Episode 199: Uniquely Normal with Matt Lesser

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers.

I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Welcome to The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast interviews with the industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information that you can start using right away in your business.

I value your time and attention and will do my very best not to waste it.

Just get what you need and go.

So with that, let's get into today's episode.

Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hemney, your host. On today's episode, we have Matt Lesser. You know, right now people are leaving organizations in droves. Turnover rates never been higher, and the cost of replacing a single employee can double, triple, or even quadruple the salaries of the employees leaving. And that's why after many years in various C-suite roles, Matt Lesser decided to go all in on his coaching business, Uniquely Normal. He's got an incredible story and a background that has really influenced a lot of how he helps people today. I really enjoyed this conversation with Matt. We ended up connecting offline quite a bit too. And I look, I enjoy a lot of the conversations that I have with people, but sometimes you just have a more natural connection with some than others. And I think I got a lot out of this conversation with Matt, and I hope all of you do as well. Without further ado, Here's my conversation with Matt Lesser.

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Matt Lesser, welcome to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Thank you very much, Bradley. I'm glad to be here.

We're excited to have you. So we always start with a background origin story. Why don't you give people a little bit of a taste around your journey?

Be glad to. So, um, after college, I grew up in a small Midwestern town and, uh, with that. I mean, it's literally a town of 700, no stoplight, just a stop sign. And so I wanted to have a bigger experience. So I went to Indiana University, got my undergraduate degree in business. From there, went into the family business, which was one— the one thing I didn't want to do, but yet wound up in there anyway. And so about a year and a half after I, I joined my dad, I realized that it wasn't going to work. So I went in to resign and said, Dad, I'm leaving. And he said, actually, I'm leaving. And he did. And on the way out the door, I took— go ahead.

No, that's great. I said, wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah. And so on the way out the door, he signed the business over to me and away we went. It was one of those things that, you know, school was very easy to me. And so I thought that that would translate into business being easy as well, especially since that's what I studied, right? Wow, I was wrong. And over the next— the first 90 days with being at the helm, I discovered unpaid debts of an amount that I— no way to repay. Polluted properties. We were in the oil distribution industry and we had C-stores and a couple of them were polluting other properties. And the big one was, is that withholding tax hadn't been paid in over a year and the IRS will have their money. And so, so all of that accumulated at the same time and I spiraled into a very deep clinical— actually became a suicidal depression. But then from that point, I mean, it was just a— it's a miracle after miracle how things happen. We wound up restarting the business. I was removed for a while and when I was out, a really good friend and one of becoming a mentor actually came in with a team of people and helped us restart. And from then we were literally off to the races. There were, there were just 3 of us when we restarted. It was me and I hired my mom and we had a family friend that served both my dad and then us for 35 years and we built it then for the next decade. And it got to the point that we had to make some decisions. I had to make a big decision and it was literally either I'm going to leverage this thing and try to compete at the next level. Which would have meant leveraging everything, including the 170 lives that worked for me, or we were going to have to, you know, find another, another way. And finally decided that the best route was to sell it to competitors who I thought would take good care of our employees. And so from there, went into private equity, spent 12 years in private equity, got to literally travel the world, looking for business, businesses to invest into. Many of them were businesses that were under $25 $25 million in annual revenue. So did that for 12 years and then had a small stint in banking. I'll just leave it at that. And then I had— then from there I started my own business and spent a year helping my friend help structure his family business as far as like build an executive team. And then I started writing and I wrote a book, started last year, wrote the book, finished it at the end of last year and was published— sorry, it was published at the end of last last year. Um, and my— the book that I wrote on was, was focused primarily on my experiences in, in leadership, in both leading teams and in working with leaders all over the world, and just seeing these trends and tendencies. Um, and so I decided I needed to write about this, so I did. And, uh, so that came out in October. Started writing again, and this next one, I just finished the manuscript. It's not published yet, hopefully by the end of this year. Uh, and that one's focused on building organizational culture, building flourishing organizations. So, so probably more detail than you wanted, Bradley. Sorry about that. But that's a picture of my journey. So I'm married, have married my high school, actually my elementary school sweetheart. Been married for 26 years. We have 3 kids, 22, 19, and 16.

We won't say what, who, who the oldest is a fan of. Okay, we won't bring that up. All right, I'm sorry about that. No, it's all good. So, man, I have so many questions around that, and I appreciate the details. So How long ago? Give me an idea. How long ago was it that you sold that business that you had originally got from your dad? How long ago was that?

Uh, it was 2007.

2007. Okay. So then when you restarted, from the time that the IRS was at your back in that moment, what was that period of time between then and then the restarting of the business?

So everything fell off that bus at the— for basically the fourth quarter of 1997. And we restarted then the second quarter of '98.

Okay. Okay. Gotcha. All right. So that's 6 months, roughly 6 months. Okay. So this is pretty interesting to me. All right. I'm going to ask you questions you've probably not been asked before, but I think— I think this stuff is is super fascinating. You said something before we hit record, and then you kind of alluded to it at the beginning, which I completely agree with. Business is really, really hard. In fact, business is hard and it gets harder the further you want to go, more you want to grow. It's going to get harder. You're going to face a lot of challenges.

Yep, absolutely.

There's also these mantras out there of don't throw good money after bad, okay? What in the world made you decide this thing has not worked? Let's just go right back into it and do the exact same thing. I mean, most people are like, hey man, just take the learnings, go do something else. Like, you want to stay in the entrepreneurial game? Cool, have at it. Why go back and do the— do it again?

Uh, 3 reasons. Um, one was because, um, from my perspective, it never had the chance to fly because it was always weighted down with too much debt. So that was the first one. The second one was it was mismanaged. I mean, it just flat out was mismanaged. And then the third was there were, there were a bunch of loyal customers that were already cultivated. And so it wasn't like we— yes, we had to restart, but I had a, I had a rich— I had, I had a rich soil. If you imagine, I guess, a farmer I had a rich crop just waiting to be picked. And so as soon as we reopened, I was able to go to those customers and we were right off to the races. And so, so there was probably a combination of those 3 things. And maybe the 4th is, you know, I've often joked that I bleed 10W-30. You know, I love that business. I still love that business. You know, it's— I still wonder to this day, did I do the right thing in selling it? You know, it's crazy, but I love that business.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know, so, uh, well then, why, why sell? I mean, because that's the, that's the whole, uh, I mean, in some of the, you know, circles I run in and people I love to talk about is that there's that balance of, okay, well, if you sell, then I mean, a lot of people go into deep depressions even after they sell and they make millions of dollars because they feel like they, they leave their purpose, right? So I mean, what was the factors or the— what does Malcolm Gladwell call it— tipping point? What was the tipping point that said, you know what, I think it's actually better for us to— we've, we've pulled the value out of this and now we're going to exit?

Yeah, great question again. And I think that it wasn't necessarily that we pulled the value out. I think that what had happened, there were a couple of things that had happened that played into it. First was, is it's part of my— just the way I'm wired. I was getting bored. And so we got to the point that it had grown to the point that we weren't necessarily fighting the daily alligators. And so, as you mentioned, business is hard. And so the problems never go away. They just change. They just morph. And for whatever reason, I love being in the trenches, fighting day to day of, okay, how am I going to get enough business to even cover payroll this week? You know, it sounds crazy, but, but that was fun for me. And when it got to the point of we don't worry about covering payroll, but it was like, okay, how are we going to grow this thing next? What should be your next acquisition? What should we focus on? How do we grow our market share? And so what happened is I just got tired of the same mantra and I wanted something else. I wanted a new challenge. So that was the first one. Second one is my mom was my business partner and she was fighting cancer. And so she got to the place of saying, I'm done.

I—

so just you buy out my, my portion and you guys run with it and have a good life. And, and the third thing was we had reached a point where it's one thing when as a small business, it's one thing when you compete in a niche, in an area, especially a regional niche. And that's what we had. We largely had a regional niche where we were the king. And, and so what had happened, though, is, is that in order to grow market share and to grow our revenue, we had to expand our region. And so we did. And the more we expanded, the more we began running into larger competitors. And so I got to the point I had to make a decision. If we're going to really go to the next level, we have to really think about another location in a different region to really go after the bigger competitors, the bigger markets, which would have required huge leverage. It would have required— it was— it would honestly have been a gamble. Because my competitors, the bigger competitors, were— had deep, deep pockets that I didn't have, and I just wasn't willing to take that risk. Um, it would have been, from my perspective at the time, I don't know if it's accurate or not, but for me it was an ego risk, and I just wasn't willing to risk the lives of the people that work for me on my—

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So, I mean, that all makes complete sense, uh, how it— you got up to that point. So real quick, what were the, uh— did you guys actually go and put the business on the market, or did you have an acquirer actually come to you and, and express interest? And, and what was that whole process like? Did you have multiple acquirers that were— you were considering? Did you stay on for an earnout afterwards? What, what was that like for you?

No, we did not put it on the market. And, you know, one of the things that we did really well was we, we, we built relational equity with everyone that we did business with— customers, vendors, and competitors. And so when we went to sell, or at least we decided to sell, I literally just called my two bigger competitors that I knew would be interested and I knew would take care of the people that we— that work for us. And said, hey, listen, we're thinking about an exit. Let's talk. And they both were very interested. So I didn't really make an auction out of it. Probably could have. But when we got to a price that was fair and one of the competitors said, let's do the deal, we did it.

For our listening audience, give us an idea, if you can, about what size the company was. At that point? So were you, you know, $10 million in ARR, number of team members that you had, etc.? Like, give us some sort of a sense of where the business was at that point.

So there were actually, there were actually 3 divisions. One was wholesale distribution. One was a group of fast oil changes, Kwik Lubes, in the northern part of Indiana. And the other one was, the other division was a group of Kwik Lubes in the middle part of Indiana. And so all 3 combined did roughly $20 million in revenue, and we had about 170 lives. Hmm.

Wow. Oh, yeah. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people to make sure. Okay. Are they going to be taken care of? Yeah. Did you stay on with that company afterwards after that transition?

I did not. No. Part of the deal was I was exiting. My mom, however, wanted to stay on for up to, up to another 2 to 3 years. She just didn't want the burden of ownership. But she wanted health insurance. And so she wanted to stay on, she wanted to stay on for, on the wholesale side. And, um, so that was part, we negotiated that as part of the, part of the deal. I think we got her a 4-year contract, if memory serves. It might have been 3 years, I don't remember, 3 or 4.

So, uh, I, so I think ultimately we'll get to kind of, you know, your book and even upcoming books in just a second. But I do think that, that this helps people to get a sense of your background and kind of where, where all you have Then so ultimately that led you to your experiences with private equity. And, you know, can you just for some of our listening audience, I'd like to try to define terms for people a lot of times because things get used interchangeably, just the difference in venture capital and private equity. And then ultimately, what does that mean? Okay. So some people are like, I've heard private equity, but I don't really have any idea what that is. Can you just kind of give us some— and what do they say, speak in fifth grade terms, fifth grade language or something?

Sure. So there are different private equity firms that have different focuses. So you mentioned venture capital firms that provide venture capital. What that usually means is that's capital available for startups. And so if you're thinking about starting a company and you need some funding, or maybe you're very early in your startup and you need funding for whatever, whether it's building, building assets, whether it's building cash flow for working capital, whatever it might be, Oftentimes you'd go to a venture capital type firm and ask for startup capital. Oftentimes they don't take much ownership upfront, but they'll often have what's called carried interest. So they get paid as you're successful and then they either get repaid or they convert it to equity. It depends on how you structure that deal. But venture— but venture capital is very expensive. And so you're not talking about a bank loan. Bank loans, or that's some of the cheapest money you can get, a bank loan, and they don't take ownership of your company. A private equity firm that is looking to buy like we were, we wanted to take a controlling stake in the company. Now, it didn't have to be 100%, but it had to be at least 80%. And so we were looking to purchase 80% of the assets of the company or of the— whether it's the assets or the, the stock of the company. And then we wanted to have either— we wanted to have say in how it's run. Oftentimes we would allow the owner to stay on as the owner, dependent upon the situation though. It didn't always happen that way. As long as we could work together and specifically focus on organizational culture. And so because we were a firm that was very focused on organizational culture. Is that helpful?

This is fantastic. I'm going to end up— we're going to be like a 3-hour podcast together. I got some questions around this. No, I'm just kidding. Okay. So, all right. You all say that you took a controlling interest and you took 80%. So basically there was a commonality to say we are the professional, we can— we know how to run these businesses better than you do. You're the founder. You got it to a certain place. Now you get to take some chips off the table yourself and maybe even exit, or you can be around a little bit, but we're going to professionalize the organization. Is that basically right?

That's— yeah, that's— you said it very well. Professionalize. We said we would optimize, but same principle.

Yeah. We're going to come in and we're going to install this software. Did you oftentimes put an operator in that seat? Like you would hire someone who maybe have, I mean, I've heard this before with other PEs that they have almost a Rolodex of CEOs that they'll say, all right, we're gonna put this person in for 3 or 4, 5 years because we know how he or she operates. They're gonna go in, they're gonna take this business from, and actually one of my questions is what size companies were you typically working with? We're gonna take this company from $10 million We're going to grow it to 100, exit, and then that CEO is going to transition in 3 years. We're going to put them in another seat. Is that somewhat how you guys would work?

We got there in the beginning stages. We— so we literally started— I mean, when I sold my company, I joined my mentor and friend who had just sold his company and wanted to start this private equity firm. And we— it was literally, we wanted to do it differently, and it was focused on 3 different returns. So financial return, cultural return, which really means we want to invest, invest heavily in the people that worked with us in our communities. And then the third is kingdom return, which is we wanted to make a difference for God's kingdom. We want to make a difference for legacy and think bigger than us, right? We didn't want to just— we weren't just doing this for us and to make more money. It was really about impact. And so that's how we— that's how we did everything. And so, and so when, when, when in the beginning we didn't have the, the know-how, the know, and we did not have the, the structure in place to have our Rolodex of CEOs like you talked about, we talked, we called it a bench. So we got to the place where we did, we, we started to put in place a bench where we had CEOs or CEO qualified that were ready to go when we made an acquisition. But in the beginning, we often let the CEO that was there stay on for a period of time, and we got real mixed results with that.

Is that just because they were stuck in the ways of doing things and the things that you knew you had to do to change and change culture, they just were not willing to make that change or those changes? Is that fair to say?

I'd say that was fair in Some cases, I, I'm tempted to say most cases where there's one big exception. In fact, he's still running the organization and is doing phenomenally well. But yes, that I'd say that that's correct. There were some certain things that, that we wanted to see happen again, specifically around organizational culture. And if that didn't start to happen in a short period of time, then it was like, okay, we got to make some changes here.

I've got a really good friend who— he and his 3 business partners built a biotech company. They sold it, um, they sold out to private equity, a lot of money, um, and he was, uh, CFO of the company, um, MBA guy, went to Wake Forest, um, just— his name's Will, I mean, just super intelligent. I mean, he's just very, very, very, very smart. One day over beer, he told me, he said, and really it was, he just kind of offered this up. He said, you know, Bradley, I kind of realized I had tapped out my own abilities and skill sets at that time. I could run a $100 million company. He said, past that, I didn't know what to do. Like, I could not take it from $100 million to a billion or $500 million. He said the people that had the skill sets to take it from 100— and some people are listening to this saying, $100 million, my business does $500,000. I know, but understand, kind of, I'll bring it back to day-to-day small businesses in a second. Ultimately, the skill sets is you have skill sets to get the company to a place oftentimes, and then it becomes in the hands of somebody else that's not— they just have different skills than you. They're not better than you. They just know how to do it. And that's where Will offered to me and said, honestly, I did everything I could, but at that point there was just things coming up that I just did not know how to do it. Did you see that often?

Yes, that was the primary, um, that was a primary motivator for two things. One, primary motivator to, for these operators to sell their business because they had, they had capped out. They, they got it to where they could get it and that was it. And on the second, um, where we saw it was when they would stay on and we wanted, we had aggressive strategic planning and they're like, they would get overwhelmed. And so, you know, we would often say internally and we'd say this even, it became part of the pitch when we would talk to organizations that we were to buy in, is that, you know, your team can get you from the team that you have now got you to where you are. More than likely that team will not get you to the next level. And so it'll get you from A to B, but probably not B to C. And, and the team that gets you from B to C probably won't get you from C to D. To your point, you just— it takes different skill sets, takes different chops, it takes different thinking abilities in order to continue to grow up the proverbial food chain in business.

I think this is fascinating because, you know, when the business gets started, whether it's a Main Street business, brick and mortar or whatever, they hired people that they were friends with, were in small groups with, went to church with, did sports teams with, and that person came on board and there was an entrepreneurial vibe about it and we got the thing going and it started and that person is growing and the company is growing. And then it's like, okay, now how are we going to take this thing from, I don't know, $2 million to $20 million? It's like, well, the person sitting in that seat, that we got to get somebody else out. And they're like, I'm not firing that person because I coached, I coached basketball with them for 7 years.

Right?

Is that kind of what you're talking about?

Yes, absolutely. And, and the thing is, in a lot of the organizations that I'm working with right now, those kinds of discussions and conversations are happening still. They happen all the time. Well, that's my best friend. I can't let my best friend go. Well, the reality is this. Oftentimes those conversations are way past due. My guess is your best friend is miserable and he's not willing to quit because you're his best friend too. And so when they finally go out for the beer and have the heart-to-heart conversation, they both are like, wait a minute, how long have you been feeling this way? Oh man, for 2 years or 6 months or whatever it is. And, and it's this huge sense of relief. And Bradley, that conversation happens time and time again. Where people are bright, people are intelligent. They understand, like your CFO friend does. They understand if they've reached the point of saying, I'm capped out, I'm done. You know, I did, I did everything I can do. I can't do any more and I need to hang it up or I need to move on or I need to go out on my own or do whatever it is that you need to do next.

All right. So I got to ask this. This is kind of broad, broad stroke question. So The world that I know is entrepreneurship, business ownership of, say, $2 million in revenue and less. Okay. That's just the world I know. And I would say that's the vast majority of our listening audience as well. What are the things, skill sets they can, they can begin to learn now that happens at $5 million, $10 million, $20 million?

If we—

if they hired you and— but they could hire you for $5,000, something that they could afford.

Sure.

And you came in with the same level of professionalism or the professional structure into the organization. Where— what would you do? Where would you begin?

That's a great question. And, and actually, I love working with businesses that are of that size that have aspirations to grow toward the $5 and $10 million mark that you talked about. I would start with the, the CEO or the owner and his or her leadership team. And really start to get their arms around, their heads around how do you build a leadership team that is an executive team that is building the next layer of leaders and preparing them. And you are preparing them, you're getting ready to empower them so that when the time comes and as the organization grows, they are prepared and they're ready to go. They're ready to lead and they're ready to take responsibility and ready to be held accountable. Too many organizations, their growth is hampered because they want control. Control and growth are— they are, they're counter— just lost the word. So they're inverse. They have an inverse correlation. So if you want to grow, you have to be willing to give up control. If you want control, then you just understand that your growth is going to be capped. And so, but a lot of founders, CEOs, for all the reasons that they became successful to begin with, they have a hard time giving up control. And so that's the biggest lid that I see on organizations on why they have difficulty growing.

Hmm. Yeah, we could sit in this conversation itself for a while. Because one of the parts that I think is so overwhelming about small business, okay, I mean, I think the cutoff of medium business is like starts at $25 million and above or whatever. So, you know, some people hear a $20 million company and they think that that's a— I mean, it is a big business compared to, say, a million.

Absolutely.

So one of the things I think I just want you to kind of speak to this. Is that oftentimes in the beginning there's not even a leadership team. It's a leadership person, him or her. And so the, the C-suite— let's just use that, right? The C-suite is CEO, CFO, CMO, COO, uh, CT, maybe CTO if there is. CSO is a big one, Chief Sales Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief chief financial officer, COO, and CEO is all one person. Yeah. And we wonder why in the world business is hard. It's like you have to wear all of those hats.

Yep. You're exactly right.

Where, like, where do you think the biggest place to start to say, okay, why I can't afford, Matt, to go build an entire C-suite leadership team? Okay, I do. I do $800,000 in top line revenue. I'm wanting to grow to 2. Okay, but like, I can't go hire $100,000 salaries across all these different, you know, spots, and it's really not even necessary. Where should they begin?

That's, you know, that's the million-dollar question. And I mean, literally, because it's hard to give a blanket answer on that, Bradley, because it depends on the type of organization. And so sometimes you need a chief of sales. And while I'm thinking of it, you don't need to go out and hire an entire executive team. You know, I had a really good friend of mine. In fact, I was on his board for many years. But prior to that, he and I were having coffee and I was asking him about his business. And at the time, his business was probably in the $50 million range, maybe a little bit less than that. And no, it was less than that. And so I said, tell me about your business. Tell me about your leadership team. And so he told me about his CFO and he told me about his COO. He told me about this. The reality was, is that he had some amazing people with leadership abilities that were not really an executive team, and he was still doing it all himself. And I just said, dude, your business is too big for you to do it all yourself. You have to figure out how to bring people around you that can help share the load. And so regardless of the size of the organization, you know, $800,000, $500,000, $1 million, $2 million, um, find one person that you can help share the load with. And it may not be a specific title. It may be, hey, come in and help me be chief of staff, and I'm going to give you sales and marketing, and I'm going to give you operations, or I might give you finance and sales, or whatever it might be. But begin to build the foundation for what could be some become the executive team or the senior leadership team or whatever it is that you call it. But it starts with one person. And then as a business grows, it's another person. As a business grows again, it's another person. And you just progress that way. Does that make sense?

It does. It does. It does. And actually, I think I appreciate your honesty there because it's not just this direct answer. And do you not— I mean, also it plays into the fact of what is the skill sets of the owner, the founder themselves, of Well, you're really strong with financials, so therefore hiring out that one is probably not the one that's more important than having a sales leader for the organization first and foremost.

Yes, that's a great point. And I think that that one of the first discussions is to really help that leader understand his or her strengths, their passions, their loves, and the things they tolerate. And let's start by talking about— and then let's start with, okay, let's talk about the things you just tolerate. And is there someone that we can begin to target to come in and do those and help take that part to the next level? You already, as you just mentioned, you know, you're a rock star at finance. Wonderful. You keep finance, but you tolerate sales. Okay, let's go look for a rock star sales or maybe a fractional CSO or something along those lines. Until we can build this thing to the point that we can begin to hire, you know, the next level hires.

Yeah, yeah. I want to sit on this actually, because I think that this is very relevant for our, for our listening audience is this idea of second in command, 2 SEs, and building out the leadership or the executive team to where you are not just being a great leader yourself, but you are developing other leaders. Like, that's a massive transition to make. And as you said, I think it's— I think Craig Groeschel says you can have control or you can have growth. You can't have both, basically. And so what does that actually look like practically to say, okay, this person has the capabilities, they have the acumen, That's kind of what I'm looking for. They have that, that they have this enough of a skills that looks like they're going to be able to lead other people. But now I begin to kind of— I've not had another leader, I've not had another layer of leadership, and I know I need it, but I'm a little concerned about, well, now this person was on the team and now they've been elevated to a position. Does that make sense? Like, those are dynamics I think what it's easy to read about in a book, but it's not actually down to— yeah, but now this person just became a leader of other people.

Yeah. Um, and I think that— by the way, thanks for the— I forgot that Craig Groeschel used the great— the, uh, the growth and control quote. Now I can remember to actually give him credit for that. So I used it earlier. Um, I, I think when, um, Again, it goes back to the, the, the founder, owner, leader has to evaluate and has to really understand both how they are wired, how they're gifted, what they're passionate about, how they contribute value, and, and really look at that in terms of what do I want this thing to do? You know, this is my baby. I launched it. I took the risk. I did this. And that's all very true. And if you want your baby to grow to the next level, that requires giving up some control to other gifted people as well. And yes, you're right, it's much easier to read about in a book and it's very difficult to put into practice because as soon as the— what the last thing they want to do is to begin to give over. Okay, here, here's, here's part of my baby. Okay, I want you to be responsible for for this part. I want you to help my baby be able to take his or her first steps. I want you to help teach them how to feed themselves, you know, and using the baby example. But, but that's very hard because they know every aspect of the business. You know, it's same thing when I was building my business. We started with 3 people. There wasn't anything I couldn't do in that business. I knew it all. And so the good thing is, is that I had a— I had a— I had wonderful mentors that really helped me understand who I was. And I knew what I was passionate about and I was— and I knew what I wasn't passionate about. And so as soon as we could afford it, I knew the first hire I was going to make was a person in charge of sales. We were a sales-based organization. Yes, I was competent. I was decent at it. It wasn't my passion.

I'm actually really curious to ask you this question. Really, I'm curious to see what your answer is going to be.

Yeah.

So I think on this podcast I've shared— maybe I haven't. I know I shared it with, with some people in my group, but it was only 4 or 5 years ago that I was absolutely 100% adamant that you should hold on to equity as much as possible, that you should not give away the equity. That ultimately you can get debt cheaper than equity. Equity is going to cost you way more in the long term, etc. And I've just had enough experiences to say, hmm, well, I've really reevaluated my thinking of that. You get two other people who are in the boat with you, in the arena with you, that have skin in the game equity that can complement you and your skill sets. You can have, let's just say hypothetically, 33% instead of 100% of a much bigger pie and a much better quality of life than having 100% ownership of this small thing. So that being said, where do you land if you, if you were going to start a company, buy or build, buy or build, it doesn't matter. How would you do— what were— how would you structure the equity with some of the, the key people in the organization, and why would you structure it that way? Does that make sense? Because you've, you've just seen so many different ones, you've been a part of acquisitions yourself, you sold one, you kind of have an idea, I'm sure, a philosophy yourself of this is kind of what makes sense to me. I'd go in with 3 people, I'd go in with 2 people, I started by myself. I mean, what, what would you ideally do?

Yeah, that's a good question. So when I started this business that I have now, I started it— I am the sole owner and I have thought about that. If I had an opportunity to, to join someone else or them join me, would I give up equity? And the answer is it depends. And I think that's— you're asking a very important question. I think that there, there are definite arguments to be made that are for sharing equity. I would never share 51% of the equity. And there are definite arguments to be made that we can put into place. If you want to— if you don't want to share equity, that's fine. Then put into place at least a program that offers shadow equity or actually ghost stock or whatever it might be.

Yeah.

So that way the people— that way your key people can share in the upside of the company that they're going to bring to you, to your point. Do you want to have 100% of a $1 million company or you want to have 66% of a $10 million company? Well, all day long, I'll take the 66% of the $10 million company. Well, in order to get there, you have to bring in key people that guess what? They're motivated by sharing in that upside. And so I think some people are motivated for the actual stock equity. And I think that some people don't necessarily care about the stock equity as long as they're properly rewarded for the upside that they bring. And I think you can properly— you can do that effectively with a shadowed stock or ghost stock program.

Yeah. And for those people that don't know what that is, basically— and Matt, jump in here if I, if I miss here— it's a way to compensate an employee in your company as an owner without actually giving them equity in the company. Because one of the biggest things is what happens if that person leaves? And now they leave and they're sitting with 10% equity of the company. When— what— how in the world— what do we do with that? But yet you want them to— I mean, you know, there's these things out there about like how to get your employees to think like an owner. It's like, well, there's no way to really do that unless they actually literally have equity in the company. But shadow equity is a way to be able to do that. Is that— is that Practically, yes.

And one, one thing I would offer too is that if you decide to get— what you just brought up is a wonderful point and it's a, it's a huge pain point when, when partnerships, when one of the partners decides they want to leave regardless if they have 10%. What I advise those owners to do is make sure that if you're going to give actual equity or even, even shadow equity, it both applies. You need to have in place a very clear, very strong buyback arrangement so that when that person leaves, it triggers it immediately. So that way they don't leave the organization and retain the stock. And there's this constant then almost thorn in your side, even though you might, you might leave amicably, you might be friends, whatever. It just is not good. And I, and I at least I don't think it's a best practice from my perspective. I just seen too many times where that becomes a real pain in people's butts and they don't know how to get out of it. And so have a very strong document that triggers a buyback and or some kind of a first right of refusal if they want to sell it to someone else in the company. But I think that's— I wouldn't recommend that either. I would recommend that you control what happens to that stock if that person leaves. Yeah.

And obviously there's a lot you need to talk to your accountant about this because, I mean, it's not an attorney and an attorney. It's the closest you can get by. To giving someone equity without actually giving them equity. However, they lose some of the benefits of being an actual equity holder themselves. But what they gain is the calculations, say, on a— if you did a profit sharing, and I don't mean that in the sense of a 401(k), but as a profit sharing, we're going to distribute the profits. They get expert this is an example, they get X percentage based on the profits that the company spit out. So if it had $1 million in EBITDA and you said, okay, we get 10%, they get $100,000. Yeah, but that obviously has some bit of some implications to their tax on their tax side. So obviously to your tax accountant and your, you know, attorney for that. So I'm sure the team at Club Capital can help with that. But anyway, right.

Another— yes, another idea too is if you're— if if you want to look at a little more sophisticated that does not involve equity but does provide the incentive, incentive perks, a SERP plan is, is a phenomenal tool. And you're not, you're not giving equity, but you're giving the same rewards. And it's tied to— it's a, it's, it's a, it's a golden handcuff, if you will. But it provides the same benefits as if you're an owner, but it does not trigger those tax, those, those annual tax issues Instead, it's delayed, it's deferred out into the future.

Okay, interesting. I'm not super familiar with that. So, all right. So what was the impetus around writing the book, the first book Unsatisfied? And then you've got, you mentioned a second book that you just sent to the publisher. Can you talk to us about those two things?

Sure. Unsatisfied came from, so I had the idea to write, I had the idea to write a book about a decade ago. And, but I started messing around with some notes and ideas. Again, it came out of the travels that I had and working with leaders both domestically and internationally and just seeing this, the same type of behavior, same conversations. I think it's a pattern and it's like, okay, this needs to be written about. And the pattern looked something like this. These leaders, these owners, I mean, they would literally sacrifice everything in order to— and everything within reason, but they sacrificed a lot to build their businesses. They sacrificed usually marriage, family, uh, kids growing up, missing, missing all kinds of stuff to, to build these businesses and to grow these things. And they'd hit a point where— and it was normally in their 50s— they'd reached this point of saying, this is it, you know, I thought that I would have more satisfaction. I mean, and for all intents and purposes, these people are thriving, right? They have disposable income, they have you know, toys, they have houses, they have whatever they can afford materially, but they are unsatisfied in their spirit. And, and I heard the same story over and over and over again. And it's like, okay, so what is driving these people? Because they're, they're successful people. And so about 5 years ago, I started messing with this model. It wound up becoming called the Flourishing Life Model. It's in the book. And it's a triangle that has 5 levels to it. And the 4th level is thriving. And my working title before the book was finished was actually called Beyond Thriving. So what is beyond thriving? What's next? Right. And I didn't know the answer to that until about 2 years ago. The word flourishing came up in a conversation and I was captured by it. And so I began writing this book in April or March— sorry, March— no, February, February of '21. And finished it at the, at the end of '20, finished it toward the beginning of '22, and then went through the publishing process last year and it came out in October. Interestingly enough, the— and it's really about how do you build flourishing individuals if you're serious about living beyond thriving, living. And that really means living legacy-minded, living beyond myself. Thriving is all about accumulation. It's about— it's about really— it's about me. It's about what I want and getting what I want. Whereas flourishing is a focus out. It's a focus on giving. It's a focus on investing in the next generation. It's a focus on thinking beyond just my current situation in life. It's thinking toward the end of my life and how do I be remembered? What's my legacy going to be? The next book I started— literally started writing the day that this was released. Interestingly enough, Bradley, when I wrote this book, this is the first book. The first book is actually not the book I wanted to write. The second book is. And there's many reasons why this happened this way, but I was literally frustrated the whole time I was writing the first book because it's like, this is not the book I wanted to write. Now I'm beginning to understand. Because the second book is called— working title, it may change— is called Unengaged: Building Flourishing Organizations. And I'm taking some of the principles, some of the core foundational principles from the first book, bringing it into the second book, but expanding it and applying it to, okay, you know, leaders, senior leaders, owners of businesses. If you're serious about building a flourishing organization, Here's how you do it and here are the steps, the principles that you need to instill in your organization and guess what? It's all about people because people build organizations, you know, and I think we forget that sometimes, especially as organizations get bigger and bigger. We forget that people are what help build it and people are what keep it building. People are what keep it growing. I mean, we sell to people, you know, we may sell to organizations but there's people in these organizations. So it's all about people. And so if you want to build a flourishing organization, you have to focus on the people. So I'm very excited about that one. Hopefully, that'll be released third, either third quarter or early fourth quarter this year.

Awesome. That's great, man. Well, first of all, I love your titles, Unsatisfied and Unengaged. I think those are great. Those are great titles in and of themselves. I think that I can certainly relate to— are you familiar with David Brooks's book, uh, The Second Mountain? Have you ever heard that?

No, I haven't.

Oh, fantastic book. For listening audience, go get that book too. That's, that's a fantastic, uh, book. And, and I'm not going to give it away, but I mean, too many of the details, but similarly to what you're saying, the first book is around conquering, especially in business, the conquering, getting to the top of that mountain. And then it's like, well, wait a minute, okay, I feel a little empty there, uh, kind of what you're saying. And I had felt that way too before at times, to say, man, actually looking back on it, what I really enjoyed was the journey, was the hike. And it was, it was like, I don't know, I just love the quote. You can actually see kind of part of it behind me, In the Arena, from Teddy Roosevelt. Like, that's just my favorite quote because I feel like I just love to be in the arena, you know, with it. And then the, the winning is like, yeah, it's actually sometimes a lot of times feels a little empty. I don't know how else to put it, right?

Or it does.

Unsatisfied, you know, it doesn't feel like, like, yeah, okay, it's good. You know, we, I can remember years ago we achieved something that we had really pushed very hard to achieve for a really long period of time and achieved it. And, you know, it, it, it didn't feel how I thought it was going to feel. Um, it felt— it just felt empty is the only way for me to, for me to put it. Um, and so, and I'll just give one other analogy. I heard when David Duval— I love to play golf— and so when David Duval knocked off Tiger in Tiger's early career, became number one in the world, David had won, uh, Duval had won the British Open, and he became number one in the world. And then he tumbled after that. I mean, it was very quickly because he had achieved what he was out to achieve. Like, he had a mountain to climb, which was to try to beat Tiger, become number one in the world, and he did. And then it was like, well, what else do I have to play for now? He's gone on to have a great announcing career, etc. But I think it's kind of along the same lines of what you're talking about.

It absolutely is. And in fact, I use many quotes in the book that talk about the emptiness that is felt when we have a mountain to climb or a goal to accomplish. We accomplish it and we reach the top, and literally it's like, okay, I thought I would feel differently. I thought the experience would be different, and here I am, I'm all excited. And yet, you know, the next day it's like, okay, now what? You know, I remember a quote by Tom Brady when he won his first Super Bowl. There was an emptiness to it, is the way he described it when he was interviewed about it. And so, and I think that's true unless, unless you understand what it is that's truly driving you at your core and your purpose and your passion and your calling. And I talk about this in the book that, you know, really living a flourishing life is a collision of your passion and your giftedness and what you're really good at doing and, and your calling. And when those four things come together, it really creates something beautiful in you because you have this sense of, okay, I know my why, I know why I'm here. And sure, it may be to build a business. And then, you know, and then taking that into the second book, into organizational life, you know, we see it all around us with the whole quiet quitting and openings and we can't fill people. And, you know, how do you retain good talent? And, and it's not necessarily rocket science, but it is hard work.

Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah, that's a good— that's a great point. I actually live in Huntsville, so the Rocket City is like— there is, there is quite frankly, quite literally, uh, rocket scientists here. Okay.

Um, right.

But you're right, it's not rocket science, but it is— that doesn't mean it's easy either, you know. Um, I actually Um, let me find this real quick. Ali, will— Ali, you can edit this part of it out while I'm looking for this. But there was this— let me find it. Okay, here. So I stumbled across this the other day, and it's a, uh, somebody posted it on Twitter, and it's a, uh, thing that says, we do this not because it is easy, but, but, but because we thought it would be easy.

Wow.

You know, it's like that old thing, we do this not because it's easy, but because it's hard. And, you know, I think it was Kennedy that said that. Well, this would have said, well, we did this not because it's easy, but because we thought it would be easy.

You know, it's like, I love that.

Business is not easy at all. So, Matt, this has been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. I can't believe that an hour has already gone by. I've just learned so much from you and your own experiences, but then also in the experiences of of other people. Hey, people want to connect with you. Where can they, where can they connect with you? And obviously, where can they pick up the books?

Yeah, great. So the books, uh, well, the first book is, it's on Amazon, Barnes Noble, um, so check that out there. Uh, the second book with similar platforms. Um, I have a website, it's www.uniquelynormal, all one word, uniquelynormal.com. And my email is matt @uniquelynormal.com. That's M-A-T-T @uniquelynormal.com. I'd love to connect with anyone who'd love to, love to connect.

Awesome, Matt. Really enjoyed the conversation. Hope to get you back on in the future.

Thank you.

Great.

Appreciate it.

Great having Matt on. You know, I can't wait for his next book, Unengaged, when he's talking about people. You know, we, we, he had, he and I had the conversation around Quiet Quitting. But I just think, um, his title of his book, When Less Is More, Unsatisfied, you know, how do we get the best out of ourselves, out of our people? And, you know, we obviously ended up talking around some equity things and phantom equity and things of that nature. But I really enjoyed that conversation with Matt. So make sure you reach out to him, check out his books on Amazon, Unsatisfied, and then you can even follow him whenever his next book comes out. Thanks to our podcast sponsors that allow this to happen every single week. With the 3 episodes a week, we hopefully are serving all of you and giving you great value and bringing guests on like Matt. Go to directclicksinc.com if you're ready to work with someone who works with other insurance agency owners and helps them with their SEO and their Google pay-per-click, and even now their social media. If you know you need to do those things on a regular basis, such as showing up, buying ads, uh, buying Google, uh, ads to be able to give your sales team incredible leads to be able to convert, go to directclicksinc.com. Of course, if you're going to have leads coming in, you've got a sales team and you want to be able to recruit A players. And the value of recruiting A players comes in the consistency in which that you show up. Go to autopilotrecruiting.com. Let the team know that you heard about them on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. They have worked with— they work now with over 1,000 insurance agency owners to be able to help them recruit A-players on a consistent basis. Whether you're building your bench or whether you're ready to fill a position, grow your team, or if you've had somebody to leave and you're looking for a customer care person or a salesperson on your team or anybody else for that matter, they're able to give you the right structure, the framework, and fill your funnel full of great candidates so that you can take them through the process. Autopilotrecruiting.com. One of the biggest investments that I've made has been my own personal and professional development, not just for my team but for myself. When you get the best of both worlds, when you work with David at Coach P Consulting, you yourself are going to get developed. Twice a week calls, but then the once a month agency owner calls with David. He brings in some amazing speakers that are going to be able to pour into you. It is unbelievable value for what you pay for. Honestly, he should charge more. I've been telling him he should charge more given the value that he, that he brings. For $250 a month currently, you'll be able to get 8 coaching calls for you and your team members to be able to see exactly what they're doing, the exact sales scripts, the onboarding process, how he trains and develops his team. That shortcut to success, the way you're able to compress time working with David is awesome. Go to coachpconsulting.com. Chris, got to manage the cash in the business. Not only what's your marketing, your sales systems, but what's your system for managing the money? You got into business for a lot of different reasons. I know to make an impact and, and to really make a difference in people's lives and you love what you do, but you got to be able to make money too. Okay. You're not there just to own a job. You want to be able to see what that opportunity is really worth. To you. And that takes just knowing the numbers and paying attention to the numbers so you can make more money on a regular basis. Go to club.capital and book a no-obligation demo. All right everyone, without further ado, I'll see you next episode. Lead well.