Think You Know Jeff Simpkins?

Greetings everybody. Welcome to the Wednesday, May 27th, 2015 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook, and I am with WSI Internet Consulting where we work with businesses and organizations in helping them better understand and leverage the power of the internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me and WSI and all the wonderful things that we do over at www.poweredbywsi.com. With me back this week, we missed him last week, is my good friend, Free Webinar Wednesday partner, and actual guest for today's show, Mr. Jeff Simpkins. Jeff, say hello to everybody out there in Free Webinar Wednesday world.

Greetings everybody. This is Jeff Simpkins, and I am with Community Bank Consulting, Inc. And you can learn more about me and my company online at www.communitybankconsulting.com.

Excellent. Well, I, I showed it in the write-up, and I think it's really no surprise. Of the two of us, I'm probably more of the chatty chatterbox, and you're more of the cerebral thinker and offer insight after you've had some time to think about it. And so I wanted to maybe take this week as an opportunity for folks to get to know you a little bit better and all the cool stuff that you do, because I know what you do, but, you know, I think that the rest of the world needs to know a little better. So I've asked Jeff to kind of share a little bit about his background. I've got certainly some leading questions that I've got written down here, so I'm ready to Ready to toss those at you. But before we officially get started, a couple of housekeeping things. Just to remind everybody, today's show and all shows for Free Webinar Wednesdays are recorded, and you can view them at www.freewebinarwednesdays.com. We are very big fans of questions and interactivity with our live attendees. So if you have an observation or a question or something you'd like me to ask Jeffrey. Feel free to go ahead and use the chat function in your control panel. And then lastly, the phone number that those of you that are dialed up using the telephone— I see there's a lot of people that are using mic and speakers, but if you are dialed in using the telephone and you do not reside— well, I guess if you are located in the United States, the default number that is being provided to you is likely a Canadian number, and if your long-distance plan does not support calls to Canada. You want to click on the additional numbers link underneath the phone number and pick the one for the United States or whatever other area of the world you are joining us from. So because this is a corporate plan provided by my friends at WSI and our headquarters are in Toronto, the default is actually a Canadian number. So we certainly don't want anybody to incur any unexpected long-distance bills for dialing into what is supposed to be a free webinar show. With those disclosures out of the way, I say tongue-in-cheek, Jeff, welcome to the show. Thanks for being our guest today.

Thank you very much, Eric. It's my pleasure to be here.

I guess to maybe provide some backstory because I see a lot of familiar faces in the attendee list, but I also see new faces every once in a while. Not a lot of people really know our backstory, Jeffrey. You want to maybe paint a little bit of picture about how you and I came to know one another and what started this whole Free Webinar Wednesdays thing? And I'll let you kind of paint the perspective of, of how we got where we are today and why it's the Eric and Jeff Show or Jeff and Eric Show. Sure.

So Eric worked at a savings bank in Marshall, Michigan, and the savings bank merged with another financial institution in Coldwater, Michigan. As a result of that merger, Eric became Chief Operating Officer of the merged institutions, and a decision had to be made. Would they stay with the banking systems that his institution was using in Marshall, or would they go with the banking systems that the institution in Coldwater was using? And ultimately, they ended up picking Jack Henry and Associates, which is the company I worked for at the time. That was the software that the institution in Coldwater was on. And with Eric as their COO, he was in charge of the— well, he was the senior management sponsor of the project to merge the data from the system from the financial institution in Marshall onto the— merge it with the Coldwater financial institution. I actually met Eric and became involved with that process after The 2 institutions combined their data. One of the things that I was responsible for was doing consulting work with financial institutions that were on our system and helping them learn to use the products that they were licensing more efficiently. So, Eric, I'm going to let you pick it up from here and add your insights into that.

Yes, well, and this was certainly before the internet, so we didn't meet on Match.com or anything like that. Hahaha.

You're not really my type anyway.

Yeah, that's true. So the system that we ended up merging or going to was actually the platform that the bank that acquired me was using. So it made some logical sense for the acquiring bank to retain its It's software. But I think, you know, we're going to talk a lot about banking-related stuff today, and certainly any bankers that are attending today's session or maybe listening to the recording, I can encourage you to reach out to Jeff because I know he's doing this type of thing now on a regular basis under Community Bank Consulting. But the lessons to be learned out of this kind of relationship, I think, are one that can be universal because everybody, I think, at one point in time has been part of either an organization or a relationship or some sort of a situation where 2 cultures are coming together and they don't necessarily mesh with one another. That was one of the things that we had discovered when my bank and the acquiring bank came together. I was kind of put in the middle and saying, okay, now you just figure out how to make it all work. I was being charged with using a software platform that I didn't really understand. And not to the discredit of the employees of the acquiring bank, but there were a lot of functionality feature sets of the software that they didn't even really realize that they had at their disposal. And so that created some frustration. I think it'd be safe to say a little bit of resentment, because our culture from the bank that I came with was much more focused on— not to say that the acquiring bank wasn't an efficient bank, but we were very— focused on figuring out ways that we could squeeze every ounce of productivity out of the tools that we were using. And, and when we got into our software, we knew it inside and out, and I don't think that that existed within the acquiring bank. And so when our 2 cultures came together, you had one culture that was using software and content with the way that it was, but it wasn't doing things that we were accustomed to doing. So that not only created some productivity issues, it created some slip with regards to customer service, but it also created a little bit of friction between staff because you had employees that were being acquired that technically were used to getting more out of their software systems than the organization that was acquiring them. And so when I came to find out of the service that Jack Henry provided that introduced Jeff to myself, it was a refreshing kind of, wow, we can bring somebody in from the outside that can say, no, this is This is really how you need to use the service, and these are the things that maybe you should be using, or did you even realize that you could use? And to take banking software out of the equation and use an example of like Microsoft Excel, for example, a majority of us use Microsoft Excel on a regular basis, but very few of us really get beyond the whole, I can create a cell, I can format a heading, I can maybe create some basic formulas. But we are not getting into things like graphing, and pivot tables, and if-then statements, and conditional formatting which can add a tremendous amount of value to the Excel document. And it is totally capable within Excel, but most people just don't know how to do that. And so we were kind of the owners of an Excel program, if you will, that could do a lot of really cool stuff, but we didn't have somebody that really understood all the cool stuff that it could do. And so that's where I think Jeff's expertise, and that's where I kind of really developed not only an admiration for his skills, but our friendship kind of evolved out of it. Because with his assistance, we were able to operationally make the bank more efficient. But out of that, I think the— and I joke with Jeff every once in a while about, you know, we should have had a couch in a lot of the sessions that we were doing because it was almost like we needed to, you know, lay the employees down on the couch and have a counseling session to say, it's going to be okay. We can get through this. Here's how we need to look at this. And so culturally, when we took the time to understand the technology challenges, it was amazing how the cultural issues between the employees and the organizations started to dissolve. And so I think that's kind of an overriding, I guess, theme. As to, as to what I see Jeff doing now for organizations, especially in the financial services sector, is taking away that cognitive dissonance and that uncomfortability with not understanding the technology that you're using and making that, you know, almost a secondary item so you can focus on productivity. And then it kind of magically brings the organization together. So I don't know if that's a correct assumption of kind of how you like to position yourself these days, but that's my 2 cents. And as is typically the fashion, it was a little bit more long-winded than yours.

So the service that Eric and I are talking about, I tend to refer to it as an operations review or operations assessment. You kind of alluded to this in your description of how we met. as a result of the work that we did together in banking. But I always like to start from a place of what results do you want to achieve? When I go in and start working with an organization, and as we've said very clearly, financial institutions are the client base that I work with and Eric works with most often.

Yes.

I work with banks, I work with credit unions, and I work with finance companies primarily. But I always like to start with, what's the end result? What do you want to achieve? Sometimes the answer to that question is, you know, we're really having a hard time with our consumer lending area. It seems that our competitors are kind of kicking our butt because they can get things out faster, and they're doing better on exams, and— So I hear all of these characteristics, and anytime I'm looking at a situation in an operations review or operations assessment, I always like to start with, what do you want to achieve as a result of this?

And I think, you know, in some instances, at least when you asked that question for us, I think there was some of that, you know, I kind of walked through the state of there's a level of consciousness and there's a level of competency. And at the very, very beginning, you can be unconsciously incompetent where you kind of don't know what you don't know. And a lot of times, I suspect you get into situations where people say, well, you know, all that we know is we want to be as good as XYZ company. We don't know exactly what that means. Are they really doing the best that they can do, or can we really aspire to do even better than that? But kind of leading people through that unconscious incompetence, and then you're consciously incompetent where you know you don't know something, and then ultimately getting to the point where you're consciously competent. And then the, I guess, the top of the mountain is you're unconsciously competent where it just happens without you even really having to think about it. And maybe leading people through that process as it relates to the tools and services and strategic objectives and goals that the organization really has set forth. for its employees and culture and the customers it wants to go after. But I think starting with that, you know, where do you want to go? It's like anything. I mean, Jeff and I— Jeff's run a marathon. I've not done a marathon myself. But, you know, when you do a race, you have a finish line. And you can go out and run a long distance, but if you don't know where the finish line is, you're never going to succeed and finish. You might still run a long distance, but you might end up in the middle of the lake or the woods, and that's not ultimately where you want to end up.

I did a trail run one time that was not well marked, and more of us got lost on the trail run than did not. And that particular event reminded me of how important it is to have a clear final destination and pathway marked.

Exactly, because you may end up at the final destination, but you might spend a whole lot more time and energy exhausting yourself to get there if you've not taken a little bit of time to kind of spell out where it is that you want to go. So—

You said something that made— that made a really good point. So I want to go back and look at that a little bit. I indicated that the place I always like to start when I'm working with a company on an operations review or operations assessment is where do you want to be? What's the result? What do you want to achieve as a result of doing this process? One of the things that you mentioned is someone might answer like, we want to be like XYZ Bank. Well, that's kind of— that's a great example of the kind of answers that I often get. Saying to me, we want to be like XYZ Bank, It's not really something that I can help you achieve because it's not well-defined. So the next step that I would walk through with the client is saying, well, tell me some of the things that you admire about XYZ Bank. And we would really start documenting things. So this whole process is about capturing information that we can use as a measuring stick to go back and look at. Oh, XYZ Bank. XYZ Bank does this. XYZ Bank does this. XYZ Bank does this. So as we start to gather that documentation, that gives us something that when we're at the appropriate place, we can look at it and say, hmm, okay, so here are all of the things that you've pointed out that XYZ Bank does that you either feel like you're not doing or you're not doing well. So let's next— evaluate where you stack up based on what you're doing today compared to XYZ Bank. I'm going to pause for a minute and let you ask some questions or make some comments.

Well, you know, I said at the beginning, I know we're going to be using the word bank or financial services a lot in our discussion because that's the sandbox that we typically play in, but it's I think it's important to note that that process is one, and what you've just spelled out as far as peeling back the layers of the onion, that process itself is one that is applicable to any type of an organization really.

Absolutely.

It could be a bank, it could be an attorney, it could be an online e-commerce shopping service, you name it. That really is kind of The process that one would need to go through. And I think a lot of times people will, will stop at that and say, well, we need to be like XYZ. I mean, we want to do online sales and I want to be like Amazon. Okay, well, what is it about Amazon that you want to be? Do you want to be the catch-all for pretty much every product and service? Do you like the convenience of one-click shopping? Do you want to have a remote delivery system utilizing drones? You know, what is it that the folks at Amazon have created that you want to emulate? So I guess once you've identified those things and you get the client to nail down a little bit more specifics on what they're trying to accomplish, what, what kind of next step is involved in leading them through that process if we look at this organizational or operational efficiency process.

Okay, so let's pause for a minute. And you said something just now that I think is really important. Probably one of the most significant reasons that organizations end up engaging me is because they are not accomplishing everything they want to accomplish. And one of the, one of the The symptoms that I see very frequently is organizations may have difficulty accomplishing something or some things because they attempt to accomplish too much at one time. So they have all of these projects or things that they're doing outlined, and they're making minor steps towards completing some of them, but it seems that they're not getting where they want to be fast enough. One of the things that I use with clients pretty frequently is I have them identify all of the projects that they're currently working on, and I actually will suggest that we prioritize those and really focus on a smaller number of projects now, getting them to a point that they're completed or they've reached a point of completion that they've accomplished what they wanted to from that project. And then move on to the next ones. So it's really important in looking at any type of operations, whether it be a financial institution or a mom-and-pop service business, are you trying to do so much at one time that you're not accomplishing things that feel like big things pretty quickly?

And, you know, I think anybody that is joining today that is got the function of marketing, or if you're an entrepreneur, small business, the feeling of eating the elephant is one that cannot be ignored because there are always things that pull at your, you know, at your coattails that need attention. And, you know, trying to do everything, you end up getting nothing done. And that's— I know personally that's an area that I'm Trying to figure out a better way to work around, just because there seems to be a lot of opportunity, a lot of things that are going on. But it's it's also you know prioritizing stuff and making sure that the important things get done and what can be banged out first. And and a lot of times, what I suspect you'll agree with is somebody from the outside of the organization with a fresh set of eyes is is a a nice addition. Because you can give it a different perspective and not be clouded by institutional memory or what necessarily kind of lingers over from, you know, culture. It's— now these are the things that are going to have the biggest return potential for you on a short-term basis that you should bang out first and then kind of move your way through your laundry list.

Well, we all become conditioned That's why it's very hard for us to be our own doctors, and very hard for us to diagnose many things about ourselves. The same is true organizationally. So you're absolutely right. You know, you may be so conditioned to something that's going on within your organization that you quite frankly don't notice something that someone can come in from the outside and pick up on pretty quickly.

Yep. That, I mean, this might be a little bit of a tangent, and there's a couple of other things that I associate with Jeff Simpkins that I credit to my business success, because when I decided to make the jump from banking and leave in 2007, you were one of only a very few number of people that I trusted in that decision to leave the bank. Certainly being in a small community, you know, we chose an accountant that was outside of the community, we chose an attorney that was outside side of the community because I didn't want the rest of my local world to know what was going on. And the fact that you live in North Carolina and that I live in Michigan, I felt pretty comfortable that not a lot of people that I knew were going to know you. But when we started that conversation, you introduced me to a book/process called Book Yourself Solid. We had talked about personal coaching. We had talked about mentorships and other sorts of like mastermind calls. And as you're talking about getting somebody from the outside to come in and provide perspective to get you out of your routine, I can't help but think about those early conversations you and I had and, and how you were already embracing those things as part of, you know, even though you hadn't left and started your own practice yet, those were areas that you gave me a tremendous amount of ideas on Maybe you can talk a little bit about your experience in the coaching, mentoring. You know, Free Webinar Wednesdays is actually the result of Book Yourself Solid, so kind of talk a little bit about that and how that can be maybe an alternative to getting some outside assistance to lead to some additional perspective that you wouldn't necessarily think of.

Sure. I guess I'll start by talking about the concept of mastermind. To the best of my knowledge, the concept of mastermind or a mastermind group was introduced by Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich, which if you're a small business person, or for that matter, in my opinion, everyone should read that book because it's such a powerful, outstanding classic book of how to approach business and how to approach life. But one of the concepts in Think and Grow Rich is accessing the power, tapping into the power of a mastermind group. And essentially, a mastermind group is a group of people that get together on a regular basis and help each other in brainstorming through challenges, situations that they're looking for some sort of outside assistance with. So Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich, which Eric has on the screen right now, introduces the concept. I think that book was written in about 1929, if I remember correctly. I may be off a year or so, but there is a current book that actually is how I became familiar with the concept of masterminding, written by Jack Canfield. and Janet Switzer called the Success Principles. If you'll bring that up, Eric. One of the Success Principles actually talks about a mastermind group. It gives you very specific instructions for forming a mastermind group if it's something that you're not a part of and would like to be a part of. So I actually credit Jack and Janet in this book with really introducing me to the concept.

Yep, and this was, I guess, if there were 2 books that I had included as part of my homework to determine whether I really did want to spread my wings and jump from the the world of banking as a bank employee to more of a consultant. This and then the Book Yourself Solid was one that was there. Think and Grow Rich was great. And then I think you had turned me on to this one as well, but wasn't it the How to Win Friends and Influence People? Wasn't that another one that you had suggested to me as well?

Yeah, classic Dale Carnegie book.

Yeah. So, but yeah, some great resources here. So those of you that— and again, it doesn't mean that you have to leave and start a consultancy and jump from your job. But these are areas that if you're looking for assistance that can help kind of inspire you from the outside, these are some of the— Some of the things that I use as a result of kind of Jeff's guidance and would definitely be worth adding to your reading list if you've not read those before.

The Success Principles, the book that you have on the screen right now, I recommend to everybody that's in the business world. And honestly, I say business world because we're in a business setting today, but there's so many concepts in there that are applicable to just our everyday lives, even if Even if our profession were running our household on a daily basis.

Yeah.

Yep.

The— I can't—

yep, you've got the 10th anniversary edition up. This is an updated version that was just released on January 27th of this year. All the information of the original book, which was released back in 2014, and then some Some updates have been made to make the content more current and relevant. The actual section in this book— oh wow, $1.99 for the Kindle version, that's cool.

I'm gonna snag that when we're done.

I paid full price to get it on my Kindle. The actual mastermind section of this book has now been enhanced in this 10th anniversary edition to include a resource, a guy named Robert McPhee, who is somebody that I've actually worked with a good bit on mastermind groups. He's based out of San Diego, California.

Cool. The other thing is I'm And I don't want to take us away from this. If there's others with regards to providing that external guidance or feedback, if there's others that you'd like to mention, feel free.

Sure.

But the other thing that springs to mind is the focus on productivity that you encouraged me to pursue. And probably the biggest change in my business has been embracing the cloud. and migrating everything away from the comfort level of what was known as Outlook and Microsoft into a Google Apps environment to be able to push everything to the cloud. So, but actually, as I'm looking at the questions here, before you answer that, let me pause and rewind because it looks like we do have a question. So if there was only one thing you'd want for folks to take away from the books that we've shared thus far, what would it be?

So thank you, Jim, for the question. I'm gonna answer that a little bit differently than you've asked it, then I'm gonna circle back and answer it specifically as you've asked it. The way I'm gonna start is if you only bought one book that we've mentioned today, The book that I would recommend that you invest in is the one that Eric's got on his screen right now, Jack Canfield, The Success Principles. The reason I feel so strongly about that is because there are so many concepts introduced in this book that it is a great place to start. And it's a great place to circle back to whenever you get stuck and look for the right principle that's going to help you move out of that place of being stuck. So it's a tool that you can share with other people as well as a tool that you can use on your own to move forward if for some reason you don't have the opportunity to work with somebody on a challenge. The other thing I want to say, and I want to look at the way Jim asked the question. So he said, if there were only one thing you would want us to take away from these books, what would it be? And the way I want to comment or answer that specific question is start with principle number 1 in the success principles and live that as if it is the golden rule of your life. Principle number 1 of the success principles is take 100% responsibility for your life. And that is one of the things that I see within organizations And with people within organizations, when they don't follow that principle, that's what causes problems for both the organization and the person. When I come into a situation, when I'm working with an organization on an operations review or an operations assessment, and I have folks that start describing to me situations, and I kind of step back from it and ask, okay, what can you do to make this different. When I start applying principle number 1, take 100% responsibility for your life— and you can actually substitute job, work, whatever you'd like to for the word life— when I help them start recognizing things that they can take responsibility for and actually make a difference in, that's when I see both the individual start making a significant change and typically the organization make a significant change as well. So Jim, thank you for that question.

Well said. And I think there's— the examples that are given in the book are many, but so many people blame their circumstance on something outside— bad luck, somebody else screwed them on a deal, business partner ripped them off, whatever the case may be. and being 100% responsible for your existence. To some people, that may not necessarily be an easy thing to do.

I think the good news is that it becomes easier the more you do it. There are plenty of things in life that all of us run into that just suck. I mean, they're not things that are easy to deal with. But taking 100% responsibility is like going to the gym and lifting weights. The more often you do it, the stronger you get. That happens when you lift weights at the gym. That happens when you take 100% responsibility. Very cool.

So shifting back to my original question before Jim asked his awesome question. You've been kind of an inspiration for me on the side of productivity. And I alluded to Google Apps and moving to the cloud. And there have been several other services that I've started using as a result of being comfortable moving to the cloud, and not just because being in Google is the place to be, but because it creates an opportunity to have access to information from multiple areas. There's some security there. Talk a little bit about your approach to productivity these days. And, you know, that was one of the driving factors that I think was causing some concern back when we met, was one organization I think was a little bit more productive than the other, and that was creating a little bit of friction. And you've continued that, although I didn't realize it at the time, but— Talk a little bit about productivity and ways that you've been able to leverage time against itself to get more done with less effort, working smarter, not necessarily harder.

Sure, I'd love to. I actually feel to be a very fortunate person. In the years that I've worked with financial institutions and financial companies, I've been fortunate enough to work with one or more banks, credit unions, or financial companies in each of the lower 48 states. In doing that, I've actually had an opportunity— truly, consulting work is a practice. It's something that as you go in and experience situations, you grow. So, so you practice consulting and And as your experiences broaden, you bring new insights to things. One of the things that I picked up on pretty early on related to productivity, and this was primarily as a result of working with clients that had installed new systems. When one installed a new system, whether it be a new email system, whether it be a new accounting system, fill in the blank, any type of system, there is typically a period of time in which you are going to have to do things either continue to do things parallel, so you do it on an old system as well as doing it on a new system, with the idea of over time the old way of doing it will go away. What I found in most of the organizations that I've worked with is that the old way of doing things often partially goes away, but more times than not does not go 100% away. So when I'm looking at productivity, I will come in and I'll start interviewing people, and I'll ask them to tell me how they do certain tasks, how they accomplish certain objectives. In their work life or job. And when we're talking through those things, it gives me an opportunity— and this is— it's helpful to be an outsider with some knowledge of the process that they're working through. But it gives me an opportunity to say, okay, tell me why you do that. And often the answer is, well, I'm not sure, which gives me an opportunity to say, well, let's dig a little deeper and see why you're doing that. And very often what I find is the reason folks continue to do certain steps in a process is because it's the way it's always been done. You know, there's an old story of someone whose instructions for cooking the ham at Christmas was you cut the bottom half off or a bottom portion off of the ham, and when that person investigated why they were doing it, their mother told them that her roasting pan was not big enough to fit the whole ham in. I find that a lot in productivity things within organizations. One of the things Eric and I have talked a lot over the years— when I started Community Bank Consulting in 2008, I had an objective that I was going to start a company that anywhere I was in the world, I could actually operate that business as long as I had internet access. And one of the tools that I chose was Google for Work. It ended up being a very good choice. And many people that I've worked with, and Eric kind of talked about this a little bit, they have such a hard time with Google for Work because it's a browser-based tool, or at least in my opinion, it works best if you use it as a browser-based tool. So I've worked with folks that use that tool, and they'll use it in the browser. But, and I've helped some folks switch to Google for Work. They want to hang on to Outlook for a period of time, which is fine. What I normally find and encourage folks to do is, okay, use Outlook for a period of time, but also try it out just using the browser version of Google for Work. And over time, And Eric, you were one of these folks. You were a diehard I'm going to use Outlook guy. And eventually you reached the point where you said, you know what? It's just not worth it. So that's a really, really big piece of looking at productivity is ask yourself, why am I doing this? Is there something else I'm doing that will help me accomplish it?

Yeah. Well, when you go back and you made the statement that when you ask people how they do things or why they do things and you're trying to get down to the nitty-gritty of their productivity, issues. Some of the legacy activities will remain, which I think can hinder the process. And I'm not saying that I've figured this out entirely, but using that specific example, and as you're talking, it's kind of bringing back all of my memories of hanging on to Outlook, wanting to have that familiar interface because I used it for 15 years at the bank. It made sense to me. And going to a web-based interface into something that had labels instead of folders to put things into and didn't have access to— I mean, it just drove me nuts. And I went through a 2 or 3 week period of tremendous pain and unproductivity because I said, well, I'm going to trust you, Jeff. I'm going to do what you say to do. I'm going to use the web interface. It's going to suck in the first few days. I fought the urge, and I can't say I didn't sneak back into it. But I forced myself from a productivity perspective to kill any legacy lingerings that were there, knowing that I could go back to them if I needed to, but being able to give myself the permission to try it the new way. And I'm glad that you pushed me as hard as you did because I've not used a desktop email client since I converted, and I would say I've probably been formally off of a desktop client since maybe 2009, maybe early 2010, because I migrated to Mac, and then I was using Apple Mail and iCal, and that was still a little bit better but not quite. Today everything is done completely within the Google sphere. and everything. Not that I don't have stuff synchronizing to give me a backup, but that lesson of trying to identify anything that is old and at least give yourself the permission or the opportunity to kill it. And if you need to go back and it needs to be part of the process, then so be it. But productivity change is not something that happens easily. Quite honestly.

It's true for all of us, me included.

Yeah. So, well, I guess kind of in the, in the last maybe 15 minutes, I wanted to circle back around and spend some time chatting about kind of operational efficiency and maybe if there were some governing lessons that you've learned since doing this since 2008, and obviously you did this as part of Jack Henry and ProfitStars, and even going back before that. But as organizations are looking to make their process more efficient or streamline their operations, maybe some big picture lessons that you've learned that while they certainly would be applicable to the banking and finance sector, that other businesses may also be able to benefit from. And then maybe we'll talk about a few of those, and with any luck, we'll be done by the 60 minutes. But who knows? This might just linger over.

So I'm going to choose— and this question you just hit me with blindly. You actually didn't give me any prep questions at all.

No, I told you I was going to make you think.

I'm going to choose as my number one thing that I think is important when looking for operational efficiency is being open to outsourcing. And the reason I say that is, number one, in today's world, I just don't think we have the time to do everything ourselves to the extent that we would have as recently as 10 years ago, maybe less, but certainly as recently as several decades ago. New information is becoming available today at a faster pace than any time in history. New content is being created at a faster pace than any time in history. So we just can't do it all on our own anymore. I'll give you a great example. For a number of years, I had— my office was in a cottage next to my house, and I just reached the point that I felt like I needed to leave home to go to work. When I was at home, well, a year or so ago, I reached a point where when I was at home, I needed to be able to relax. And, you know, I had come to a place where I felt like I was at work all the time, and I needed to change that. So I went out, and I knew what I had in mind for my budget for an office. And I went out and I looked at various places. And some of the places I looked at, you know, basically you wrote a check for rent, And then you had to take care of your utilities, and you had to get internet, and you had to bring in your coffee and do all of those things associated with just renting space. And as I investigated further, I was somewhat familiar, but did more investigation and looked at Regus that many of you in the audience probably are familiar with. And Regus really is outsourcing all of your responsibilities for operating an office. So today I operate from my office at Regus in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I've actually got arrangements that I have space available to me in Nashville, Tennessee, as well as Austin, Texas. And the only thing I do every month is I write a check. I write a check. I come in. I have power. I have internet. I have phone service. I have a receptionist that takes care of answering my calls and greeting people that come in to see me and doing those types of things. So, you know, kind of a long answer and kind of a long example, but whenever you are looking at how you are doing things currently or looking at new things that you want to accomplish, I certainly encourage you to have a line item in what you're looking at for investigating outsourcing possibilities. And I'll stop for a minute and let you ask questions or make comments, Eric.

So as you're talking about being open to outsourcing and you talk about the time constraint, I can't help but think one of the other components, and maybe it's a factor of time, but the capability and just the level of knowledge that's required in today's day and age to be able to do what you need to do as a business professional. So, you know, and that could be either as a solo entrepreneur partnering with a virtual assistant or networking. One of the things that I absolutely love about being part of the WSI network is while I run my business and I tend to focus on the clients that I know best, I have got access to production facilities and partners that are literally around the globe that with a phone call or a Skype conversation I can bring into the conversation and have that, have that accessible. But I think the capabilities or the knowledge requirements is one of the contributing factors to this being open to outsourcing or partnerships. Just because you can't know everything. And regus.com, let me pull that up. That's actually the system that you are referring to. So we'll just pull that up here for everybody to see. So while that loads— But I think the knowledge requirements of just being competitive in today's business world is something that is also causing us to have to figure out ways that we can work more collaboratively with one another and leverage each other's strengths.

So when we talk about Google for Work, that's just another example of an outsourced service. You know, when I started Community Bank Consulting, Inc., Gosh, the idea of having to run mail servers and doing all of those type things just had no appeal to me whatsoever. It was not a good investment of my time. So I outsourced that. Accounting, for accounting, I from day one, used QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Online gives me the ability to work with an accountant or bookkeeper pretty much anywhere. Another example of outsourcing. You mentioned a virtual assistant. I have a virtual assistant who happens to be in Charlotte, North Carolina, but she wouldn't have to be. We've met in person once, but everything else we do collaboratively. We share either by using Google for Work Google Drive, or I'm also using some of the iCloud services to do things with her.

Cool. Any other—

I'm seeing Evernote on your screen. That's another great example of an outsourced or cloud-based service.

Yeah, and they've added some pretty interesting collaborative components like group chats and notebook sharing and a few other things that are making it a really compelling option for small businesses that if you are using the— I think it is $45 a year, their premium account which is peanuts. You get some really powerful stuff As part of that. I know I keep Evernote on all my devices, and when an idea pops into my head, it goes right into Evernote. I can tag it and organize it. I even do a lot of blog posts directly within Evernote and then move it over into a blog or something else to edit it later. You talked about open to outsourcing and some of the cloud services. Is there maybe A third item, I know I didn't give you the questions beforehand, but as is mostly the case, a lot of times when we talk, comments spur thoughts that spur questions. So honestly, I didn't know what questions I was going to ask you until we started the conversation. So one of the things that I love about you, Jeffrey. So any, any other operational efficiency observations for folks? Or maybe put a bow on this and kind of a big picture summary?

I'm a big advocate of mobile tools. Interestingly enough, I'm probably, I'm probably a guy that likes the desktop a lot when it comes to computers. One of the things that I think is really exciting in today's world is the fact that a desktop does not have to mean one device. I, you know, I've worked off of a MacBook Air for a number of years now. And When I started traveling less and working more often remotely with clients, I really needed to upsize to a bigger screen. So I've got an iMac on my desktop at the office. But it doesn't mean I'm limited to my iMac anymore because of some of the tools that we've talked about. I can access almost all of my content from my iPad. I can access it from my MacBook Air. So I think it's a really, really important thing when we talk about productivity to take advantage of those tools.

Cool. Well, in the final time together, I want to make sure, especially if you're in the banking financial services space and any of this is even closely ringing a bell or resonating with you, at least the conversation to follow up further, I strongly encourage, because I can tell you our organization back in my banking day benefited from Jeff and his experience, and I personally have benefited from Jeff as well. And I'm not just saying that because we do a weekly webinar show for the past 6+ years now. I still am shocked that it's been going on that long, but I'm proud to say that we've been able to keep it going. But other than Community Bank Consulting Inc., I pulled up your website here for the folks to check that out. I guess preferred social network platforms or other ways to get in touch if they wanted to learn more or have a follow-up conversation with you?

Well, I'm pretty easy to find. You can find me on LinkedIn. I think there's a link to my profile on LinkedIn on freeopenonwednesdays.com. You're welcome to connect with me on Facebook if you can find me. I'll tell you, there are a whole bunch of Jeff Simpkins on Facebook.

I'm sorry.

So, but yeah, LinkedIn is a great place to get in touch with me. Through Free Webinar Wednesdays, jeff@freewebinarwednesdays.com.

Cool, good deal.

Many of the folks in our audience know you as well, so you can always find me through Eric. He usually knows where I am in the world at any given moment.

Where's Waldo or where's Jeff? We can help track each other down. Like I said, I didn't know exactly where the conversation would go. I just know that there have been a lot of things that you've helped me with in my business. Even though I still probably talk more than what I should, hopefully the insight that I've offered with how you provided me assistance, not just in my banking days, but as a consultant with WSI and doing other stuff post-banking, is further evidence. Because I think it's important, you know, we started the show 6 years ago because we wanted to have something we could always invite somebody to as a relationship builder, and part of that is letting people get to know who we are and what makes us tick. And I'm glad that we were able to take a little bit of time to help people understand that a little bit better about you. And I'm gonna go back and snag The Success Principles for $1.99 on Kindle right now. So when we're done, that's my takeaway because that's a great book and I've not reviewed it nearly as much as I should. And putting it on Kindle makes it available on every single one of my devices because you and I both spend a good deal of time traveling in an airplane. And it will be nice to have that handy at a fingertip.

So this is going to be one of my claim to fame. I bet I'm the only guest that's ever been on Free Webinar Wednesdays that only compelled you to spend $1.99. Usually our guests compel us to spend between hundreds and thousands of dollars.

Yeah, that's probably true. And I think if Gregg McPherson were We're here, or if not, I think his ears are ringing because we all know who that's referred to. But yeah, and I think I've got a lingering Amazon gift card that's got about $3 left on it, and I was trying to figure out what I can get on Amazon for $3, and there's not a whole lot there. And I've just found something, so that makes me very happy. So cool. Well, Jeff, as always, this has been great. I wish we talked more often, but I know both busy with our schedules, but at least I look forward to most every Wednesday at 1 o'clock getting together with you and catching up and either having a one-on-one chitchat or interviewing some folks. But I think it's great. So cool.

So next week I see someone has a birthday.

You know, I think there is a birthday coming up for somebody, and since it's not you, it probably is going to be me. So yeah, I do celebrate a birthday next week. Does that mean on Wednesday you're going to sing happy birthday to me?

I don't want to run all of our folks off.

So yeah, next week I do have a birthday. So, and any of you that are friends of mine on Facebook, I'm sure will know it. Because, well, it seems like everybody on Facebook knows everybody's birthdays these days, and even people that you don't know end up wishing you a happy birthday, which is still pretty cool. So that's the power of social networking. So I get that recognition. Yeah, I just saw a little bit more involved comment come through the chat log, so I just want to give it a Quick minute to review and see if this is anything that we need to address here or if this is more of an observation. But we can certainly address this offline as well. But some really good feedback here. So I don't know if you've got any comment on that as a final wrap-up. I know we're right at the top of the hour, but—

I'm reading. It was a long comment, folks, but a very good one.

So thank you for your— thank you for providing the detail here.

This is good. Yeah.

You want to summarize the question or the statement and then provide a little response, and then we'll kind of wrap with that?

Well, the comments about taking 100% responsibility, and I think it's important when one makes the decision to take 100% responsibility, sometimes that means that you are going to find yourself in situations that are not the right situation for you. So making a decision to take 100% responsibility for something now means that when you get to the next step, you may have to make another decision to take 100% responsibility, which could result in deciding, is this the right job for me? Is this the right organization for me? Is this the right client for me? So it's almost like a domino effect. When you take 100% responsibility for something today, If you're going to continue to live that philosophy, it's going to be building. It's going to be a process that builds and one in which you continue finding yourself stepping up to the plate and saying, am I open to this challenge?

Yeah, and I think that may be very uncomfortable for folks that have never done that, and you may see maybe some immediate negative impact as a result of that. But over time, if you stay true to that and take responsibility and control what you actually have control over, I can't help but think from a long-term perspective, you and those that are around you are going to be way, way happier with the results and where you're at in the process. So—

So go back to the analogy about taking 100% responsibility being very much like going to the gym and lifting weights. I remember a number of years ago when— actually not that many years ago, but I was working with a trainer a few years ago, and one of the things I wanted to do was lift weights to build some muscle mass. Well, I was sore as hell the first few times I lifted weights. I had trouble getting out of bed. You know, it was— I was aware of every muscle in my body as a result of that. But what happened As those muscles built up over time and as that soreness went away, I was seeing results that were positive. So I guess the concept is don't get caught up in short-term challenges when it comes to taking 100% responsibility. Make sure you keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on— The goal.

Yep, well said. So good. Well, those of you that are still hanging on live, we appreciate you indulging us for a little bit extra. And certainly thank you for that very thoughtful and very comprehensive comment, Ruth. That was a great way to finish this, I think. And it sounds like even though there was some change required, it was desperately needed, and hopefully you're in a much better place And can kind of testify to what Jeff was commenting on. So, well, with that, I know, Jeff, I joked if we can get this done in an hour. I know you and I get on a conversation and it could be 2 hours before we know it, but we need to wrap this up. But I really appreciate you spending the time giving folks some additional insight about Jeff Simpkins and indulging me by popping questions at you that you did not have an opportunity to plan for. But I loved your responses, and again, appreciate the friendship and the guidance that you've helped provide me along my journey of leaving the bank and doing what I do, because I honestly felt that that was my purpose and my calling, and, and you're part of that. So I appreciate it, and for being part of Free Webinar Wednesdays for the last 6+ years. Let's look forward to many, many more.

Thank you, Eric.

Cool. Good. Well, that concludes today's Free Webinar Wednesdays. We'll look forward to seeing everybody next week, which happens to be my birthday week, so I'll be sure to provide an address where you can send presents. Just kidding. But you can certainly post a comment on Facebook or share a social happy birthday with me if you would like to do so. But appreciate everybody's time today and being part of the Free Webinar Wednesdays family, and we'll look forward to seeing you next week. And every week here at freewebinarwednesdays.com. Until then, have a good week everyone. Bye-bye.