Meet Micah Logan

Right, we are live. Okay, breathe, Adrian. I get so excited. Look at Micah Logan. I know only this. I know he's handsome, obviously. You guys all know that too. I know he's from Boston, and I know he's, he's freezing, and— or he's got like, I don't even know how many— oh, and wait, what's that? What's that logo?

Oh, the Red Sox.

Bruins. The Red Sox. The Red Sox. Yes, and he likes the Red Sox. Okay, so you are brave, bold, bright. Do you have hair? Because I would say bald if you didn't have hair.

Oh no.

All right, so you— oh my God, you are very handsome. Okay, so Micah, how it works is we are live, we are on Chatter Social too. Bobby is in the room. Bobby, can you say hi? Hello there, how you doing? Hey Bobby, that's to you, Micah, and the audience. Okay, so very excited to have you here. So Micah, you have to introduce yourself because when I say no prep, I literally mean no prep. This is going to be a very raw, authentic conversation. I don't have questions anywhere. They're not like— I don't— there's no questions anywhere. Take the mic, Micah.

Sure, tell you a little bit about myself. So I was, I was born and raised in, uh, in Boston actually, so I've been here my whole life. Um, I professionally, um, have, you know, I've, I've started companies. I've stayed in the small business space for the most part, so the 0 to 1, 0 to 2 really space. Um, I have built from the ground up companies, award-winning companies. Um, I've sold my company, one of my companies, back in '23. Um, I grew up in one of the poorer parts of the city of Boston. Um, and so no real business mentors, no business coaches, no consultants that I work with, etc., etc. But I was able to kind of— and obviously it's a longer story— but like pursue my interest in business over the years. And I've been able to, to grow businesses, as I mentioned, start them. Um, I also have been fortunate enough to you know, work with businesses in over a half dozen industries around the country as a business coach and consultant and a fractional executive. So right now my focus is on being a fractional executive and consulting with businesses to help them to grow and scale. But so at any given point in time, I'm, I'm running about 3 companies at the top as a fractional CEO. And, um, that is something that right now gives me immense pride and pleasure, uh, to be able to help businesses turn them around. So I usually work with businesses who are in need of like a turnaround. There's a lot that goes with that. But, you know, for me personally, you know, I am— I've always kind of like just dug into the, to the business world. I was good at it. I recognized I was good at it. And so I kind of stayed in this lane, you know.

I love it. You know, it's funny. So we're live on Chatter Social and we have someone very, very well known, very popular, someone I deeply admire and respect, and that is Cindy Stumpo out of the Boston market. Do you— are you familiar with Cindy Stumpo?

I am not, no.

Oh, she has Stumpo Developers. Amazing woman. Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. So, Micah, Actually, I, I, when we first started talking, um, and I didn't ask that many questions, but I did want to know your website. And then I saw it and I was like, well, I asked you the question, are you proud of it? Because in all honesty, some people are like, no, don't show my website. And I'm like, okay, I won't. But I thought yours is like fantastic. So I actually want to share it if you don't mind, and then we could kind of talk through it.

Yeah, I don't mind at all. I, you know, I, The reason why I don't mind is because I, I change my website every few, few months to, to try to make it better. I'm always fine-tuning the website very, very frequently.

Interesting. I really like— what I like about it is that you start with who you are. I think you need a little extra space right there, and the, um, but maybe not. But I like, I like it shares who you are. Amazing photo of you. Very approachable, right? Like, I love that about you. Um, so tell us a little bit about here. I thought this was interesting. You have your about and then your operator. This part is really interesting. Tell us a little bit more about this part.

Yeah. So, you know, oftentimes one of the— there's so much information, I think, out there in the world right now for various reasons. You know, the adoption of artificial intelligence, the fact that even before artificial intelligence existed in its current form, there was a lot of information that you can Google search. You can do research on individuals unless you strictly try to keep yourself away from the internet. You can find out about almost anything. And so what this has led to is the proliferation of people who have almost no experience in certain industries or in certain, you know, with like with, with consulting or teaching, um, they can just position themselves as an expert and advertise their ex— their quote expertise. And they usually do that on the, on the premise that they're claiming that they can do something that they've never actually done. So that preamble is to talk about this section is about the fact that I understood that it would be important to people who would ever work with me, or generally speaking, just to have a conversation, to, to know that I'm an operator first, right? So I do the work. I've done the work as a fractional CEO and COO. And, you know, I have been in the trenches of businesses. You know, I failed and I've succeeded, both. One brings joy, one brings pain, one brings learning, right? And so it's important to have a well-rounded 360-degree experience when you're working with people. If you're claiming that you can help a person do something, um, that they need, as crucial as helping them turn around their business or right side their ship, whatever the case is, you should have done it before, right? You should have been where they are. You should also understand the, you know, the parameters and the work that it's going to take to go along with that. So this section specifically is about underscoring the credibility of what I've done in the past that allows me to be able to even speak the same language or be in the same room as people who, who need the help. It's crucial, Micah.

It is so crucial. It's something that I see all the time. It is crazy, and it hurts. It hurts the business you're trying to do. That all you're going to do is harm your own reputation and you're gonna hurt the business. For those of you that think that you can slide in any department and that ChatGPT is gonna help you, because, Micah, it's called wisdom, right? It's the knowledge that we have. I asked a woman one time about this because it's so intriguing to me, because I'm sure, like you, you've had clients that have come to you and have spent a lot of money and it's been wasted money. And when I asked her, she said, Adrienne, it's about the corners. When we're a little older, we have the wisdom, we've been doing it, we've been around all those corners, we've seen them all. And I just love the way she described it. So first of all, let's then talk about, if you don't mind, how does a business actually vet who they're going to work with? How do they know that maybe you're just a ChatGPT genius and that's it?

They don't. And that's the problem. And, you know, if I'm going to be raw and honest about this, frankly, they don't. There is no way for them to understand who knows what they're doing and, and who does it. So they, so they go off of a few things. Generally speaking, they go off of social proof, which is why websites are really important, um, to see if there's people who can vouch for the individual who's saying that they're doing what they claim to do. Um, the other thing that they go off of is gut instinct. So if you, if you get to the point enough where you earn enough trust for them to get to the next level, which is to reach out to you to get more information, in order for them to understand that you kind of know what you're talking about, there should be some kind of discovery call where you're talking about their business, kind of what ails them. And in that conversation, they should be able to get the sense that you can touch the nerves that are sensitive about where their business is and how they personally feel at that moment in time, right? So there's a lot of frustration and there's a lot of, there's a lot of gaps in leadership development. And so that is an independent skill when it comes to running a business. And so what I see is, is I see that oftentimes when I have conversations and discovery calls, that there are holes in, in how a person's operating. Now here's the thing, oftentimes people in my position, in order to take it to the next level, will tell only— tell a business owner only what they want to hear or only things that are wrong with their business, right? What do they do well? What do they do that actually doesn't need to be adjusted? See, being able to both understand the things that they do well and praising them for those things, but also kind of seeing, as you mentioned, the individual who said about the corners, seeing around the corner how the things that they don't do well could cost them long-term despite doing well in this other area. Is quite another skill. So you have to be able to earn trust. They have to be able to know that they're, that they're safe and in good hands. But the only way to do that really is to talk and vet individuals, an individual who come, who would come in. It's funny because I had a conversation with, um, someone about like just profit margins in their business. And so they, you know, I asked them, you know, what their profit margin is. And just one simple question, kind of similar to what Alan Weiss said, and his book, but I actually said that— had this conversation before I read it, which was, how do you know that the profit margin shouldn't be higher, right, than what it is right now? And, and they had no answer to that. And, um, the reality was that, you know, they weren't measuring— they weren't measuring the success of the business using any verifiable metrics. So, you know, that's just kind of like one example of how you can build trust with an individual whose life is all wrapped up in the business and And this is emotional work as much as it is logical work, because people have spent, in some cases, their life savings on trying to make a business work, and in other cases, a lot of emotional capital by the time they call me.

Wow.

Okay, I, I love this. I don't want to, like, you know, go too heavy on this, but, you know, my dad growing up in a family business— I've been in business for, um, in family business 40 years and had my own business for 10 years. Well, yeah, so 35. So, okay, whatever, I'm 63. But I started right away, right out of college. But my dad always said, know enough to be able to ask the right questions, right? So that if you are looking for fractional CEO, COO, know enough that you know what you're looking for. And it sounds like you could tell right away, Mika, that you do. But do you kind of agree with that advice?

I do. I agree with that 100%. And you know, the, the dangerous part is the reason— one of the reasons why I had to close my first business, the way— the reason why it failed is because of a saying that Thomas Sowell, the economist, um, he's still with us although he's 90-something, said, which was, it takes an immense amount of knowledge to understand the extent of your own ignorance. So you don't really know what you don't know even when you think you know what you think you know, right? Like, you have to learn enough to kind of know how far away you are from where you need to be, both intellectually and, um, and even practically.

Wow. Hey, Bob, if you have any questions, just, uh, just unmute and interrupt. I am— oh my God, I had to— if you were watching this, you'd see my hand over my mouth because I'm like, oh my gosh. That is a mic— mica drop. We're not gonna say mic drop anymore. Now it's called mica drops. That's a mica drop. That was— that was intense. Okay. All right. So now I understand the operator part of it. I love it. Ah, so good. So good. Okay. So you— oh, I wanna know about the small— are you allowed to share a little bit? Just give us a enough, a taste, an appetizer. Don't give me the whole dinner, please. Let me just blow this up and share with us what, what exactly is— is this your program, the Small Business Mastery System?

Yeah, so I, I'll tell you in like 2 or 3 sentences. Basically, I built this Small Business Mastery System because I, I understood that the reason why businesses were struggling is not because they may not have a good service or product. That's generally not the issue. In some cases it is, but most of the cases it's not. It's because small business owners have not mastered the skills of running and operating a business. And so that's why I built the Small Business Mastery System. And basically what you're seeing, Turnaround and Altitude, are— they're both— those are— Turnaround are the 10 steps. The word— each word represents something. So it's the 10 steps to actually turn around a business so that you can either prevent yourself from going underwater or floating. So each Each letter represents a step in turnaround. And same thing with altitude, to get to the next level, which obviously altitude represents, you know, it's each one of those is a step to get in, to get in scale and grow and kind of maintain your height, you know, in the business.

Yeah, it's interesting. I was a SCORE mentor for years and chairwoman of Volusia County SCORE, first female ever. Just have to bring that up there because that's, that's pretty amazing. Um, or that there was— I wish there were some more women before me. But what I do want to say is that in mentoring people, I, I was surprised how many people didn't— when they were really looking at the revenue or the real cost, they— there were so many things that they would like skip. Um, and that's why I think it's so important to actually talk to a coach, because you get so inside your business, and then you may be like, for forgetting the whole packaging part of it, that there's a cost for that. And you're just thinking, I have to ship it out, and it's a shipping cost, but forgetting that you got to still put it in the box and the time and packaging or anything, you know, if it's a product. Um, but I was always surprised and always like, what, how do you— but that's what happens when you're a business person and you're engulfed. That is really why you need a Mica, because otherwise who else is going to show you? Michael, what do you think about, um, swats? The old-fashioned SWOTs?

I think they're great. It's a great way to assess competition in your area and, um, your strengths and weaknesses against those— that competition, whether it's new or not. I think that company should always be reevaluating. Whether you're a Fortune 500, Fortune 100, Fortune 50 company, or whether you are a Main Street business, you should always be evaluating competition and not evaluating to copy what someone else is doing that you think is innovative and do the exact same thing, which is a fatal flaw that many businesses make. It's really just assessing the value that you bring to the marketplace. Are people still buying your services for the reasons why you first started your, your company? And are they getting that message versus why are they shopping at a competitor for similar things that what you provide? Is there something that you're missing? Are you not reading the room? Or the nature of kind of where your customer base is in 2026 or whatever year that you are actually running your business, right? And as opposed to just ripping them off because you have no idea whether or not their marketing ploys work or the operating plan works. And so you could be ripping off a dead man's, uh, a dead man's watch. But, you know, you have to be really careful about kind of how you do that. But SWOTs, in my opinion, are just as valuable now as they have ever been. Probably more so with AI.

Thank you. I love that because I have a program called SWAT in Order. Last year, October, I did 2-day event, 21 speakers, and within 24 hours after the event ended, um, we had the manuscript for the book and we took all the chapters. Yeah, pretty, pretty amazing, and some really great speakers. So you definitely are going to get an invite for this fall, and we streamed it live and live on ChatterSocial. Hey, Hey, Nula, would love to have you come up.

So, yeah, love to come. Absolutely.

Thank you. So important. And I love that you explain how you just— you could get in your own head. I want to go a little bit more to your website, so I feel bad I have to keep going down. But let's see here. Oh, okay. All right. All right. I want to know. You know what? Can you share with us a secret? Of being a writer for Forbes, authored 30 articles. I mean, what, what does that look like? Because that is a real achievement, and I'm excited for you. So please, I know I want you to stick your chest out, as we say on Chatter Social, and brag.

Yeah, so I wasn't expecting it, to be honest with you. Um, I was just putting out my regular content like I normally do, I was writing, um, LinkedIn. I was writing my newsletter, writing LinkedIn articles, um, you know, writing blogs, my podcast. And I got contact. Forbes called me, or— and they, they said, hey, like, you know— or, well, they wrote me, I should say. I always say call. I'm from like the generation before this, a few generations before this one, so I say call every time someone contacts me. But anyways, they contacted me and, um, they were like, you know, we heard about you 'You know, you referred to us. We'd love for you to write in this section.' And I said, 'Okay, sure.' You know, I, I never fancy myself necessarily a writer. Um, that was about 2 years ago, but I've always written how I speak, which I think is a really important way to actually get the information out faster. So like, so many people are— they talk about how hard it is to write, but The secret for me is just to write how I speak to people, or like if I was giving a presentation, and it works, right? I try to connect with the audience. I use illustrations, I use metaphors, and I kind of write that way. And so it's been a journey. I didn't realize what would happen when I started writing, but I've had people contact me. I've had people from Congress, U.S. Congress, contact me. They wanted me to push, you know, some political stories. Uh, I tend to be— I am apolitical, so I don't I'm not pushing anybody's agenda. So, um, so I rejected that. But, you know, the fact that it has the reach— I didn't realize until much later that people started sharing my, my, you know, my articles, um, across the globe. I've had financial institutions, and, um, I've been cited, um, with, you know, at— for university projects from students. I've been cited with other consultants and professionals and on LinkedIn someone just wrote an article and they kind of tag you in it and people share it on, and they— and then, you know, there's critiques, both good and bad, of course, which is fine. If you're, if you're a public person and you've been writing and putting your thoughts out there, they're gonna, you know, sometimes you're gonna be the pigeon, sometimes you're gonna be the statue. Um, depends on who's reading it. And, uh, it's been an interesting wild ride, but I, I love it. Um, I really do. And then, um I just finished writing my first book called The Brown Box, which is what I consider to be a manual to— in like a hand-holding guide to turning around the business without— it's almost like a coach, like having a coach with you without having the coach. You can just buy the book. And so I just finished it. Um, it's gone through its editing and it's not available yet for, for purchase, but Um, it talks about my early story about how I failed and how I came back, and then it transitions to the lessons I've learned. And then each chapter, which is kind of goes along with the Turnaround Method, also has a parable with it from one of my client experiences. And it talks about what they— how they felt, what they were thinking at the time, why they were in the position, and then a framework to get to like push beyond that and how to actually do it correctly, how to set yourself up the right way. So it kind of gives you everything in each chapter, and each chapter is like it could live on its own. That's kind of how I wanted to write. I wanted to write it from the story, from the problem. I wanted to write why the problem existed and then write how you can specifically— not in theory— how you could specifically— and, and giving you, uh, the person, the reader, the framework and how they can actually do it with, like, it has templates and graphs in there. It's like, it's pretty cool.

Wow. Okay, that, that is, that, that is so interesting. Like, you almost could do the whole storyline. We do have in the chatter social room, if she's available— Nuala, are you available?

Hi, Nuala. Yep.

Sorry, bouncing around. Yes, I'm available. Hiya, gorgeous. Nice to meet you.

What do you think? What do you— isn't that amazing? The writer for Forbes and what he's been doing, what he was just saying. Did you have a chance to hear?

I, I think that's fabulous. And, and yeah, you really need to, to do that. You, you need to be seen and heard in lots of places and, and, and referred. And it's, it's a lot of work. So, you know, you, you're putting it, um, really, um Gently, Micah, because I know that takes a lot of work to be putting blogs out and putting things out on LinkedIn, and it's, it's work. But, um, that's what you always say, Adrian, hard work pays off.

I— wait, but Nuala, just take, just take just like 2 or 3 sentences, introduce yourself, or what you do, what you—

um, my background is, is more than 30 years in journalism. Aidan knows I stopped counting at 30 years. Um, and I've also written a couple of books, and, and I, I coach people on how to get publicity. So that's, that's, that's me in a nutshell.

It's a very pretty nutshell too. I just thought that was cool. Only here, writer. Okay, let me go back. I love—

yeah, 30 years of journalism, nobody from Forbes ever contacted me. So congratulations.

Well, I appreciate that. That's, um, It was surprising. I kind of stopped in my tracks. I didn't really know, you know, what it was going to be like. I've been fortunate enough recently, like I think last month, I did a— I was invited by Forbes to, to do more stuff and, uh, to do a video series on leadership. And I did that using some of the, um, the articles I've written as the premise for the videos. And it's been, it's been an interesting journey, you know. There's a lot to say and It's— you're very fortunate. I don't take anything for granted at all. So like, for me, it's— I'm fortunate to at least be able to contribute to the conversation about business globally. And when I can do that, and, you know, it's just— it's sometimes I don't even think about it, the fact that it actually happened. I just write and I kind of get lost in the work, you know.

I think it's amazing. I am totally impressed. And okay, so you graduated Bachelor of Science in International Business from Southern New Hampshire University. I love it. Where do you feel that your education— how has that played a part in your business?

Yeah, so good question. So, um, international business is one of those interesting degrees, right? So it really is about how cross cultures work together in it to make a business profitable, how you can go into another country and how you can expand your company, whether it's a Fortune 500, into an area without losing a couple things. Number one, financially, without losing, um, due to, you know, converting across the currency exchanges, how you can make sure that your, that your profit stays intact, but also how you can introduce what might be a very important product or service to another culture, but you have to strategically wedge it into the culture, right? So it's almost like it's your product or service, but is adapted to the local people, right, of, of who live in the area. Because, you know, messaging from, from an international marketing strategy perspective, messaging that works in Ecuador or the US or France or the UK You know, it may not work in each one of those cultures. Some countries are way too blunt to have, you know, advertising work in another company, another country, right? And so, it's for me, just understanding how different cultures, you know, perceive what you're saying and how to communicate. To me, it was worth it from that regard. In terms of the business strategy standpoint, my practical experience has been way more effective than the degree. But the education specifically has helped me to embrace how to cross-culturally work and how to perceive that there's going to be differences and prepare for those types of encounters.

I love that. I think that is, that's really incredible. Everything is so— I know, because I have my business under Professional Global Etiquette, and that's where I started to teach corporate etiquette, Western etiquette in China. But, uh, for years I was offering people, you know, if you were going to work, go to Brazil and sign a contract, here's what you should know. I love this. Okay, I love that you're very clear who you work with. So just share a little bit about this so we get this, um, audio on what— who you actually work with.

Yes, I work with founders and owners of small to medium-sized businesses, uh, leadership teams in bigger corporations. And typically these individuals are trying to navigate kind of growth and how to get to the next level strategically. Now I tend to do a lot more depending on the size of the company. The role changes a little bit, so they may have a better operation strategy if they're a little bit bigger, so they may have to work on more leadership development training than things like operational strategy and, you know, consulting on something like organizational efficiency. So it all depends on who the audience specifically is. But typically, my, my typical client, client are founders, owners, usually between, you know, the $300,000 to about $10 million mark in annual revenue. And I try to not tell people things that they already know. I try to tell people things that would enhance or enrich. Like, that's kind of like how I, how I work. I like to, I like to not waste time on stuff that seems obvious, but the stuff that, you know, focus on, focusing on things that people leave on the table. So, you know, for, for me, like, I, I, I do have a broad range of different size revenue companies that I work with. However, um, You know, specifically, it's usually like a leadership team. It's an owner, founder, or if it's a small executive team, then I'll work with them.

Maika, some people don't have necessarily, necessarily a processing or cost-related problem. What happens to businesses? How do you recommend, or have you have any situation you could share, a challenge that the problem actually lies in their employees.

Yeah. So one of the things that readers will learn in the book is I talk about, you know, what I call the circular blame paradigm. And the circular blame paradigm typically exists in, in corporations and larger companies where there is some level of oversight and management and employees try to save themselves as opposed to do what's best for the company. And so you often see them engage in this circular blame where there's a problem that comes up, they blame either a process or somebody else completely. There's a vacuum of leadership there. There's no resolution. There's no systems to capture or fix the issue. And then that blame keeps repeating and repeating, repeating. And so oftentimes I see employees who, and, you know, honestly, I actually blame leadership. I have— I'm very hard on leaders. And the reason why is because leadership is often the problem and the solution. So I think that when leaders step in, when they avoid having that, that vacuum of engagement with their employees, and they seek to actually try to create a solution that is the, the highest and most useful form of that solution for both the employees, the company, and the stakeholders, they end up being way better for for it. So, um, but yeah, employees, from my perspective, they need to show— they, they need to be value— what I call, they need to be closely connected to value density. So like, what are you adding to the company from a value density perspective? Meaning, what are you adding to the company where the company can look at you and say— they can, they can literally kind of track what you've brought to the table. And you just showing up doing your job, while some companies may be fine with that, Oftentimes, those companies are manufacturers of widgets, the same widgets all the time. Companies that are innovative want employees who are innovative, creative, who actually step out the box and find solutions to problems that come up that enhance their solutions and their problems and make the business more efficient. If you look out for the company, some companies that are led by leaders like myself who value people who have ideas will embrace that. You know, as opposed to, you know, there's, there, there is a thought out there that businesses do not value employees nowadays. And in, in a lot of cases, that's true, but in a lot of cases, it's not, right? So I think that there's a lot of companies out there who actually value employees who try to become engaged in the value density, bringing stuff to the table that wasn't originally there.

I love that answer. You know, I will share a little commercial for myself. I created a program called manner shift because for young professionals coming into the workplace, and it's scenarios that take place in the workplace that us adults may or may not, because I've seen a lot of adults don't even know how to handle the situations, but it helps give the young professional the ability to understand, okay, here's how I could take feedback, or here's how I should respond if this is happening. So it's 15 modules with 15 scenarios in each one that really will help them. Because, but I also, it wasn't just for the young professionals. There's a lot of leaders and managers that you are the role model for our young children that are the young professionals who are growing up. You could be the leader that they go, oh my gosh, when I was 21, I was working for Joe and he was the best. Or when I was 21, Sally turned me off. And I think all leaders are just horrific. Like, so I, I absolutely love the importance of being a good leader, so important, and that can make or break your business. Do you have any examples or story?

I do. So like, I'm working with a company that they, they— it's funny because the owners and founders, um, they— well, they weren't founders, but they were owners. One of their biggest bugaboos was leader— was communication with their employees. And one of the issues were that when there was a, a customer client email that would come in, it would sit for weeks unanswered. That happened on the employee level, on the manager level, and on the executive level. And internally they would talk to each other, which is good. But then, like, they— I would call— I would— I call it doorway video conferencing, where they would go into each other's offices and they would have these conversations. It's just like, okay, Adrian, here's what I want you to do. I want you to do this, this, and this, and I need this, this, and this by Friday. The only thing that you're going to remember about that conversation is that it actually happened, nothing else. And so when they walked away, it would immediately you know, all that, all that, all the information I told you that was vitally important that needed by Friday would, would just disappear, right? And then 2 days later, I'm, I'm sending you a message saying, hey, well, what— can you say that again? Like, what did you say, right? Losing valuable time. And so, um, that is a multivariate problem. And the reason why it's a multivariate problem is because there's all levels of failures. And the reason why that communication never happened, number 1, there was no ability for the, for fellow employees to kind of track a conversation and to see what the original request was, right? To look at it and then bring it, bring it into some kind of solution-based work that they can do that accomplishes the goal. There was not a prioritization on following up with customers and clients who would seek information because I'm too busy doing other stuff. What could be more What could be more important than a customer who is writing you a check for what you're doing? I, I don't get that. And then another issue was, is that there was no accountability from leadership. The, you know, accountability doesn't mean that you're firing someone necessarily. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're putting somebody on a PIP. But what it does mean is that you've asked someone, why haven't you gotten back to this person? Why did you not reach out? And making that person answer you and letting them know that, hey, listen, how you respond or react to this is— is that's how we do business here. That's really important for you to engage in these conversations. And then to let them know that I'll be monitoring to see if this happens in the future, right? That's accountability. It doesn't— you don't have to beat them up to get it done. You just have to hold them accountable. You just have to hold their feet to the fire. Let them answer the question. So that was happening kind of like top-down, down, you know, down-up. And you know what I did was to solve the issue was I moved everybody on one internal communications tool to use, you know, Microsoft Teams. Now everyone uses Teams. Um, all requests would go into Teams. I stipulated a new policy about when they had to respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours. And then more importantly than all of that, I did the same thing. I led by example. When a person would send me an email or a message, I got back to them within 15 to 20 minutes, you know, and I always responded and I'm highly communicative. And I would ask them just a simple question. Well, how come this person said they hadn't gotten an email from you? Let's talk about it. Why don't you meet with me for 10 minutes and let's talk about it? If you don't want to meet me for 10 minutes, you're going to start returning those emails, right? Because I'm going to talk about it with you every single time. I'm willing to tell you 2 million times until you get it right into your head, you know. And so good leadership, when it follows bad leadership, there's a— there is a— there's a kind of a moment in time when you have to do a lot of reinforcement. And it's, it's, it's quick and it's easy to just fire everyone and get a whole new staff and start from the ground up. What is harder is to hold people to the fire if you have people who actually are good and that can do the job. And to turn them into what you want them to be through good coaching, right? Badly— people should not be fired for bad leadership. They should be fired after expectations are set and there's good leadership showing them what to do and then holding them accountable. And if they still don't do it, okay, that's one thing. But once you— but when there's bad leadership, how can you fire someone when they haven't received— it's like, it's like locking up a kid for bad parenting, right? It's, it's kind of hard to do it, right? You need Train them to work how you want them to work, and they will be loyal to you because you were loyal to them when you didn't have to be.

The Micah drops are like intense right now. I feel like they're raining on me. Amazing. That is fantastic advice. I only have a few minutes, unfortunately. Micah, here, I think I, I I am just blown away by you, you know, and I've done a lot of interviews. I mean, like 250, not like a ton, but wowzer. Okay, so wait, so let me look here. Oh, I should accept this. Hold on, I always accept it. All right, so contact, guys. You, you have proven yourself beyond the doubt that you know what you're doing. Your advice is so good. Um, okay, so easy enough, you can enter the information right here. And submit it. And we know now that Micah's gonna get back to you. I mean, he just kind of said it. Sure, he doesn't teach other people. There's case studies here, which I will be looking at. Look at this, I love it. Oh, you look so handsome up there. Um, the importance of industry alive. Oh, I love, love— I just love everything about you. Uh, the testimonials, amazing. And then you can book you, right? Is it— you're a speaker, so check this out, guys.

Yeah, I do a lot of speaking.

I am loving this. Yeah, to discuss booking. I'm not sure if I love this font, to be honest with you. I'm not loving the font. It kind of runs together. I don't know if it's me, um, but it could be me. Okay, good, good. I just want to make sure it's not me. Okay, so I'm going to click off your page. Is there anything that I did not ask you that I should have asked you?

Um, is there anything you didn't ask me that you should have asked me, or that you would like to share before we go? You asked me how I was doing. That's good.

Some people just go right into the meat, I think.

Um, It's, you know, honestly, I think that, you know, from my perspective, upskilling, upskilling business owners and people who are trying to be better at entrepreneurship is an important aspect of what I do. And so, you know, that's my goal. My goal is to, is to work with 1 million small businesses one way or the other. Yeah.

So you want to impact 1 million small businesses.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I love that. That— I was at CreativeCon this week, an amazing event. Um, not to name-drop, but Jim Quick, John Lee, um, David Meltzer, uh, Richard Dorman, JC Dornick. Oh my God, like the list was on and on with these amazing speakers. And, uh, you're incredible, guys. What a nice LinkedIn that, um, Micah has, so make sure that you connect with him on LinkedIn. You just send a nice message, follow him, or just send a message you saw him on the show. It looks like he's got a great newsletter. Excuse me while I subscribe to it. Common Sense Business Strategy. Okay, I love that, and I love puns, so it goes like— I love it.

And alliteration.

So much for your time. Well, oh, go ahead.

Can I just jump in there? Because I love that.

Yes.

Well, I, over here in Scotland, well, yeah, Adam Smith, we all know about Adam Smith, economist and philosopher. Around about the same time, there's another Scottish philosopher that nobody's ever heard of, right? It's a real unsung hero. But at the time, he was really revered. And he started the school of common sense. The Common Sense School of Philosophy in Business. And everything you're saying here is kind of reflecting what this 18th century philosopher said. So, you know, ancient wisdom is just as relevant today as it was. What do you think?

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that, you know, ancient wisdom is lost in a fundamental psychological issue nowadays, which is that Oftentimes modern-day— well, I don't know if it's intellectual ability— comes down to this simple fundamental flaw, which is that people's confidence now have exceeded their competence. And that makes them so dangerous to the world, that they're so confident in being wrong, and they're so confident in, in what they believe that they know about the world, especially kids that are young, um, and they're— and they haven't really done anything yet. And to me, and, and it is— that's not limited exactly to just younger— the younger group, but I'm, I'm just noticing that the proliferation of information and partial information, the quality of how people study now has, has dramatically decreased. So knowing something, you know, I, I asked my kids when they kind of tell me a fact or something, I'm like, do you Google know it or did you study it? Right? Because there's a big difference. And a lot of people nowadays just Google know stuff, but they don't really know it. And if they did, there'd be a lot more moderate people in the world than there is right now.

Oh my gosh, I love it. I do have to end because I have a 2 o'clock, but thank you so much, Nula and Bobby, for being here. I really appreciate it. This is what it looks like. We're live on ChatterSocial and we, it's a fairly new app and it is amazing and allows you to do a lot of things and it's incredible. I will be talking to you. We'll have this published in about 4 weeks and then I will promote it. I connected with you on LinkedIn. Everyone connect with Maika on LinkedIn. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much. And again, thank you, Nuala and Bobby and everyone have a great day. And you are brave, bold, brilliant. Thank you, Micah. Bye guys, bye everyone.