How To Build High Performance Teams | Randy Garn

And so that's really. Every company has to be good at three things. Marketing, sales, and fulfillment. If you're just good at marketing and sales and your fulfillment sucks, it's not going to last. And so you have to hit those together. Business is not playing checkers anymore. It's playing chess.

Welcome to Scale or Fail. I'm your host, Alison Maslin. I am your business growing growth mentor. I'm the founder of Pinnacle Global Network, where we help business owners around the world grow and scale companies that change the world. And speaking of world changers, we have the one and only Randy Garn here, a dear friend of mine, and he is a passionate entrepreneur. He's a New York Times bestselling author, and he has worked closely with so many of the world's most recognized CEOs, companies, experts, educators, thought leaders. He's been awarded Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and young top 40 under 40 entrepreneur. He's also a partner at Tamarack Capital to provide necessary capital, investment, leadership, relationships to help business owners accelerate growth, which is so, so important. He is a serial entrepreneur himself. He has started, founded, exited several companies of his own. He has. He's just a real, really strong in leadership, building teams, culture, relationships, all the good stuff we're going to be talking about today. So you absolutely want to listen to the entire episode. Randy, thank you for being here today.

Allison, I am so grateful to be here. I always love our times when we get to spend together. I learn so much from you. You really are. You're a good. You're a really amazing blend of wisdom, you know, business smarts and just. And kindness and leadership, too. I mean, you are just amazing. So I'm grateful to be here.

Thank you so much. That's so kind of you. And, yeah, let's just dive in because there's so much I want to learn from you. And you're a lifelong entrepreneur. We definitely have that in common. And I know for myself, like, my dad was my biggest inspiration into the entrepreneurial world. Who was your biggest inspiration that kind of opened your eyes to the business world?

Oh, man. That's actually a really good. A really good question. You know, I think for me, if I could pinpoint somebody on leadership, would be my father for sure. He was a amazing man. I mean, he was building up his medical practice and then decided to sell that and buy a ranch. And he said, I'm going to raise boys and I'm going to build leaders. And he was great. But I think probably the one, in my early years, my biggest inspiration to me, business wise was actually what you wouldn't think. I worked for an individual that really drove me to want to be an entrepreneur. He actually exemplified the exact kind of leader I would not want to be. And I'm actually super glad I had that experience now looking back, I hated it at the time, but that literally catapulted me when I was 17, 18, you know, 19 years old, to be like, I, one, never want to treat people this way. Two, I can do this and I want to be my own boss. Like, if, if this guy can do it, I can do it. So I literally. So that was, that was actually probably. If not, you're not your perfect example of somebody that was a role model, but actually was somebody that I would not want to be.

Like, yeah, you know, it's interesting how we can have those experiences in life. I mean, you have people that come out of alcoholic families that can go one way or another that'll like never have a drink because of what they experienced as a kid. So it's interesting that that was a wake up call to you to go, wow, this is not cool. You know, so, so diving into here we are coming out of this pandemic and it seems in some ways that life was on hold. But you and I know that there has been so much incredible innovation in these last two years. It's like somebody literally stuck their finger on the fast forward like the cassette tape, and it just went in. All this new technology and innovation and also a lot of disruption too. You know, what was working before, not necessarily working now. How do you feel business owners should best navigate all this change do for a profession?

I work with CEOs, we invest in companies. I work with leadership teams. Like, that's, that's what I love to do. Because I know that if I can help a CEO, if I can help a CEO that has 10,000 employees, then I can help that guy magnify things and change millions of lives. And honestly, we're right in the heart of that and there's so many amazing companies that have been born out of the last this pandemic and then other things. Uber started during another crisis and now look at it. Look at, I mean, how many companies there were Google back in the day with the dot com, like somebody was going to make it. I think that innovation is something that is so critical as a leader and as a leadership team is to know how to continue innovate and ideate. And I had the opportunity to be on the advisory board and actually partner with a gentleman Named Rob Ryan. If you look at Rob Ryan, he actually built Ascend Communications back in the early 90s and he sold the dilucent technologies for $24.3 billion.

Wow.

And he always said, like, there's two interesting things as you look at it. You have to continually innovate and ideate as you're, as you're growing a company, else you will die. And so, and it's just like what you teach, right? It's like you have to learn how to scale. You have to learn how to make mistakes. And I always say learn how to fail, but learn how to, how to grow faster. So, you know, that's, it's, it's really important to do that. But if you think about how we've innovated in this time is there are ways and processes to do that and to innovate. You. Because sometimes people don't fully understand their core competency. And once you do that, once you understand what your core is, then you can innovate from there, if that makes sense.

Absolutely. I totally get that. And I do believe that when we hit those walls is when our biggest growth happens, because it forces us to get creative. It forces that we know when things are kind of cruising along. What's the impetus to create change? You're like, everything is working. Actually, the shakeup is really what can open doors to so much magic.

Yeah, yeah. When you think about, I mean, a good example is what Rob did back in the day. Do you remember AOL back in the day? You know.

Oh, yeah.

There was a whole thing going on, like the noise that happened.

We just know the noise. That's what I remember.

So what happened was they literally, they over subscribed everybody. There was no other solution. And so you were just waiting to get on an open circuit. So what Rob does is he took on Cisco, he took on all these big companies and he said, I'm going to build a better box. And he figured out how to open up the ports. And instead of it costing $600,000, he could sell this port for $80,000. And now it's what's actually the modern Internet. And Rob is amazing. He is so just an amazing thinker and an amazing engineer. But he said, I'm going to figure this out. And he actually left everything. He created a whole new company and he grew from 4 million to 40 million to 24 million and then ended up selling for 24.3 billion. But he just, it was, it was that scale. And you think about the growth of that, it's like what are some of the things that we can improve? How. And that's what an entrepreneur does, is like, how do we solve problems? And too many people are just thinking about all of the problems we have. But it's those leaders that step up and be like, I know how to do this better and I can do it. And here's a process in which you do it.

So yeah, how do we turn it into a solution? You know, taking from a challenge into a solution. And so, you know, ideally what a business owner wants is they want their business to prosper. If their business prospers, their employees prosper, their employees families prosper, their communities prosper, they can give back back, they can create a nice life for themselves, which they absolutely deserve and for their own families and their own life experience. And you happen to write a incredible book called Prosper. Prosper, create the life you really want. And so can you share. What is prosper? What does that mean to you?

Well, it is actually a word that is really misused and we did a huge study on what people, what the word prosperity really meant to them. Because Alison, it is much more than wealth. It really is much more than success. You know, success is outward prosperity is where you're inward and outward self is very aligned prosperity for us. And in not just us, but in the research that we did, it was really a three legged stool. It's very multidimensional. And the word prosper and prosperity actually means the balance between money, happiness and sustainability. Can I do it over the long haul? So a lot, we all know a lot of people that have a ton of money that aren't happy, right?

Yes, for sure.

We also, yeah, I mean and I have a lot of friends that are, have a huge financial success but miserable at home or miserable with their relationships because they, you know, they aren't. There was relationship corruption or there was hard feelings that were done. So to me that's, that's success or wealth. But prosperity is a whole nother level. We all know people that are extremely happy and have joy in that, but they're not able to make ends. You know, they're not able to make ends meet. They're not able to really have the type of money they want to, to accomplish the things they need to. They're happy and they're awesome and they're amazing. But there's another level which is prosperity. And then the third part is this sustainability. And if you really understand what you were made to do and what you're super, super good at and you can create the kind of income, and you love it. You can do it over long periods of time. So for us, that is the core of what prosper means and what prosperity means.

Yeah. Not that roller coaster of, you know, yay, it's good. Oh, it sucks. Yay, it's good. It's like, it's. You're really sustaining over the long haul.

Yeah.

And I love that, and I love the congruency, because the inward with the outward. And I truly believe that you have to be congruent what you're talking about externally, you have to be living internally, vice versa. And when. When we aren't. When we aren't authentic with our. Within ourselves, this is really what creates illness, creates disease, depression, you know, and so I love that idea that. That deeper meaning of prosper that just really resonates with me. And you talked about this Polaris point in the book. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. Well, the Polaris point, you know, it's. It actually comes from, you know, the ancient, ancient world and. And sailors and everything. It's. It's the North Star. It's like, what is your true north? And as an entrepreneur and as individuals and as humans, I really do think the people that I know and I like and I look up the most to my role models are people that are highly respected, highly successful, and they've built companies and a life that is impactful. You know, I look at Clayton Christensen as one of my just favorite, favorite humans and individuals. I read a lot of Ray Dalio. I'm a partner right now at Tamarack Capital, and Sam Maloof is one of those guys that has built an amazing, huge company, and we are the number one. Everything that he does, he's turned it into a B corp. And we are doing so much to fight human trafficking and child sex exploitation. But the culture that he's created is that his business is part of the machine. It's not about the wealth. It's like, what kind of culture can we create? And how many other people can I help be prosperous? And I think that is really the level of finding. Your Polaris point is what were you created to do? You know, whether you believe in God or the universe or whatever, I literally believe that God created me to really be work with leaders and to be a really good integrator. I get the most joy out of if I can help you grow your company, Alison, or if I can help somebody else roll theirs, or I can help one of my clients be on stage and touching millions and millions of lives that's my Polaris point. And the older I get, the brighter that star becomes and the brighter my North Star gets. It is like my Polaris point is how many leaders and CEOs can I impact that will impact millions of lives? And so that's like, it's finding out what your core competency is as an individual, what you love to do, that you can serve with excellence, and then it becomes sustainable over a long period of time.

I love that and I love the visual of the North Star as well, because it's so easy to get stuck in the weeds of your business. And, you know, the North Star kind of keeps you focused on that bigger picture, you know, why you're here, what is your purpose, what's that big picture vision that you want to create? And that's really what it's all about. And so that's really beautiful.

And I, I love that as, as a leader is. Here's where I feel like a lot of leaders fail is let me tell you, once you find your North Star, if you can help your employees and those that work with you to be innovative and entrepreneurs and you help them find theirs. I really help a lot of companies where I work with the leader. And I'll be like, do you know what Jimmy wants to do? You know, what matters to him? Do you know what's impactful for him in his life? You know, have you found out, do you know about his family? Do you know why he's here? You know, if you can get the hearts and the minds of your people also aligned as a company, all rowing in the same direction, it's just so impactful. I remember I, you know, I managed. We had about 900 employees in our company, and I oversaw about 600 of them in myself when I was managing, you know, a chief revenue officer and president. I remember we had one really, really great, you know, our chief, one of our just top employees. But for three months, he was kind of dipping and we were like, dude, should we let him go? Should we, like, what do we do? You know? And I was like, I'm going to talk to him. Let's find out. You know, I went on, I'm like, john, are you doing okay? Yeah, I'm doing fine. Like, hey, this month's been rough. You know what, Is there something that the company's done that's not allowing to hit your goals? No, I just have a ton of stuff home. Okay, well, let's do it. And I met with him again the next month, and then, and then the third month I was like, we love this guy. And I'm like, john, what do you want to accomplish? Tell me, dude. Tell me what's going on. Because so many times as leaders will be like, hey, good job. How you doing? Great. Hey, here's a little bonus. But when I sat down with him and I said, dude, I mean, something's up. Like, we love you. Like, you're not hitting, you're not performing. Tell me what's up. And he. And he simply just broke down. He said, my wife's been diagnosed with brain cancer, and I can't even think straight. You know, and from that, at least we knew, you know, what was happening and what was going on. And, like, some of that is what we need to do as leaders. And it's teaching you to be a leader, to be people led, not product led. And if you can help individuals in your company, then they'll never leave you. And he ended up becoming just amazing and helping us just grow the company and become the chief marketing officer. And just. I mean, it just. You think about little things don't mean a lot. Little things mean everything when it comes to helping other individuals find their North Star or find out how to get that and how to keep that pilot light lit. Because we're in a time right now, Alison, where you talk about innovation, but we're also in a big time where people are losing hope. We just came off this pandemic. We've got all of a sudden from one crisis to another. We've got a war going on in the Ukraine. And what does that mean? I think we have to be conscious of that as leaders is how do we help innovate in times of crisis, and how do we keep people's heads straight?

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. You know, culture is everything right now. You know, I was talking about this with someone actually yesterday that, you know, even. Even to the pieces of onboarding a new client. Back in the day, it used to be you would hire someone and you go, okay, here's your duties. Like, you know, run with it. And that doesn't. That doesn't fly today. You know, it really is an employee market, and they have so many choices. They want to feel like they belong. They want to feel like they have found a home. And especially with all the stress that's going on in the outside world, if they can feel a level of comfort and connection and a place where they do belong, that's everything. You know, we have the most amazing team at Pinnacle Global Network. I just have to tell you I love my team. And over the holidays, I actually, our mentoring team now we have 20, 20 mentors. And I texted each of them and I said, I am your genie and you have three wishes. What would you like those wishes to be? And they were so moved by that, Randy. And honestly, it was just something that I wanted to do. I wanted them to know that their dreams are important to me. We are helping our clients reach their dreams, but their dreams are important to me as well. And so I just got the greatest. You know, some of them were just, you know, gosh, I just love that you cared. Or I. My dream is that I get to spend the time. More time with my grandmother. You know, it was. Most of them were things like that, you know, some of them had, you know, I just. I would love to, you know, sit down and have dinner with you. Or I, you know, really none of them were, you know, I want to raise or I want any of that. It was really more heartfelt and just that them knowing that I cared and that they mattered, it just really went a long way for them and definitely for me, too. I enjoyed doing it. It's been fun to be the wish granter.

Yeah. And I mean, that is why you are such an amazing example for so many leaders, is exactly that point. And when we teach a lot, it's, you know, when we teach about our, you know, the six habits of high performers is first one is to seek clarity. The second one is to generate energy. And what kind of energy do you have around your culture? And what kind of energy do you have around your people? And I always have been in the mindset that I only work with people that I love like and respect and a lot of. A lot of leaders. When I'll come in at first and I'll work with them or we're going to invest in them or we're doing. I like, we invest in leaders. And a lot of times they'll look at their capital as human capital, and that's actually your greatest resource. They look at them as transactional instead of transformational. And exactly what you did. It's just like, how do you find out. How do you get everybody in your company to be transformational with your customers and your clients? And if they care, I only work with those that I. My best. My business partners are my best friends. And a lot of people say, don't work with your friends. Don't work with your family. It will always end up bad. I am exactly the opposite. I am like, if you are super clear and everybody Understands, agrees and commits to excellence, then you should work with those that have competency, that are successful, and that you want to rally around and build a powerful team of people. That is really what prosperity comes down to. Is that the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows, when it comes to the happiness piece, is the people not. That's. That's our. Our joy is our. Those that we associate with every single day.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And you know, when you are surrounding yourself with the high level people that you are, that you surround yourself with, Randy, then, you know, opens you up to some incredible people to partner with. And with Tamarack Capital, where you invest in companies, I think, you know, a lot of business owners listening to this podcast right now may be looking for investors. And so if you are, you know, if you just visualize this for a moment, you're there with the business, they're presenting their company and why you should invest in them, it would be helpful for people to hear, what do you look for when, like, what are the most, if you could think of, like, top three things you're looking for when you're investing in a company?

I think, I mean, the very, very top one is that I look at, can I trust these people? That's the very first one. Like, do I trust what they're saying? You know, and you've referred us over at several companies, and they are just amazing people. I love some of the people that you have sent over, and they're just, they're awesome. Like, it's like, does that leader have the competency and do I trust that they can pull off what they're saying they can pull off? If they say they're going to hit $20 million in the next three years, I believe them. You know, the other thing is, like, the other thing is, are they committed to excellence? You know, the other thing that I'll look at is I'll ask this question, Allison, and I always ask it, okay, Allison, if this doesn't work out, then what are your plans? What are you going to do? And if that entrepreneur, and maybe, maybe, you know, if we get the chance to interview some people, if that entrepreneur that, that leader says, well, if this doesn't work out, then I'm going to go back and work for my dad or I'll probably go back to college or I'll do that, then guess what? I do.

Yeah, I don't invest. No, you don't invest because you want someone that's hungry.

Yeah, I want somebody that, like, so committed to excellence. They're like, Randy, there's, this is gonna work. No, there's nothing else I'm gonna do. Like I'm burning the boats. This is my Polaris point. This is my life's work. This is my mission. Then I'll be like, okay, do I trust them and are they committed to this? Because a lot of times you don't need an exit strategy. You need a commitment strategy right in life. And the exit will come if you build an amazing company. I'm telling you right now, you will, you will have an exit. You will have maybe not even exit, but I have another friend that's, he was going to have an exit and guess what? He just kept growing and now he's buying companies. Right. So it's, it's different on that. So I look at, do I trust them? Do they have competency to do it? Then the second one is, is, are they committed to excellence? And is this, are they completely committed? And then the third one for us, we're very, very impactful. And so does that product or does that service make the world a better place? Does that product or service, like, impact the world for good? Can I feel good about it? Is it integrity, you know, or is it just another thing that's going to make us overweight and unhealthy but make a ton of money? Right. So those are really the three things that we look at as we invest in companies and people.

I love that. That's super helpful. And you know, I love that question that you ask at the beginning. Because I think that a lot of times when businesses are out there and they're looking for capital, and I think it's a good thing, especially if you are a product business, you know, you really need that capital to scale up. But I also feel like the business owners need to really focus on creating a revenue generating company.

Yes.

And so they get into business and they're so focused on finding capital that they could have in that time generated sales. And that's not money that you need to pay back. Right. And so they get, you know, and I don't know if you've experienced this where a business will get an influx of cash, let's say an investment, but they just so don't know how to run their business that they run through that cash so fast, you know, and then they're out there trying to find another round of investment, you know, and so I think it just is such a balance. And I do feel like, you know, when you have a sales driven, revenue driven company, then you can, you can always create cash flow. And when you're doing that, somebody on the other side transactionally is being helped and being served. So if you can have the two together, the investment capital, and you're also driving, driving revenue and growth. That's it. What do you think of that?

Yeah, you know, you are so spot on. And I mean, that's why, that's why you've been doing this for a few years, right? I mean, that's why you, the best.

Of the numbers keep going up. Randy?

Well, the thing is, I always say, does, do the, do the dogs eat the dog food? And if you're not, like I always ask, like, what's the economic engine? What's the business model? And if they're like, hey, once we get this money, we're going to get the engineers, we're going to do this. We really aren't early stage. We will invest in companies once they've actually figured out their economic engine and can they bring on customers? You know, we've invest in companies that aren't profitable but yet explosive with growth and that their business model is working. You know, I don't know if Uber's like profitable right now, but I mean, I don't, you know, so it's. Is, does the business model work? Is it profitable? Is it will? Are you bringing on customers is the number one, the very, very most important thing. And you and I are, we've been doing this for so long, I'm really kind of mastered the art of customer acquisition. And so that's, that's really. Every company has to be good at three things. Marketing, sales and fulfillment. Demand creation and demand fulfillment.

Yeah.

If you're really, really good at, to have a big great company, if you're just really good at fulfillment and you don't know how to sell and market, then you're never going to have a successful company. If you're just good at marketing and sales and your fulfillment sucks, it's not going to last. And so you have to hit those together. Business is not playing checkers anymore, it's playing chess. And so as a leader and a CEO, you may have a good marketing director, but if your fulfillment and that product is not well, then it's going to, you're going to support your earth and you're going to waste money. So you have to think about how to be really, really good at those three things.

Yeah, gosh, definitely. Just getting the client is the first is just the, you know, a small part of it. Right. We have to deliver and over deliver as Magic Johnson says, which, you know, you were speaking at my event just recently. And by the way, those of you listening, man, Randy just, he blew everyone away. You are awesome. Awesome. And we had Magic Johnson on there as well, and he talked about that over delivering. So what is it that creates your success, like, on a daily basis? What are some things that you do to set yourself up for success, to keep you evolving and on track?

I think, I mean, I really. Well, I. Well, I know I'm following my Polaris point, Allison. Like, I really am. And writing that book when we did it helped me to just have clarity so I'm not zigzagging all over the place like, trying to figure out like a grasshopper. Great on takeoff. You never know where I'm going to land. I. I really got really, really good. I think my biggest core competency is really teaching leadership, but my biggest core competency is people is humans. And how I look at that is like, I really have broken it down into my three Cs of relationships. And Ken Jocelyn articulated this perfectly, is that you have to understand who you're community is. You have to sit, you know, understand who your circles and who's in your circle, but you also have to understand who's in your corner and who's fighting for you. And so if you look at my inbox, I just, I mean, I just have another lady that's working with me, Becky Bueller, who's amazing, and she's like, Randy, I can't believe how many emails you get of people that like, want to work with you and want to do stuff. But she's like, how do you handle it? And I said, Well, I spend 90% of my time with those people that are in my corner and that I'm in their corner. And so, you know, you can deliver excellence on your, you know, your community and your circle. But if you find yourself, like amazing humans to like, do life with and drive value for each other, that's where I wake up every day and I say, like, who can I drive value for today? And I'm very, very strategic and I'm very, very. I have intentionality around my human capital relationships. A lot of people spend a lot of time on their business strategy. I spend a lot of time on, like, how can I help Alison grow to an X million multimillion dollar X company? How can I help this person? And then we solve for that because it always actually comes around. It always comes around people every time.

Yeah, and you're so, so magical in that arena, Randy. Really Relationship capital. I would say that is definitely your Polaris point and people are just naturally drawn to you. So good for you for following your North Star and helping so many people. So as we wrap up today, is there anything that you want to leave last minute advice here to all the incredible business owners listening today?

Well, I think, I think that if, as a business, as a business owner, if you look at asking your employees this and those that work with you is that, ensure that you're lifting and building them up. Learn how to get the hearts and minds of your people because they'll grow your business. Learn how to not try to solve all their problems, teach them how to get engaged and how to come to you with solutions. And then I think just always that people, people are more important than things. And try not to get too crazily stressed out about life. And I, all I do ask is this. I literally, I do my best every day. I give it 100% every day. And I put my head on the pillow and I sleep well at night. I journal at night before I go to bed and I wake up and it is almost like every day is a new resurrection for me. Every day I am going to give it my all. And I ask myself in my journal, on a scale of 1 to 10, did I serve with excellence today? And so I think just attack life with vigor, Attack life with passion. Don't take advantage of people. See people as your greatest asset and you will go so far in all that you do.

That is so beautiful. I love that. I love that you journal at night. I love you that you rank yourself on your excellence. You know, I am a night owl, Randy, and I have this thing that at night, because my husband's asleep and I like to look out the window at the stars and the moon and I get so excited about the next day, I'm a little tired. And when it hits morning, I'm like a little tired. But I do, I get so excited about jumping into the next day. And I think if you can create a life that you get excited about jumping into, that's, that's the gift. That's the Polaris point. So thank you so much. Now, if people want to learn more about you, Randy, where do they go?

I mean, they can find me on LinkedIn at randygarn or they can go to randygarn.com as well. And I'd love to be a service to any of your audience, any of your people and just grateful for the life you live, Alison. And you do you serve with excellence in all that you do. I have known you for a long time and you're a great role model.

For me and so many thanks, Randy. I'm so grateful to have you in my life. Grateful that we've been able to share all of this with everyone. I hope that you enjoyed this episode of Scale or Fail. And if you haven't subscribed, why not? Please do and share this with business owners that you absolutely care about. And if you want to learn more about Pinnacle Global Network and how we help business owners grow and scale, just go right to our website, pinnacleglobalnetwork.com until next time, get out there. Elevate yourself because you are worth it. Bye everybody.

Thanks Ali.

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