Episode 15 | Part One: Think Big

Gregory Shepard, an entrepreneur who's built and sold 12 businesses, a recipient of 4 private equity awards, TEDx speaker, and Forbes author. This is The Boss Podcast with Gregory Shepard.

Thanks for joining me on another episode of the podcast. If you're enjoying the show, tell us what you think. You can leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast. So, I got to bring my A-game today. My guest this week is the host of All Business with Jeffrey Hayslett and the chairman and CEO of the C-Suite Network. His name is Jeffrey Hayslett. Jeffrey, welcome to the podcast.

What a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Anytime someone invites me anywhere for free, I'm on.

I'll do it.

I'm in.

So, I read a few things about you and it says you're a turnaround architect. of the highest order, a maverick marketeer and C-suite executive who possesses a remarkable cachet of mentorship, corporate governance, and brand building. Can you unpack that a little bit?

You bet. Well, it's a lot to unpack, but thank you for saying that. Yeah, you know, I've bought and sold over 250 businesses in my career, billions and billions in transactions. My last big corporate job, I was the CMO of Eastman Kodak many years ago. And helped to try to turn that company around and then left in 2010. You know, back then I was— it was about a $187 billion company. I was managing just a marketing budget of about $17 billion a year at about 7,000 marketing employees throughout the world. Then I went on to, you know, I was a judge on Celebrity Apprentice for a couple of years, helping come up with that show, then became, you know, I had my own television show on Bloomberg. And, you know, I buy and sell businesses today. I serve on 14 different corporate boards. 3 of those are publicly traded companies. So, I do a lot. So, that's when you say unpack it, man. There's a lot of different ways we can go.

That is quite a bit. So, you wrote a book a couple of years ago, The Hero Factor: How Great Leaders Transform Organizations and Create Winning Cultures. I feel like this is still pretty timely now. Last year, I got a lot of companies that struggled in doing turnarounds and things like this because of the COVID situation.

Right.

And they probably lost their way a bit. Tell me how the Hero Factor can help these businesses.

Well, a couple different ways. You know, back when this thing hit, let's say a year ago, March 13th was kind of like the day. Friday the 13th, March 13th, that was kind of the demarcation day because that was the day I was in Orlando about to take a cruise, and that was the day in which Disney shut down. And you know stuff is real when Disney World shuts down, because they never shut down, right? And, you know, everybody was looking into the abyss. I mean, it was going to be a massive, massive, you know, what's going to happen, what's happening. And for most business leaders, quite frankly, you know, they didn't know what to do. And I said, look, what we're going to do is drive and thrive. I don't, you know, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, I can't even sew a freaking mask. But what I can do is be a business first responder. And so That's what we led into with our Hero Club, the Hero Group, was to how do, how do we put people above profits? How do we do the right things? How do we head our businesses in the right way? And that's the difference with a hero business. A hero business is focused on values, and they, they believe in something. And when you believe in something, then your team knows what to do. And as a result of that, hero businesses, those that have those, those values You see those businesses are do you know gross more money in their categories or their their their vertical markets. They they make more money on the bottom line. They have employees who are more engaged, which says something because 53% of all employees that work for a company aren't even engaged. And then then on top of it, they have customers who are happier, vendors who want to do business with them, and they're and they're seen in their communities. We see this all the time, Greg. I'm sure in your community, in any community you go look, there's a They're our hero businesses. We all know who they are. They take care of the Little League. They take care of the symphony. They make sure employees get off so they can walk in the walkathons. I mean, they're great businesses, and that's what it means to have the hero factor. I see.

I see. I just love that. I absolutely love that. I'm so happy that you said that. This may be in line with my next question. I wanted to talk to you about business continuity. What some of the lessons are folks that you've talked to have learned during the pandemic that maybe they could take advantage of moving forward?

Well, I mean, there's, in terms of continuity, well, it was a couple of different things. In fact, that's a big piece of what you had to do with COVID was have business continuity. Because today you moved everybody out of the, out of your business into their homes. I mean, that was the first step, right? We had to have some kind of level of continuity. But the biggest part was to get back in touch with your customers and say, hey, We're here, we're open, we're open for business, and this is where we need to be able to go. And a lot of people forgot to practice some of the basics during this process. They just, you know, some businesses went into, you know, put their head in the sand and hoped it would just go over. But there's been a lot of businesses, Greg, that have actually succeeded a great deal or pivoted in such a way that they survived. I mean, I had a Hero CEO who opened her business on March 13th, and it was a restaurant. And imagine that day, you know, seriously, I mean, you talk about—

Yeah, that sounds just awful.

Yeah, an OS moment. I don't know if I can say a cuss word on your show or not, but, you know, I say them on my shows all the time, but I get bleeped on my own TV and my own podcast shows. But, you know, you had to just be looking to say, We just got to keep the doors open. What do we have to do? You know, and so there were some things that a lot of businesses needed to do early on, and and quite frankly, the practices that they should still be doing today. How do I cut costs? How do I make the best use of my money? How do I get my money faster? How do I keep more of my money? You know, where am I going to put it? You know, go look and how how you could go to everybody and every vendor that you've got and and. You know, trim down costs, trim down, you know, uh, terms, uh, get abatements on rent, uh, whatever it took. I mean, because that's what it did take, and it took that. I mean, we all had to do that. Um, you know, you know, for unfortunately or unfortunately, you know, I own my own buildings. Well, that I actually put our, our offices in, um, except in New York where I rented. I used to share an office with Daymond John, and I remember Daymond coming to me Oh, a week within, you know, after March, and says, we got to shut down our office. I go, what do you mean you got to shut down the office? He goes, we're shutting down the office today. Do you want a desk? It was like that.

Wow.

And by the way, the best decision he made and I made was then shutting that down. And we actually gave away all the furniture, everything to anyone that wanted it. We're talking about top-of-the-line Varidesk, top-of-the-line, you know, Chairs, top-of-the-line monitors, anyone just come and get it.

Wow.

But look how much we saved. We saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent. Our lease was up and we just walked away and left it all there. And those are tough decisions you have to make, but that's what business people have to do every single day. And as a result of it, I think we're a hero business, meaning we We put people above profits, and in doing so, I didn't lay off one person. I kept every employee. We not only grossed more dollars than we did the year before, we're now in a better position for the future because of the drive and thrive attitude that we took and others took. And that's what you see with a lot of hero businesses. You see businesses who just say, look, we got some tough times, we got some tough things, but we're going to do it and we're going to do it right. But we're going to lead with values. And if you lead with values, and by the way, there are businesses that I don't agree with, but they have different values. But by gosh, I respect them for them. And as a result, they have great businesses. I mean, they might, you got leaders like Truett Cathy who owns Chick-fil-A. Now, I think he's a great businessman. I think he's done a really good job building it. He makes a great chicken sandwich with a pickle on it. I love it. But I don't necessarily believe in his politics. You know, but nonetheless, I'll respect his right to believe that. He took a side, and I'll still go eat a chicken sandwich at his place. It just means we have different values, and that's okay. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. And I think that's what we have to understand in this world too. We've just come through some of the most horrific political divisiveness in the history of our country.

Right.

Quite frankly, outside of the Civil War and outside of the Vietnam War, where I think those were 2 pivotal points in our thing, most blatant racism, and certainly the worst economic conditions that any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Yet there's a, there's a place for all this. There's a place that we can do, and that's what hero leaders help to do.

I just— your whole approach to this is just like digging into my heart. I just absolutely, absolutely love it.

Well, by the way, let me tell you, I got this by accident. You know, here I was, a host on my own TV show, The C-Suite with Jeffrey Azulon, Bloomberg. I was starting the C-Suite Network. We're building this network of 300 150,000 C-suite executives. We've got peer-to-peer councils, we've got podcasts, we've got TV shows, we've got communities for people to come and learn and extend their reach, grow their businesses, you know, to educate, motivate, inspire, and also to monetize inside of our network. And that's what we do. And while I was out there running this thing, I got— they got this guy kept calling me, kept calling me, kept calling me, and I thought he wanted money for some political candidate, so I kept ignoring him because he's a billionaire. The guy's name was Rob Ryan. And Rob Ryan, back in 1990— you know Rob?

I've heard of him.

Yeah. Well, he sold his business for $20.4 billion back then. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, seriously.

Yeah. 1996. I mean, we're talking about big business guy. In fact, that record stood until 2016 when Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $24 billion. Well, this guy was like, you know, coming after me and calling me, and I'm thinking, oh my God, I don't wanna return his call. He's gonna ask me if, you know, he wants me to contribute to Mitt Romney or somebody, and I know I don't wanna do it. And I was at the Rocky Mountain Economic Summit, and he popped up and saw me. I just came off air on Bloomberg, and I, you know, just dropped my earpiece, and he comes over to me making a beeline. I knew who he was, and he came over and he stuck his finger in my chest, and he says, give me a dollar. I swear to you, Greg, I thought, well, what's this guy want? Well, he wants a dollar. He's a billionaire. What's he need a dollar for? You know, I'm thinking, What the F? I mean, are you kidding me? And so, I thought, well, maybe he needs a soda or something. So, I reached in my pocket. I happen to have a dollar. I gave it to him and he goes, you just bought the Hero Club. And my next thing was, what the hell's the Hero Club? And he told me, he says, look, I got this group that I started. When he sold his business, what happened was all these people would run up to him and say, Mr. Ryan or Mrs. Ryan, Terri, she was the chief legal officer at the time. would run up to him and say, I'm the night watchman. And what they did was when they sold the business, they set aside a percentage for all the employees, making the single largest number of millionaires ever created in one day. I mean, it's unheard of. And I mean, but these are what hero businesses do. They take care of the people, putting people above profit. I'm not saying you have to give all your employees something when you sell or when you do good, but you don't forget how you got there.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm in line with you. I mean, so, I built 14 companies and sold them and won some awards and whatever, nowhere near where you are. But I went into politics for a little while working for helping the DNC with a couple of congressional candidates, senators, and I got to meet Barack Obama. And at that moment was one of the moments where I was like, okay, this politics thing isn't going to work for me, but I can help entrepreneurs. Because he asked me, he says, well, what are you the best at? And I'm like, building companies. then do that. You'll help right there. And so, you're right in line with the way I think, and I've dedicated my life to this thing called Boss, which helps startups get off the ground. I wanted to ask you a question that comes up all the time when I'm working with entrepreneurs or accelerators or incubators or whatnot. The entrepreneurs run into this haters syndrome, for lack of a better word.

Sure.

How do you shut out this negativity when you're Talking to entrepreneurs, you know, what, what sort of an angle do you give these people that, you know, that they can manage even their friends and family saying this is a mistake, you're going to lose all your money?

Yeah, well, they're idiots. The people that tell you that, you know, they're idiots. So, first of all, it's like, you know, like, you know, like I at one time I had— because I built this personal brand, because I have, you know, a million followers, all this thing, I work with a lot of different celebrities and people about how to monetize it during What I'm now calling the big shift. Because, I mean, listen, in the last year, days have become weeks, weeks have become months, months have become years. And your shift in order to be able to build a business that's more digital in focus and to use content to promote, because we've lost the big levers that we used to have with advertising and a lot of other things. So now it's all about building community and being, being more authentic and so forth. But I had one person who said one time, said, Jeff, What do you do when you hear those little voices in your head saying you can't do it? Or in this case, very similar, when you say you've got all these haters or other people, and I just say, what voices? I stopped listening to them a long time ago. Just like critics. Listen, if you're going to be a thought leader, you need haters. If you're going to be the leader of a category, you have to cause tension. You have to cause friction. That's the nature of being an entrepreneur. You're going someplace that most people have never dreamed of going, and it's going to be scary. It's going to be controversial. It's going— because you're driving change. And if you're driving change, you're getting people to do something differently than they've done before or think differently. And so most people don't have the backbone, don't have the courage to do what most entrepreneurs do. You know, Fran Tarkenton is a very good friend of mine. He's a former football player for the Minnesota Vikings from way back, and he's just a great guy. And, you know, he said— I remember this— back in 1986, I bought a printing company. I was doing so much business with this company, I was more of its— most of its business. I said, why am I doing all this business? I don't own it. So I bought it, and I decided to go to a printing convention because I didn't know the first thing about printing. So, and he was speaking at this conference and he said, and I'll never forget it, he said, if you haven't lied awake at night wondering how you're going to make payroll the next day, then you haven't been in, you know, you haven't been in business.

Yeah, we've been there, my friend.

And, you know, and that takes it, that takes a different type of backbone. And most people are, most people are not cut out for it. If you're listening right now and you're an entrepreneur, you've got to understand what a rare breed you are. That you— people should put you up on a pedestal because this country was built by entrepreneurs. It's going to continue to be built by entrepreneurs. It's going to continue to be forged. And right now we need more entrepreneurs than ever before. This country is in dire shape. It's in difficult times. And this is the time in order to get America back to work and practice the free enterprise system. And that at the core of it is what entrepreneurs do every day. So if someone, if someone says that you, you're an idiot, you're stupid, you shouldn't be doing this, you're doing this for lots of different reasons for you, but you're also doing it for this country and for, you know, the, for the, for the basis of the society and for the success of this free enterprise system. So, you know, by the way, if someone comes up to me, bring it, baby. I have no problem talking to you about it.

That's amazing. I just love your whole approach on all this stuff. It's like right in line with the way that I think of things. Jeffrey, I wanted to ask you about these 4 books that you wrote. So I'm working on my own now, and I've been working on it for like 3 years. And so I understand from the perspective of trying to convey your perspective on things to entrepreneurs, but You talk about elevating entrepreneurs, and why do you think writing a book is so important for elevating an entrepreneur?

Own your category, brother. I mean, that's the name of the game. Own your IP, drive it, make it yours. And that's a real critical component if you want to distinguish yourself and have value. Well, to be a thought leader, to be a leader of a category, to be the leader in your industry, then you have to be at the forefront of that. The best way you can do that is to write a book. Have a podcast, have a TV show, write a blog. Let's look and keep going. But that's the way to dominate the category is to be the expert, to be the leader in the industry. And if you're not writing, if you're not speaking, if you're not being visual about it, then how does anyone know you're the leader?

Right.

So, it's a way for you to put a stake in the ground. So, do I believe in it? Yeah. Every 18 to 24 months, I'm looking about how do I show people that we continue to be the leader in driving this in some way, shape, or form? Well, I got to do that too. I got a TV show. I have a, you know, a world-winning podcast. Used to be on CBS, and I went— I left CBS and started my own freaking podcast network called C-Suite Radio. Now I got 250 podcasts, you know, and, and I'll add 500 more this year. So, so if you want to be the leader, to show people you're the leader, by— write, write the book. And by the way, if it's taken you 3 years, get over that. Let's go. Come on, let's get it done.

You know, I totally agree, actually. It's been— I was, you know, I had written down all of these thoughts that I had over the last 25 years, and then I wanted to go verify them. So, I got a team of 5 people to go verify the data, and I think that's where I went wrong.

Yeah, stop doing that. Just go. Hey, Trump never considered the data, and look what it got him. There you go. Well, maybe that's a bad example. It could be a bad example. Bad example.

You know, yeah, like the worst businessman on the face of the earth.

Oh man, what a, what a, what a legacy. But nonetheless, you know, I was a judge on that show and people always ask me, of course, you know, my, you can probably guess my politics. I used to be on staff for McGovern. I used to be on staff for Daschle. I used to work on the Democratic side. And of course, of course, now that we got Trump, you know, Trump, I mean, he's just batshit crazy.

All right. Well, now is a good time as any to stop. But coming up in the second part of my conversation with Jeffrey Hayslett, the chairman and CEO of the C-Suite Network, Jeffrey talks about how entrepreneurs should treat social media.

You gotta remember, it's not a destination. A lot of people look at things like this as destinations. They look at podcasts as a destination, a book as a destination. They look at— and they look at social media as the destination, like that's the game. It's just a tool. It's just a tool. Learn more about the BOSS Business Operating Support System at bossstartupscience.com, or you can reach Gregory Shepard at gregoryshepard.com. This has been a production of Forbes Books.