, man, whatever, I mean, I trust in you.
• 53:47
  Eric Howerton: I mean you know your stuff there.
• 53:49
  Eric Howerton: And the same thing with JS.
• 53:50
  Eric Howerton: And like the negotiation, I mean anytime there's a, anytime that there was a point of where a deal got to the point where I would go out and hunt the interest and I could find interest.
• 54:02
  Eric Howerton: But as soon as they started asking questions I'm like, hey, you know, you should really talk to JS.
• 54:06
  Eric Howerton: He's been articulate this stuff because he knows the business.
• 54:09
  Eric Howerton: And then I had sideline real quick, real quick and be happy to sideline and then support and play supportive role, the reason you were able to build your company.
• 54:19
  Mark Zweig: Okay, if you can't see that you're not good at everything and other people have skills and build a team, nothing worth doing it's gonna be done by one person.
• 54:30
  Eric Howerton: It takes a team, it does.
• 54:32
  Eric Howerton: I usually analogy a lot for folks when I'm talking to them about this.
• 54:35
  Eric Howerton: It's like you know, if I was to say, hey, js, you need to go to the charity ball with 2,000 people in the room and shake hands as many people as you can and build as many relationships as you can as fast as possible and, by the way, do it well.
• 54:50
  Eric Howerton: I mean, you can be like man.
• 54:51
  Eric Howerton: I don't know about all that crap.
• 54:53
  Eric Howerton: You know there's a lot of people that don't wanna do that, but I know that I like to do that Right and that passion that you have behind whatever you're doing, and you know you can do it well.
• 55:02
  Eric Howerton: You should emphasize those strengths.
• 55:04
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, instead of always working on your weaknesses, yeah, other people doing your weaknesses and capitalize on your strengths.
• 55:12
  Mark Zweig: It is an entrepreneur.
• 55:13
  Mark Zweig: You believe that?
• 55:15
  Eric Howerton: It doesn't make you immediately responsible to be strong in every the entire wheel of business.
• 55:20
  Eric Howerton: You cannot do.
• 55:22
  Eric Howerton: It's too big.
• 55:22
  Eric Howerton: That's one reason why I've always believed in having partnerships in business.
• 55:25
  Eric Howerton: People ask me like I mean they'll come up and they'll probably heard these stories, like I had a partner as a terrible experience.
• 55:31
  Eric Howerton: You know, they'll say that, and now I've never do it again.
• 55:34
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and I'm like man, that's not mine, bro.
• 55:36
  Eric Howerton: There's no way I could do it.
• 55:38
  Mark Zweig: I would say the same thing, but I wanna go back to one thing that you were talking about was setting these goals and setting the vision for the company and the six month.
• 55:48
  Mark Zweig: We may need to change things.
• 55:50
  Mark Zweig: How do you deal with people who are like, okay, you set this lofty vision out there, right, here we are now, but we're going here.
• 55:59
  Mark Zweig: All right, go.
• 55:59
  Mark Zweig: Why is that important to me?
• 56:03
  Mark Zweig: Why do I care about that?
• 56:05
  Mark Zweig: Number one and number two what if they achieve their metrics that you lay out?
• 56:11
  Mark Zweig: And then you go okay, good, now the next.
• 56:13
  Mark Zweig: Now I got more good news for you.
• 56:15
  Mark Zweig: Now this is going up by 50%.
• 56:17
  Mark Zweig: This target's gonna go up by 20%.
• 56:19
  Mark Zweig: So you just keep pushing the goals up.
• 56:21
  Mark Zweig: You're like, whew.
• 56:22
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I did everything he asked me to do and my reward is now you want me to do even more.
• 56:28
  Mark Zweig: How do you respond to that?
• 56:32
  JS Bull: So I think we, honestly, we had the other.
• 56:35
  JS Bull: Sometimes we had the other issue, which was we set our goals way too high out of the gate and it went okay.
• 56:42
  JS Bull: That was a realistic right.
• 56:44
  JS Bull: So now let's get back to reality.
• 56:45
  JS Bull: But there's a saying in, you know, toyota production system and all this stuff, which is don't let perfect get in the way of progress.
• 56:54
  JS Bull: Sure, and so you know, a lot of it is the vulnerability or the transparency of hey, we got it wrong, but you know what?
• 57:01
  JS Bull: We learned a lot and we're gonna get a lot better.
• 57:04
  JS Bull: Sure, you know, it's kind of like budgeting.
• 57:06
  JS Bull: Yeah, there's one thing you know coming out of a budget process, it's not gonna go exactly to a reflect.
• 57:10
  Mark Zweig: It's not correct.
• 57:11
  Mark Zweig: Your numbers are not correct.
• 57:12
  Mark Zweig: Right, it may be how it forecasts, it's not right, right, right.
• 57:16
  JS Bull: And so you know it's don't for the fear of not having it all figured out.
• 57:22
  JS Bull: They'll let that keep you from going in and starting and doing it right.
• 57:25
  JS Bull: I totally agree.
• 57:27
  JS Bull: Now you know, I think one of the things that we did that sharks be even looking back at it how well we did it was hiring.
• 57:36
  JS Bull: We hired really good people, I agree.
• 57:39
  JS Bull: Yeah, I feel like God brought the right people to us the right times.
• 57:41
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, so it wasn't all us, but it wasn't by accident.
• 57:46
  Mark Zweig: Right, you gotta be constantly recruiting, yeah, and you gotta know, like, where you're gonna put these people and know who you're gonna hire next when you have an opportunity to go and you know like we grew with only losing a few people if you didn't hire them.
• 57:55
  Mark Zweig: The right people, right so that's a big cause of turnover is hire the wrong person in the first place, right yeah, absolutely, and so it's such a critical you skill Now.
• 58:03
  Eric Howerton: I think I mean you were always really diligent with that, like you were.
• 58:07
  Eric Howerton: And not only that, but then whenever other, when we were growing and we had more managers encouraging them to do that and coaching them to do that, that's how allowed the company to do this.
• 58:16
  Eric Howerton: We grew so fast.
• 58:18
  JS Bull: So I interviewed every single person we hired until July of this year.
• 58:21
  JS Bull: Right, wow, I had no interview for every single person, but I felt like that was as much respect for them joining us yeah, because they're becoming part of our family and they know what the leader's vision is Absolutely.
• 58:34
  Mark Zweig: I mean, if I was an employee I would want that, if I could get that.
• 58:37
  JS Bull: So many people said to me I've never met a CEO before.
• 58:40
  JS Bull: That's great.
• 58:41
  JS Bull: There you go.
• 58:42
  JS Bull: I grew up in one in the house, so you know like, yeah, my dad was so you know, but my dad was too.
• 58:48
  Mark Zweig: But the question is, what was he a CEO of?
• 58:51
  Mark Zweig: It varied, yeah, right, because he was a little bit up and down in his businesses.
• 58:58
  JS Bull: Yeah.
• 58:58
  JS Bull: But, so yeah, that's.
• 58:59
  JS Bull: But if someone is not willing to get on board and continues driving for excellence, then you might not have hired the right person or you might find a different way to motivate them.
• 59:08
  Mark Zweig: Different people are motivated in different ways, or maybe there's a different job they should be in.
• 59:12
  Eric Howerton: You know I like those, I do remember.
• 59:14
  Eric Howerton: What I learned a lot, too, is this that Stephanie just made about people being motivated in different ways.
• 59:20
  Eric Howerton: It's like Because I have my frame of motivation in which I'll think is natural and normal, but there's folks that are motivated by money, there's folks that are motivated by title, there's folks that are motivated I mean all these but if you don't align to that as a leader.
• 59:34
  JS Bull: Yeah, yeah, I understand, and so if I ever do write a book, it'll be similar to the book about love languages, right, where people like to give love in one way, sure, maybe even a different way, but you're gonna have to figure that out about your partner to know how to show them that you love them in their language, right, right, similar with employees, where different people are motivated in different ways I believe that.
• 59:57
  JS Bull: And some people are just self-driven, right, they just want to succeed and they're competing against themselves.
• 1:00:02
  JS Bull: Yeah, and that's pretty easy.
• 1:00:03
  JS Bull: It's basically like get out of their way.
• 1:00:05
  JS Bull: That's pretty easy.
• 1:00:06
  JS Bull: Support them and the money people.
• 1:00:07
  JS Bull: Some people it's like, if you pay me what I think is a fair wage, I'm gonna work my butt off for you.
• 1:00:12
  JS Bull: Yeah, right, with a minute, that Money does motivate some people.
• 1:00:15
  JS Bull: Get me fair.
• 1:00:16
  JS Bull: Yeah, there's no doubt I'm, starting off, sure, but that's usually pretty easy as long as you got the money to pay them.
• 1:00:20
  JS Bull: But the tougher ones are some people.
• 1:00:23
  JS Bull: It's an inspirational eater, you know, I've heard the comment.
• 1:00:26
  JS Bull: I'd go to war with that guy about their boss, right, because they believe in them.
• 1:00:30
  JS Bull: Yeah, and you've got a.
• 1:00:32
  JS Bull: That's a high standard, yeah, the real high standard.
• 1:00:35
  JS Bull: And then other people was by title.
• 1:00:37
  JS Bull: You know, I know, as the example of, like, you know, the banks, everybody's a VP.
• 1:00:41
  Mark Zweig: I hate titles.
• 1:00:41
  Mark Zweig: My experience is, the more titles you give out, the more pissed off people are.
• 1:00:46
  Mark Zweig: Gee, I don't know.
• 1:00:47
  Eric Howerton: I wouldn't know anything about that, I just I remember you, though this was we're out of time.
• 1:00:54
  Mark Zweig: I, I, that's been my experience, it's.
• 1:00:56
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, yeah, I know you're right though, because some people are just sort of ego-driven insecure.
• 1:01:03
  Mark Zweig: They need that.
• 1:01:04
  JS Bull: Yeah, and so you know, figuring out what motivates each individual employee, right, If you can really and that's a big time commitment.
• 1:01:11
  JS Bull: I've never done it perfectly, but if you can do it, yeah, you can keep every person feeling like they're one of their shared and driving and pushing and rolling the rider and you can't do it.
• 1:01:25
  Eric Howerton: Who's the deal?
• 1:01:26
  Eric Howerton: Like like you rolled it down and you tracked and you got tracked it, but then you kept a reminder of it and you intentionally thought about it.
• 1:01:35
  Eric Howerton: When you run into those people every single time, I mean as much as you could, right, I mean no one's perfect, but but I mean like that's what you would do, that's what he would do every day, day in and day out.
• 1:01:44
  Eric Howerton: That's what he's considered of that.
• 1:01:47
  Mark Zweig: He's smart and he knows what his primary role is and it's doing this, I mean that's you know.
• 1:01:52
  JS Bull: Well, yeah, and that's what it became right Over time.
• 1:01:55
  JS Bull: I was the only finance person share business for way too long, right.
• 1:02:00
  Eric Howerton: Way too long.
• 1:02:01
  Eric Howerton: I did give you a good idea, a couple of good ideas along the way, and finance.
• 1:02:07
  JS Bull: No, no, no, no no.
• 1:02:09
  Eric Howerton: No, it's like no, like pretty proof.
• 1:02:11
  Eric Howerton: Well, I would come to me like man, you need to have somebody.
• 1:02:14
  Eric Howerton: Like, on finance, you need to have somebody helping you on the operations side of like it's time, man, I had no idea that that was needed, until you told me that.
• 1:02:23
  JS Bull: I had, I had.
• 1:02:26
  Eric Howerton: How would it?
• 1:02:27
  JS Bull: It was a good idea?
• 1:02:28
  JS Bull: It was absolutely not a good idea.
• 1:02:30
  JS Bull: It was one that was already very hop-up.
• 1:02:32
  Eric Howerton: So I hope I encourage you to go across the fence at the time.
• 1:02:35
  Mark Zweig: This is a very interesting conversation though, okay, having the two of you here who were partners in this business and did the classic entrepreneurial build up the business and sell for a lot of value, and I think it's a tremendous story and we need to have JS back, love it and we can talk about some other things with this guy, cause he's very smart.
• 1:02:57
  Mark Zweig: I love him.
• 1:02:58
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you know, I can see why you're gonna partner with him.
• 1:03:01
  Mark Zweig: You do, I'm I'm, I'm sold.
• 1:03:05
  Eric Howerton: I do, man.
• 1:03:06
  Eric Howerton: I mean there's, there's so much to dig into.
• 1:03:08
  Eric Howerton: I mean there is yeah, so much to it.
• 1:03:10
  Eric Howerton: I mean cause we are like, literally we're at, we're at an hour.
• 1:03:13
  Eric Howerton: I know, yeah, we are an hour.
• 1:03:15
  Mark Zweig: I'd like to have this bowl in my China shop oh.
• 1:03:19
  JS Bull: This analogy I've never heard before.
• 1:03:21
  Eric Howerton: Oh, is that new to you?
• 1:03:22
  Eric Howerton: It's a new way.
• 1:03:23
  Eric Howerton: Oh yeah, leave it to Mark's why he's OG.
• 1:03:26
  Mark Zweig: I know he's really.
• 1:03:26
  Mark Zweig: It's an old man.
• 1:03:27
  Mark Zweig: What do they call that metaphor?
• 1:03:31
  Mark Zweig: No, what is that?
• 1:03:32
  Mark Zweig: What are those called?
• 1:03:34
  Mark Zweig: We don't know what are you?
• 1:03:37
  Mark Zweig: Talking about what the old man stories are.
• 1:03:39
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, forget it.
• 1:03:40
  Mark Zweig: I can't remember.
• 1:03:41
  Mark Zweig: I'm on board.
• 1:03:43
  Mark Zweig: I'm on board, I can't remember.
• 1:03:44
  Mark Zweig: I can't remember.
• 1:03:45
  Eric Howerton: Now we'd love to have you back, man, because I think there's so much to dig into that, because there's been impressive watching you and being your partner along those ways and I mean I learned so much.
• 1:03:56
  Eric Howerton: And I know the team has to cause one thing that you know.
• 1:03:59
  Eric Howerton: Like that you brought up something earlier and you were saying, hey, I'll say like, what did people think Like when you made those decisions?
• 1:04:06
  Eric Howerton: Right, and I was getting respond to that.
• 1:04:08
  Eric Howerton: But I would tell you from outside and being able to hear enough that I could.
• 1:04:12
  Eric Howerton: I mean I'm sure that it was still some close talk with it you know, even if I was around.
• 1:04:17
  Eric Howerton: But what everybody knew is that when those tough decisions were made, that they could not dispute the consideration that you had about having to make those tough decisions.
• 1:04:28
  Mark Zweig: You know, because it was how valuable is that that it makes it easier for people to take it.
• 1:04:34
  Mark Zweig: Bro, it does.
• 1:04:35
  Mark Zweig: It does Because it's mature.
• 1:04:37
  Eric Howerton: You cared and, yes, the whole time, but the reason that was because of that daily commitment that you had and understanding and working with them and being attentive.
• 1:04:46
  Eric Howerton: And then you would build and there wasn't this hey, I'm gonna wait three weeks to address this problem that we're having or that somebody's, but you're always coaching and you would bring them in and you would have a very frank, objective conversation that was aligned into what was agreed on and that you agreed with.
• 1:05:02
  Eric Howerton: And so when those times came, it was always pleasant, and so the people that might have churned out the low amount there was, I mean, even with those, like I would say, the amicable exit.
• 1:05:20
  JS Bull: It was people walked away with us being friends.
• 1:05:23
  Mark Zweig: Yes, yeah, I mean that's the way it should be.
• 1:05:25
  Mark Zweig: Okay, that's exactly what happened, and I was young.
• 1:05:27
  Mark Zweig: I didn't understand that I'd be like you're fired, you know, get mad, whatever.
• 1:05:32
  Mark Zweig: The older I got, the more critical I realized it is you don't want anybody out there shooting you in the back, true?
• 1:05:38
  Mark Zweig: Okay, you want to make friends with everybody, exactly.
• 1:05:41
  JS Bull: So I mean this is one of the things is we had such valuable IP that low turnover was one of the reasons that no one caught up to us, and that's so true.
• 1:05:51
  JS Bull: You still don't see that many people doing.
• 1:05:52
  JS Bull: That's so true.
• 1:05:53
  JS Bull: That was doing the way we're doing it, even today.
• 1:05:56
  Eric Howerton: That's very true.
• 1:05:57
  Mark Zweig: One of the things we need to talk about when we get JS back on the show is what's he gonna do next?
• 1:06:02
  Eric Howerton: Because I think that's-.
• 1:06:06
  Mark Zweig: I think that's gonna be interesting to see.
• 1:06:08
  Mark Zweig: I think it's starting about podcast business.
• 1:06:11
  Eric Howerton: But you know what.
• 1:06:11
  Eric Howerton: You know what I have to, js, I got a hornets ass nest for you to freaking.
• 1:06:15
  Eric Howerton: Come help dude all over again, bro.
• 1:06:17
  Eric Howerton: I keep telling them that I'm like, hey, bro, don't worry, keep trying to figure out what you're gonna do, but I got a nest for you ready for your untangle again.
• 1:06:25
  Eric Howerton: Buddy, all right, Please open fun.
• 1:06:29
  Mark Zweig: JS, really great having you on the show.
• 1:06:30
  Mark Zweig: Thanks for coming today and I look forward to the next time we get together.
• 1:06:34
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, man.
• 1:06:35
  Eric Howerton: Get this stuff.
• 1:06:36
  Mark Zweig: Thank y'all, and until then, this has been another episode of Big Talk About Small.
• 1:06:43
  Eric Howerton: Business.
• 1:06:44
  Mark Zweig: You can check us out at wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom, yep and see all episodes of the show.
• 1:06:53
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter so you know when the new one comes out.
• 1:06:56
  Eric Howerton: Yep, every week and send us questions.
• 1:06:59
  Eric Howerton: We want questions Because we love to have JS.
• 1:07:01
  Eric Howerton: Hey, here's the good.
• 1:07:02
  Eric Howerton: Have JS back, send some questions into us and let JS answer them.
• 1:07:06
  Eric Howerton: I like it, and that way I can, I'll prepare him for the next episode, unlike what I did today.
• 1:07:11
  Eric Howerton: Well, okay, man, why would I prepare him that?
• 1:07:14
  Mark Zweig: sounds like fun.
• 1:07:14
  Mark Zweig: He's pretty good at preparation.
• 1:07:15
  JS Bull: He's very low pressure to just shoot from the hip.
• 1:07:18
  Eric Howerton: It is.
• 1:07:19
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's what I mean.
• 1:07:20
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, there's no work there it was good, Exactly All right, well, thanks everybody, Thank you.
• 1:07:24
  Mark Zweig: Thank you.
• 1:07:25
  Mark Zweig: All right, well, thanks everybody.
• 1:07:27
  Mark Zweig: Yep, thank you.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about small business.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk about small business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.