Todd Palmer - Fail Forward Leadership: the 4-step formula to success

Hi everyone, it's Bill Black, the exit coach from the Exit Coach Radio show. You know, one of the biggest questions I get on the show is what exactly goes into a business exit plan and when should I start creating mine? Well, I always tell people that the best time to start was 5 years ago, but the next best time is now because you never know when you might need it. So we put together a free report that describes what an exit plan is and what you should know. You can get it free by texting Exit plan with no spaces to 44222. That's exit plan to 44222. Again, text exit plan to 44222. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. All right, welcome back, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining me today. It's a real pleasure to have you with me. I have with me today a very patient man, Todd Palmer. We've been trying to connect today. It's not easy sometimes, you know, when technology doesn't work out, but Todd has graciously agreed to join us today. He's an executive coach, keynote speaker, author, and CEO, and his key focus is helping entrepreneurs and small business owners and sea-level leaders live a life by design. Now Todd went from being a struggling entrepreneur with half a million plus in debt to making the Inc 5000, a record total of 6 times as one of America's fastest growing companies. He's a CEO of Extraordinary Advisors, as I mentioned, and we're going to talk about, you know, how to deal with some of the things that are going on these days with COVID and maybe how to ditch your comfort zone a little bit on some of these issues. So Todd, thanks so much for joining me today. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me on the show, Bill. I'm happy to be here. Thank you. So, uh, Todd, tell us a little bit more about your background and your story about, uh, going from deep in debt to, to building one of America's fastest growing companies. That's pretty fascinating. It takes a lot of ambition and, you know, kind of confidence in yourself. Well, it's interesting that you choose the word confidence bill because that was something I really lacked at one point. Um, you know, I started my company like most entrepreneurs with little, little to no startup capital and 10 years in, and we had some highs and we had some lows, and the company I owned was a diversified industrial Staffing in Detroit, Michigan, and Metro Detroit community, and we were a temporary help company and we were kind of like every, a lot of other companies at the time. Um, just struggling to survive, a lot, very focused on the margin play very focused on I'm sorry, on the revenue play, not the margin play, and I had a couple of clients stiffed me in bankruptcy. They discharged over $240,000 in debt due to other choices and other mistakes that we made as an organization I made as a leader, we got $600,000 in debt. I was two months away from running out of all of my money. So, uh, using the word confidence, I was not having a whole lot of confidence during that time frame. Um, and I finally raised my hand, decided that my impostor syndrome, my itty-bitty negative committee wasn't going to run my business anymore, wasn't going to run my life anymore, and I hired a coach. The coach came in, taught me some quick financial literacy, pointed out some of the holes in my ship, so to speak, that I was taking on water. I realized that I had the wrong team in place. I had a lot, a lot of toxicity in my organization to permeate. And on September 9th of 2006, I fired my entire company and I started the business over. Uh, from there we figured out some inflection points within our space, decided to go for some skilled trade sectors that were being underserved and underutilized. Uh, increased our margins by about 10%, reduced our payment terms from clients from 120 days down to about 12 to 14 days, and eventually dug out of that debt and went on to make the Inc 5000 again as one of the fastest growing companies in America 6 times. So pick up some confidence, thankfully, um, but I, I had a lot of humility. I made a lot of mistakes and I realized that I had a lot of stuck in this, just like in COVID times where a lot of people were dealing with change and uncertainty. I was living with that way before COVID ever hit. Yeah, that's an amazing story, Todd. It really is, and congratulations on coming back through that. I think there's a lot of people that listen to this show that are thinking, you know, I've been running the business as kind of a my own personal pocketbook, not, you know, typically a small business is not run to generate a lot of profits because that means paying a lot of taxes, right? And then we have, we have companies that say, OK, well now I want to make my business attractive to a buyer or I want to monetize. Business, so I need to transition. But, but a lot of them have been doing what they've been doing for so long. They're in this habit of, of just, you know, just getting by is OK because you don't have to pay a bunch of taxes. And there comes a point, and I want to hear from you on this, there comes a point where you just say enough is enough. I need to, I need to make a big change in what I'm doing. Where were you when you made that decision, you were just about, you know, like you said, you're burning through your money. And you made that decision that enough is enough. I'm going to, I'm going to. hire a coach and I'm going to get out of this mess. How did you do that though? How did you, how did you take that step? Well, it's so much it was self-exploration, self-awareness, you know, I was from the generation of entrepreneurs in the mid-nineties who, you know, we thought we were told we believed that uh we could, you know, a rugged individualist mindset and we weren't into yet, we, you know, Tony Shea hadn't written his great book um about the scaling of the Zappos and how culture was important, so we had this. Rugged individualist attitude. Simon Sen hadn't come out and talked about what, what was our purpose, what was our why. Um, I just had connected with a gentleman by the name of Vern Harnish and read his book, The Rockefeller Habits. That was a real pivotal point for me in seeing how other people had done it. There was, there was not a lot of knowledge out there and how to do it, so. I thought the right way to do things was to do it alone. I thought I had to be the oracle. I thought that the only person who could do all this stuff was me, and I was flat out wrong. And I decided really to stop building more of a, a lifestyle business or stop building a job and really grow and scale a company so that I could, you know, feed my family as a single parent. And it was important for me to be able to, to create a great life for my son and I. I want, I had, you know, as I rescaled and retooled the businesses, I had, you know, 12 to 18 families that I felt responsible for, for my employees. And I found, honestly, and I think this may resonate with a lot of your listeners is I I actually got better ideas from my staff when I got out of the way. I, I figured out I had to speak last in the room, not first, to solicit the best ideas because 12 people going in one direction was a whole lot more powerful than me going in one direction, pulling 11 people with me. So that that's a lot of change right there. That's a lot, a lot of change from saying it's not just all about me, it's about, it's about these families that I have to feed and hey, they're on this ride too, and there there is knowledge out there. There's a lot of knowledge. You mentioned the Rockefeller habits, and that led to, of course, the entrepreneur operating system and traction and all that kind of stuff. A lot of people are doing that, but how, how was that transition? I mean, Uh, did you ever fall back to like, you know what, this, this, this is new, doesn't feel comfortable. This is your comfort zone of speech, I guess, right, getting out of that comfort zone. Oh, absolutely. And, and I did fall back and it was, I had to make friends with failing, and failing forward. I had to recognize that failure wasn't a final step and every mistake I made, my coach was great at teaching me that every mistake I made was a learning opportunity. Every mistake I made was The pivot point, you know, and so we really focused me on being intentional, not expectational. So many of us, I specifically was very much focused on a win-lose mindset. And so when I pivoted to an intentional position, more opportunities became clear to me. So my, you know, I'm $600,000 in debt. And I, I, I'm running out of cash. It's like, we will find a way out of this. We just don't know how yet, but create the intention around that. Then when I created an intention of getting out of debt, I started putting in place different strategies to tied to that intention. Then my mindset shifted from, from a closed mindset to a growth mindset and I saw a whole lot more possibilities. My team then was able to make mistakes in the office without fear of being fired, without fear of repercussion. We would celebrate the mistakes. Hey, we tried these three things. One of them didn't work, but 2 of them did. Let's keep the two that work. Let's start moving forward, you know, I just, I have this client of mine I'm working with now, they, they, they were so wrapped up in. A, a, a mindset of I don't want to make mistakes. Well, the, this leader replaced two of his key leaders. His revenue within the 12 months after that grew 70%. But the biggest thing for him was his profits grew 500%. He was able to add more people to his team. He's now doing less and enjoying the business more because he shifted his mindset and figured out he didn't need to be the oracle like I thought I had to be and have all the answers for all the people all the time. That's really great. That's, I think it's really important for people to hear stories like this, Todd, and I think it's really great that you get out there and do that. And of course you're, you're a keynote speaker and you're an executive coach, and you talk with people all the time about how they're feeling in dealing with this. What's the reaction you get from most people when you talk about, yeah, that you did this, so they say, yeah, you did that, but I just don't know if I can. Well, and you know, it's so great, you point that out because a lot of people will, will, will practice what I call the law of avoidance. Uh, I'm, I'm a lifelong learner. I'm an avid reader, and one of my favorite authors is a guy named Mark Manson. He talks about the law of avoidance. And we will talk about wanting to do things. We will talk about wanting to make changes, and we don't do that, even though those changes, whether it's changing our business or Adding to our leadership team or maybe getting rid of an unproductive employer or even, you know, losing weight. We don't do those things because our sense of self, even if it's a negative sense of self, is so rooted in who we are, we have to shake that up and get out of that paradigm. And it's often wrapped around, well, I will do it once I just get motivated. Well, the reality is that the neuroscience will show that we only get motivated once we take action. Even if we take the wrong action, taking an action will then create a motivation off of that. And you know, I, I coach people around this, and I, I, I love working with my clients and getting them on stuck. But I, to be honest with you, I get stuck occasionally too. So I still use a coach and I bounce ideas off of him and he's one of the world's literally like he's literally a brain surgeon. He's a neuroscientist MD who talks about. how to get out of reactivity into creativity, because that's where people in general get stuck, whether you're your parent or whether you're an entrepreneur. It happens to most of us. It's important to recognize that it's not if it happens, but when it happens, and there are tools out there and there are resources out there to get yourself unstuck so that you're able to get to ultimately that life by design that many of us are seeking. So I guess when you talk with him and he says it's not brain surgery, he really knows, huh? He really, oh my gosh, that's so true. It's so funny. I remember seeing him speak, and I, I in the audience and I raised my hand and said, he's talking about his theories and he's talking about his practices. And I'm like, oh, come on, really? That sounds, you know, too easy. Prove it. Because he was talking about in the lecture about how we don't have to necessarily go back to childhood to fix our problems, we can make changes quicker. And I'm like, You know, being a, you know, being in therapy as I have been through the course of my life on and off, I, I was doubting Thomas. And he showed this video about how he could ask you questions. Uh, under, and you're in an MRI machine and your brain's gonna fire differently. Then he showed the video of him asking questions, the brain firing differently, and people coming out with, with changes that could be implemented right now, where we can start talking to ourselves differently. We can start talking to others differently. We can start talking about again intentionality versus expectation now approaching things with you know, tools like massive curiosity, whether I, I'm doing a speech next next month in Mexico, virtually and they're having me come and talk about how we can take this entrepreneurial mindset, apply it to parenting because entrepreneurs have such a strong, a high rate of divorce and dysfunction within their families. So these tools about how to think differently and how to approach things in a different way versus a traditional way are going to, I think, especially coming out of these COVID times, are gonna have a ripple effect around the world, both again in the entrepreneurial's business, but also in the entrepreneur's family. Yeah, very good point. A lot of times the attitudes get, of course, taken home and You know, if, if you're positive at work, then you're, you'll likely be positive at home. So what I hear you say is that, you know, there's a big difference between I'll believe it when I see it and I'll see it when I believe it. Well, for sure, and part of it is having, you know, it's like the Stockdale paradox that Jim Collins talks about in his landmark book Good to Great. Deal with your brutal reality and have faith that you will survive it and, and allow yourself the creativity to try several different things in order to survive it, to get out of it and You know, during these tough times, it's amazing how many entrepreneurs are so wrapped up and looking for the one, the one quote unquote right answer, the, the only way to do things, and you know, they say, well, you know, what's the magic potion? What's the silver bullet? And so much of it is literally putting one step 1 ft in front of the other, trying something a day, seeing what works, seeing what. doesn't work, communicating that to your team, communicating that to your staff, leaning into not away from uncomfortable conversations with employees, with vendors, with, with, with family about where your business stands, where you'd like it to be, where are the opportunities within the tragedy and how you can move towards those, and being OK with trying Something and having it at work and learning from those, those steps cause it really, this is what my coach, his name is Danny Friedland, talks about constantly is failure really is, is a non sequitur. It really doesn't exist because if you try something and you learn from it, and then you apply what you learned and you continue on that path, then you, then you never ultimately will fail because you're constantly learning, constantly growing and constantly progressing. Excellent. Well, your enthusiasm is contagious. I really appreciate you coming on and talking about that. Let's let's Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about your book The Job Search Process. There's a lot of people that are in transition, out of work, maybe, and thinking about how they're going to get back into a good productive job. Maybe it's a good time for a change for a lot of people. What can you tell us about how to deal with the COVID-19 and, and moving forward from where you might be if you're if you're looking for a new job or if you're unemployed or you're just searching? For sure, and I, and I think there are people that are unemployed who, who are, you could really benefit from a, a career change because there are companies that are hiring. A lot of companies are hiring, but the, the hidden part about it is 85% of available open jobs are never posted or listed anywhere. I was a recruiter for nearly half of my life and We knew that there were companies that would tell you publicly that they're not hiring, but if you send them the right candidate for the right open position or you send them the right candidate who could be a revenue generator, they might actually talk to them. They would add them to the team. I mean, we turned our business around during the recession. We made the Inc 5000 every year during the recession as a growing company in the manufact. sector with 13% unemployment at one point. So there are jobs out there, and I would tell anybody seeking a job is, first thing is network the heck out of that thing. Tell everybody you know that you're looking for a job. Tell them what makes you a great employee. Why, why should somebody talk and then recognize that there's a massive hidden job market that's not on. On Indeed, not on LinkedIn, even though I LinkedIn are great tools. I'm not saying don't use them. Use them plus create your own job search strategy like I talked about in the book of going out and figuring out what companies do you want to work for? How can you market yourself to them? What should your, your resume look like when it comes to deliverables and those deliverables should. Be um data driven if you're in sales, how did you increase the sales in your territory? How do you improve the margins within your business if you're a COO? If you're a CFO, how did you increase not only margins but reduce costs? Put numbers to those because in today's world that's what the job that's what hiring managers are looking. For certainly go through HR I'm not, not anti-human resources, but in addition to that, go on LinkedIn, figure out who's the person you'll be working for within that organization. Reach out to them, send them your resume, contact them and how you can be an added value to their team. And I guarantee you that the book talks about, you can get a new job within 6 weeks or less. That's fantastic. And you know, when you say that, I think about how many business owners I talked to that say we're always looking for good people. We just don't, we're not necessarily actively or posting, you know, we're not putting that on the job search board anywhere. But yeah, if you know anybody that's a good person, we'd love to talk to them. So I agree with what you're saying 100%. And, and it's, it's, it's been that way forever and it will be that, it's that way now. It's like I, I, I'm so, I was blown away by a client of mine. They've added 7 people over the last 8 to 10 weeks. They're, they're in hiring mode because there are, there's great talent on the street and they want to snap them up now before they return back to their former employer and they're recruiting them and they're bringing them in and they're, they're courting them almost like they're dating, like they call like their dating process. And they've been able to add some key players that were deployed back in January. Mhm, mhm. So when you, um, in your, your book the job search process, of course you you outline all of these steps and it's it's something that, you know, everybody can get a hold of and and read and learn from, but when, when you're talking to, um, on the employer side. Um, do you, do you actively now act as kind of a matchmaker for them and say, we know a lot of great people. How do you interact in this or is your role now you're an executive coaching and speaking and thought leader. Are you still actively in the employment business, I guess I should ask. No, I'm really not. I've been out of that, that active duty for about 3 years now. So what I, what I do is I, I often, I, I, I teach the employees when I, when I speak from stage or even on teleconferences or or um Zoom calls. I teach them how to go out and find the hidden job. What I teach the employers on the other side of it is, how can you make yourself the incredible. Incredibly attractive employer of choice, especially for hard to fill jobs. What do the, I, I, I kind of pull the curtain back for the employer and do this a lot for manufacturing companies because they still have something that's a very fixed old school mindset. How can you attract a millennial? How can you attract your next generation of talent? What's going to make you that that employer of choice? And there's so many things that they can do at little to no cost around culture. Around, you know, cost effective training, um, around treating, giving millennials a voice in the room but not a seat at the table. Millennials, for example, are looking for a couple of things. They want to have a voice in decisions. They want their, their opinions heard. They are often recognized and realize that they're not the final decision maker, but they want to be heard. They want freedom and flexibility. And now, specifically with the with COVID times, what they wanted 8 to 12 months ago, which were, you know, almost forbidden. We we've got to see everybody. You've got to be working in the office. You've got to be putting in your 40 hours where I can physically see you. Well, that's changed. That's shifted. And if employers are, are willing to embrace those shifts and change, there, I mean, you know, my son's a great example. He's a CPA. He works in the metro Detroit area for a company that's based out of Toronto with with hubs in Detroit and Houston, and he only sees his teammates, his supervisors, his boss on teleconference. And he's doing a great job. He's putting his hours and he's adding value and that company only had, we're going to hire the mindset of hiring people locally either in Toronto or Houston, they wouldn't be going after their largest sector, which is the Detroit growth market. It's and it's a huge time of change as far as that's concerned too for a lot of employers. They because they're getting used to working with employees virtually now, they can expand their reach to find good people all over the place. So it's important to be attractive. And on the other side of things, as you were talking, I was thinking it's also so important for employers to know how to. Keep their best talent because they could easily be picked off by people looking for good talent. Now it's a great time of change, a lot of opportunities, and I can tell by the way you speak about this, that you have a lot of passion about this and bringing great knowledge out. So you tell us what you're available for right now. Are you available for keynotes and speeches and coaching gigs as well as just generally talking with business owners one on one these days? That's primarily what I've been doing since COVID hit for, because it's crazy. I was going to be on 6 different stages across 3 different continents, and then they all got shut down and I'm doing everything remotely now, which is actually really fascinating. I've, I've expanded my reach. I've spoken in Malaysia, and Australia, and Brazil, and all across America and Candidate it's such, such a, a true pleasure to watch people have lightbulb moments and to get unstuck around their their businesses around their hiring choices, etc. So the best place for people to reach out to me is go to my website extraordinary advisors.com, send me an email todd at extraordinary advisors.com and say you'd like to have about 30 minutes of my time. I'm happy to um. To sit with you, talk through what your issues are, and help you create a plan, and typically that can be done again in 30 minutes and no charge for that and see if we're a good fit from there. Very fascinating, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on today and and share all of these great tips with our listeners and the, the book, the job search process is still out and available, I take it, as it will be forever. Yeah, I just, I, it's so funny. I get, uh, I checked in this morning. I just sold 4 this morning. It's, it's, it's been really fun to watch the sales move around around graduation season. A lot of people give it as graduation gifts, and I've been telling you, you know, promoting it a little bit more because of the current times. And then my next book, uh, from Suck to Success is coming out at the end of the year about the entrepreneurial journey, so look out for that as well. Todd Palmer, thanks so much. I really appreciate you coming on and and helping us out today. Uh, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio.