Carl J. Cox: Mastering Business Strategy for Sustainable Growth

Hello and welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, an author of the Conscious Design book. And today I'm excited to have Carl. He's the CEO of 4D Strategy. We're gonna be talking about everything he's done, wrote a great book, lost his CEO. So always kudos to anybody who does that. It's a journey in and of itself. And you run your own business. So welcome to the show.

Ian, it's a pleasure to be on the podcast today.

Yes. So obviously in the name Strategy, clearly that indicates a little bit about what you do. But before we dive into what you do, let's wind the clock back a little bit. What got you started? Where did you go, I want to do this and I want to do it in my own company, not just take the day job option?

Oh, it's a great question. And if you don't mind, I'm going to bring you back a little bit of the history of how I got here because it wasn't a traditional path. And I'm not sure, I mean, I remember back in the day, in the '20s, I was like, oh, I want to have my own business, that type of concept. And there's a couple little tiny businesses that I put together, but it is a big leap, especially when you have a family and I'm married and you have 4 kids, you have to really have a lot of courage, like when you decide to make that entrepreneurial leap. And go off on your own. And what happened in my journey was my first decade in terms of business, my 20s, was I was CPA, worked one of the Big 4 accounting firms, worked with multiple different companies, worked with a publicly traded company. And by the age of 30, I became a CFO for a medium-sized company, small to medium-sized company. And we grew 3.5 times during that period of time. It was absolutely incredible. But what I didn't tell you is actually I really thought I wanted to coach high school football and teach history. And so that's where I thought my future was going to be. And I actually built up and moonlighting a business on the side, which was this tax. It turned out to be this tax accounting practice. My background was audit, not tax, but I learned it. I figured it out, literally put it all together, had up to 35 clients at one point. But the new company said, hey Carl, we'd love to invest in you, but not if you're going to leave us in 5 years. Because I told them that. I said, hey, I'm just doing this to help build up my supplemental income so I can actually take a teacher salary and raise my kids. So through that process they said, well, okay. And then they challenged me. I said, okay, let's give it a shot. There was nothing in writing. And they said, well, can you figure it out? Accounting, you fixed it, you put in a new accounting system, but can you help us with IT? Because IT is not working. And so I took over IT and just to clarify, I have no IT skills. My IT skill was, did you turn off and on your computer? You know, that was like about my skillset. So I didn't really have it, but we fixed it. We got the IT group to figure out they had KPIs, they knew what to do. And so they said, hey, can you take over technical support for us, meaning like literally product technical support with microphones and speakers. But we fixed it. And then after that they were like, hey, can you set up a distribution center for us in Europe? And I was like, sure. And so we ended up setting up 3 distribution centers and it went well and it worked. And so they were like, you know, never, once again, never been to Europe, never been to England where it was, never been to Amsterdam, figured it out. And I just kept on saying yes. And ultimately They said, well, can you take over operations? I was like, sure. And so what, took over manufacturing operations and did lean. And what I didn't tell you was we had a company that had Fortune 500 executives and they were teaching me and managing me through this process. And they also were really good at strategic planning and execution. So I was there nearly a decade. I loved it. I never thought I was going to go anywhere else. And by the way, I did end up coaching 25 seasons of youth sports along the way, but I stayed out of the high school level. And then I joined this other company. I got recruited away and it was a company that I could, don't have to now speak as much code, but we would do all these inspections on, on phones. We do 20 different inspections in 2 seconds or less. We grew from 70 employees to 450 employees in 3 years. We were good, really good at strategic planning and execution.

Hmm.

And so it was like, this is it. And to me, I, I started getting this experience like, doesn't everybody do this? Right? So, you know, 15 years of my career is just growing substantially, being with companies. So then we were trying to find a better way to track our strategy and we found this tool called Cascade Strategy based out of Sydney, Australia. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. Can we, I definitely want to buy the product. But secondly, I was like, can we invest in you? And so the CEO in the company, we actually formed a separate company. So moonlighting again and ultimately said, I started building it up. Literally, we actually started hiring people as a separate company and they were sitting right in front of me in the office. Later on I was like, who's that guy? He is like, oh, don't worry about him. Just, you know, There's no drones in the building. It's like, you know, just don't mind that guy. But we were building out this company, ultimately sold a deal to Johnson Johnson, convinced the wife and the C, my partner, hey, I think it's time for me to go full-time. Took over Cascade Strategy, the US office. It became Northwest office, US office, North America office. We grew from 50 clients to 350 clients in 3 years. But this was the surprise, Ian, that I didn't know. What I didn't realize is most people don't understand and know how to do strategic planning execution. And if you look at it, it makes sense, right? Even if you, you do it once a year, that does not make you an expert, right? And 2, most people don't have a strategic planning degree. If you're lucky, you have a course in it.

Right.

Finding a person with a degree is like a unicorn. You might get a book, you might hear about it, but you're not really doing, understanding the principles of strategic planning execution. So I found that out of a really strange thing is that our clients were failing. They were buying our software like somebody'd buy a Peloton bike and the Peloton bike. Well, you know what happens to them? Becomes a very expensive towel rack for most people. I was trying to help people make sure they actually use the tool. I started doing free consulting and then started charging for consulting. And I was with a client based in Arizona and 2 hours of the meeting, he pulled me aside and said, Carl, I would've paid you $10,000 just for that last 2 hours. And I remember going, looking at the person I was with, because by the way, they barely paid over $10,000 for the software, the implementation, the training, and the everything else that was going on. And I turned to the person I was with and said, I think I'm in the wrong business. So fast forward a year later, Tom Wright, the CEO, said, hey, Carl, why don't you now build, you've obviously proven this works. Why don't you build my global consulting company? I didn't want to be gone 80% of the time building a global network. I've got 4 kids I mentioned, and I did not want to see They're in college, like they play collegiate athletics. And I was like, I don't want to miss that. You know, you only get that one time. Like literally tonight of this recording is my final daughter in school who's played soccer. It's senior night tonight. She literally plays for the number one team in the country.

Amazing.

If I was working for companies, I wouldn't miss that. I would be in somewhere around the world. So I took the leap and that's how 40 Strategies started, began starting the beginning of January 2020. And we've just been extraordinarily grateful through this period of time. of helping organizations do 2 things. Number one, very successful companies want to take the next leap. The problem is to take the next leap, you typically have to change your people, your process, and your systems to get there. And they know that intuitively, but they don't know how to do it. And so I work with them to help get that done. The other group of clients typically come from private equity requests. It's because there is a— they're frustrated because one of their portfolio clients is not working the right way. And so they ask me to come in for turnarounds. And so I come in with those companies, do turnarounds and help bring them back to profitability so they can be successfully sold or create the value that they need. So that's what I do. That's what I got there. And I could say this out of gratitude. I'm so grateful to have the greatest job in the world. Like, I'm exactly for me where I'm supposed to be.

That's awesome. I think that's, it's great to hear your whole journey because, right, it was, it's funny, I was recording another podcast just before this and we talked about this a little bit. Because he was like, oh, I don't have the typical startup story. And so frequently we have this little short picture where it's like, oh, I have an idea and then I made a company and then I sold a whole bunch of it and now I'm a millionaire and making people happy, right? And it's like 5 points. It's like 3 inches long on the screen and you're like, done. There you go. Whole story. Nice, straight, perfectly all ducks in a row. And I think it's It's so important to talk to people and go, yes, that can happen. And like most of us don't do that. It is a journey. You got to go through some experiences and that's part of how you, you build, right? And it's, you're able to, because of your experience, having been in all those scenarios and learned under the people you did, you're able to now bring all that. That's literally your business. Is all of that combined experience. You implementing that for other people. So I love being able to point that out and share that with people so they're not as hung up. It didn't like ABC, like, no, it's alphabet soup. It's not, not this clean line.

Yeah. And you nailed it, Ian. I mean, it's so difficult to make that leap because it's safety, right? You think it's safety until you get laid off, right? But you think it's safety when you're with another organization and, oh, I'm getting a steady supply, a salary or a bonus or whatever it may be, options if you're fortunate to get equity. I do want to say, you know, I don't mind saying this. My wife and I, we're high school sweethearts. We've been together for a long period of time. We had one of our biggest fights ever getting ready to start this business because she was like, not again. There's this stress that's true when you have your own business is that you have to produce, you have to create value in the world because otherwise you can't pay the mortgage, right? You can't bring home, you can't go on those family trips that you thought you were going to do. You have to create real value. And it was interesting, we were really fortunate. We literally, by month 3, I was grossing as much as I had in any other, my best performing company beforehand. So it was really fortunate, right? But once again, as a sign, I went to the right place at the right time and I knew I was creating value. But when COVID hit, things shut down and people didn't want an onsite facilitator. Literally nobody I was working with was nearby. And so we give the first 10% of our revenues to charity. And so I want to give you how much we fell in May. I gave more in May than we'd received. So meaning my revenue dropped 90%. So that was a scary time. And I remember doing this webinar with somebody from New York and we had a fair amount of people on the webinar and I sent all these emails diligently. Not one person responded. And I remember going, uh-oh, is this over? And I literally, I don't mind saying this, I just had a bit of faith and I just dropped down to my knees and said, all right, This is supposed to be, let it be. But what's really interesting is through our faith, we, we, things work. And literally from that point, things started doubling every year. But we had to have that courage to get through that massive obstacle. And so we did. Somebody said something really interesting. It was one of those funny things on LinkedIn that somebody said. It was awesome. It was like right in the middle of COVID and they were like, just add value.

Hmm.

Right? Not our value, not what we're trying to create, but what What does somebody else need that you can help provide a void of? You can help fill a void that they don't have and make it better than they would've had without you, whether it's your product or service or whatever else you're doing. And that to me is where I think we miss it. We think, oh, I can create this product and it's going to sell. Not if it doesn't create value, right? I'm going to create this service and it's going to sell. Not if it doesn't create value. The magic. And the other part is I think you have to be in the long game, right? I have stories of people that would've been like your podcast, Michael. I had 15 cents, like literally Jim Britt, who was on our podcast that's releasing, like I had 15 cents and became a millionaire. That's not my story. I had some money in the bank, you know, I didn't just leap with foolishness. I had some money to get through it. It's still fearful, right? To make that decision, to make that leap, to go off on your own. For me, like I never want to work for anybody again. I'm so grateful to be in this position. And I, we got a 10-year plan, positively impact a million people, 10,000 organizations. And we're going to do it. And so that's what drives me. That's what gets me. And I want to give at least $1 million to charity. We're on our way of doing that. Hope to give a lot more than that. That's what drives us. That's what gets me out of bed. But you have to have a greater purpose than just, I want to get rich.

Yes.

You know, because that's an empty promise. You and I know too many people that have made money and they like, if I play another golf round again, I'm going to like put that tee in my eye and like be done. It's like, I'm not saying people aren't out there who can do it, but I'm not one of them. I was built to make a difference in the work world. That's what I love. But I also love time spending time with my family and traveling around and seeing sporting events and doing these different things. But I don't see myself ever sitting by a pool 7 days a week or playing golf 7 days a week. I need to contribute and do things, and then I do those things on the side, which help bring me joy. But what brings me joy is my day-to-day love of getting things done.

That's a good point. I share that. I'll never retire, but I want to do something good while I'm doing things. So definitely agree. Now I want to jump a little bit into, right, the strategy side. And you mentioned it, and it's so accurate from all of my experience, especially in startups getting off the ground. There's a lot of, right, people get caught up, right? You're in startup mode and you're like, oh, I have to do all these things, all these things. You know, I spent a lot of time Trying to help companies, startup companies. And for me, a startup is in probably the first 5 years still, still a startup. Like it's not just day one, trying to get people to look at even just product strategy. Like what is your product gonna look like in 5? Like it can't just be static, right? But then there's where you work in, which is the business side. Is there, I guess, what, what would be kind of a couple key points that could help? Like what, you can't strategize on everything, especially if you're early startup, right? What do you see, I guess, either as the most commonly skipped thing that people shouldn't skip or something that we all butcher and we really should do better at that would actually make an impact, right? Because like I said, there's a long list.

Yeah, there is. And as much as people want to have the silver bullet, I don't typically see it, right? You know, it's not, it's a, like finding a unicorn and the rainbow at the same time. These are things that are just not typically common. And I'm not saying that I haven't seen extraordinary growth and really fast and just, you know, that have that, but often it's like funded by a bunch of money. They're not making money. I mean, salesforce.com didn't make a profit for over a decade, folks, even though it's one of the most dominant companies in the world because they had venture money pouring money in and in. And that's not the reality for most people. They don't have that set of funding on the side, or our Grandpa Charlie putting a bunch of money into it from his trust fund. It's like, it's not the typical event. So when we develop a plan to begin with, it's what I talked about. You have to think about the long-term to begin with. Where are we going? And I like to pull out to 10 years. What difference is the world going to be as a result of you doing what you're planning to do? What purpose is it going to be? What is it going to look like? Your company, your organization, the employees, the products and services that you're providing, maybe the difference you're absolutely making in the world as a result of it. I'm working with one company right now and they're Like they literally were like, our vision is to have clean water and air for all. I mean, it's like, you know, it's like, it's a massive, you know, vision. I'm not saying that's what most people should be doing, but they're in that business. And so it makes sense for them. I think for others, you have to think that. And why the why is because when things get tough, you need to still remember your long-term goal. So that's number one is to be aligned. And secondly, when you start doing things that are outside of your vision, you have to really question it. You know, is this make sense? So it becomes your original filter. So that's number one. Then number 2 is you have to start figuring out where you're going to go to help get towards there, meaning, i.e., to begin to set your goals. So there's a balance, and I want to be clear in this. It's so important to create stretch goals when you start out and forever. So meaning that's the 10-year vision. So like I have a 51% chance of success. That 3-year goal should be like a 70% chance of success. Or you're gonna hit 70% of it. And then your 1-year goal is like 90%. You should be able to hit your 1-year goals. You know what I mean? That's like, like near term. But the reason why we say that is we have this tendency to completely, we overestimate what we do in 1 year, but we tend to underestimate what we do in 3 years.

Hey, it's Ian here. So glad you're enjoying this episode of Conscious Design. If you want the full scoop on Conscious Design, what it is, how we do it, how you can do it, then check out our book. We wrote it so creative entrepreneurs like you can code social and environmental responsibility right into your brand's DNA. You can download the first chapter for free. Link is in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share.

What happens is you have to build the things. That's what strategy is about. It's about thinking about the big things and moving to the small things that you do day to day. That's number 2. Then 3, when it comes to your goals, This is a big, big, big reason why companies fail. And this is something we could learn from Amazon. This is what Amazon, you know, Jeff Bezos taught his employees is that, okay, you want to grow and double. Like how many times, if I got a nickel for every time I heard somebody that says they want to double their company in 5 years, I probably could retire, right? Okay. So, you know, just on that, but let's just say it is, you want to double in 5 years. Fantastic. Okay. That's your major KPI. That's your vision. We want to double in 5 years. That's not what you're doing. Your KPIs have to be tracking your— that's your— so what I talked about, that's your lagging indicator, your revenue, your gross margin, your profits. That's all a lagging indicator. That's the result of everything that you've done. When you ask your accountant for your numbers, it's the end result. You can't change it unless you cheat the numbers, like you've like rearranged them. But, but you know, if you have any honest accountant, It's just the facts.

Right.

Okay. So what we have to focus on is the leading indicators. We flip the script. Most organizations have 80% of their strategic plan with KPIs that are lagging indicators and only 20% that are leading. We flip it. 20% become lagging indicators. 80% become leading indicators.

Hmm.

These are the things that we can control to help make a difference. So let's put this into like practice, Ian. So it's like, Makes sense. Classic thing. Okay, I'm going to double in sales in 5 years. Fantastic. And I love you, by the way. If you want to do that, call me up right now. Let's get working on it and I'm going to help you.

Do it.

So I'm not meaning to like demean this because I love high growth, fast companies. And by the way, I've been with multiple companies that have done it. Matter of fact, 7 different companies I've tripled in size within, multiple companies I work on the outside doing on the outside. It can happen. But once again, you got to focus on the right things, focus on what's happening and taking place. So A great example is I'm going to hire this, you know, I'm doing this for sarcasm a little bit. Well, we're going to hire 2 salespeople this year and it's going to help double our sales next year. Like, so, so like meaning in the current year. So using this, so here we are October 2000, sorry, forgive the dating of this. Okay. But wherever this gets released, but let's say it's 2024 and you're going to say you're going to hire 2 salespeople to help increase your sales. Now, first question, Ian, how long does it take typically to find a quality salesperson?

Months. I'd guess probably like 5 to 6 months. If you— if you're, especially if you're in like a technical field.

Yes. Yes. Okay. So nailed it. Let me ask you a second question. How long does it typically take to train that salesperson to bring you organic new sales?

Probably another 6 months.

Thank you. Okay. So by the way, what you answered is typically what people answer to me. So what it means is, is that if you said your strategic goal is to grow this year is by hiring 2 salespeople, that's a fault. That can't, that is unlikely to happen. That salesperson is gonna help you next year.

Right.

But they're not gonna help you this year. That's strategic planning. That is being aware of that. The strategic initiative is we're gonna hire somebody. The awareness is recognizing that it's not gonna help us till next year. That's being strategic, right? And then a secondary point is you hiring a hunter or you hiring a farmer? They're different humans. And by the way, there's, we do analysis to validate this before we hire because folks, this is the tough thing. 5% of your salespeople in the universe account for 93% of sales.

Sounds right.

Okay. So it's worth spending the time. If you're looking for a hunter rather than an account manager, spend the time and the energy to find the right hunter to fit your business, to help you grow. Don't just try to find another salesperson that you're just gonna manage it with, right? So I hope that makes sense, right? Is that sometimes great strategy for year 2 and year 3. Hire new salespeople. Terrible strategy for year 1 if that was your goal to grow in year 1, right? You have to do other things in year 1. And what would that be? Hmm. We've noticed we haven't followed up from our quotes ever. Matter of fact, we don't even track it.

Hmm.

Opportunity, right? So, so one of the tactics you might do is we're gonna follow up with our quotes. And by the way, people are listening. I get offered quotes to expand my marketing and do my SEO and Help my book sales and you name it, right? I get offered things all the time and the amount of times I don't get a follow-up call after initial quote. I'm busy. I think I'm a busy person. You think I'm just going to make a decision on a $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 deal in 3 seconds? Not without a strategy, right? So why do we think that everything we offer, they're ready for it as well? And point is, right, you're getting in what we're talking about here is that This comes down to, once again, it's about thinking long-term. How do we make these decisions to recognize that decision we're making today is gonna help out the future and long-term? And then these are the decisions gonna help us out in 30, 60, 90 days. And we do that too. We do, just to clarify, we do actions that get immediate results. It's just, it's not hiring 2 salespeople.

Right, right.

That's gonna help you out in year 2 and year 3.

Now you mentioned something interesting is the long vision. And being more exact to say, but it sounds like also being more mission-driven, having a better North Star. Because one of the things that I've seen in at least, you know, especially sustainable-focused, eco-friendly, right? Those are, they are more mission-driven typically, right? They're really focused, but I think they're missing a few things a lot of the times because there's a lot that They still have the same fail rate even though they have that extra component. And so I'm kind of wondering from your experience, like mission-driven is great, but you got to support that in a few ways to, right? You can't just anchor on that alone. So is there specific things that help make that more potent and make it work better specifically, or is it just— Really what you just said, like, hey, great to have that. And you gotta have the long-term, you gotta have all these other things.

What you mentioned is such a fascinating thing. People who are in passion projects, and I would even say whether it's a for-profit or not-for-profit organization, a business has been going around for 3 to 4 years and you're not pulling out money out of it, you're a not-for-profit organization.

Okay.

Let's just clarify definitions here, even though you might not be a 501. So I'll go back to one of the things I said earlier is you have to add One of the problems when people have a passion, and I love it, like there's so many wonderful human beings. I saw this wonderful TEDx talk yesterday, TED Talk, not a TEDx, a TED Talk on how you can change the world environmentally. But they had this great Venn diagram of what is the problem that I see? What are my experience and skills and how do I make that work? And then you try to connect them. So you can create value. But why small businesses typically don't make money, it's because they don't value their services enough. They're so passionate about giving. One of the first things I do with a lot of small companies, Ian, is tell 'em to double their rates because they're paying themselves like you'd pay yourself if you were working at McDonald's. And just to clarify, I worked at McDonald's when I was 14 to 15, 16 years old and worked in the fry vat and got really bad acne for a summer there at the 185th Northwest McDonald's. I remember that. I mean, it was nasty. I did it. Okay. But it's a problem if you're still making, if you're an entrepreneur and you're making somebody that is much, you make as much as minimum wage. Once again, what are you doing? That's not the goal. The goal is not to become in poverty yourself because you have a holistic mission. It's appropriate to charge the proper wages. And so literally one of the first things we do is you might have to double your rates, you might have to triple your rates, but you're uncomfortable within a year one. So we're just going to double.

Right.

Right.

Okay.

And so that's honestly, Ian, I think is why people sometimes they don't is because they undervalue their own products and services. Okay. And we have to, it's our own mindset ironically that ends up hurting ourselves, not necessarily the market itself. And Ian, you're on the other side. If somebody's going to give you a cheaper service for value, of course you're going to take it. You're not going to give them extra money. Because that's what was offered. Right. You know, we're not going to give you an extra tip. You sold me it was $1,000. I'm going to pay you $1,000, even though it was worth $10,000. So it comes down to adding value. I think the hard part right now with AI, with generative AI, and this is, I think, a true, real big problem and challenge. And for those organizations that aren't tackling generative AI is there is no different than manufacturing had been outsourcing to China and to Mexico and name your third world country for years. Right. We've been doing these things. Well, I think everyone knows right by now that white-collar jobs are being removed like crazy right now, meaning that your marketing jobs, your accounting jobs, your copywriting job, one of two things are happening is getting outsourced to India or to Pakistan or to the Philippines, or it's being automated through generative AI right now. And so even then, how can you add value in that process? And price yourself properly so you become a part of the future and not eliminated in the future. And I think that, by the way, is gonna be the biggest challenge for small business and for small to medium-sized business over the next 3 to 5 years. They have no idea of all the software that's being created to automate their life. And unless they're on top of it, their product or service is gonna be a ChatGPT prompt.

Right. Yeah, I think that value-add piece is really, really important. And I think people, right, we all are trying to provide some kind of value, but we don't necessarily— I think we get stuck too, like, oh, well, I'm doing X, I don't need to, I don't need, I'm busy doing other things, I don't need to worry about how to add more value to original piece right here. And I think that's Kind of that going to that long-term strategy part is going, yes, you started out here and you gotta have this long-term path to how do you improve? How do you add, keep adding more value? That's how you can keep growing and keep going. And honestly, just stay in business because somebody else, why somebody else will take your product, they'll add a bunch of value to it on top of it. Well, you have your, have your competitor now.

That's right. It is. It's this constant iteration and, and strategic planning is not something you just do once a year. You know, so that's another problem in the strategic planning is, is did you ever see the movie Saving Private Ryan in the past? Okay. So for those who haven't seen the movie, if you haven't seen it, go watch it. Gosh, holy cow. You know, it's one of the greatest movies ever created in my opinion, but brutal scene. And in one of the early scenes is they're trying to get to D-Day in Omaha. And there's actually a book. Let's see, I could pull it up here for those who are watching. There's a book I'm putting out by Stephen Ambrose. It's a massive book. It's over 700 pages called D-Day. It's written about all the planning and the actual event of D-Day itself. And it's an incredible book. I highly recommend the book if you like military war history. Amazing. Now, D-Day plus 1 to the end of the Hitler regime is this next book that's 100 pages less. So 2 things we could learn from this. One is planning is extraordinarily important. Number 2, even when we plan, things happen that you can't foresee. One of the most interesting things is they got onto Normandy beaches and they got ready to go to Cherbourg, which was the next major objective that they're trying to get to. The problem was they didn't know that something was called hedgerows. And if you've been in Normandy, France, or in Western France, and sometimes areas in England, it's massive overgrowth of trees and brush around farming fields. Our Sherman tanks couldn't work. So literally our entire plan to get to Cherbourg got stopped on D-Day plus 1. This is crazy. We had thousands of, thousands of interviews, thousands of photographs. We had been there, like we had people that had been to that place beforehand, and we had no idea to consider that Sherman tanks weren't going to work. So this is what you have to be aware of, is that hedgerows, And the mindset I like to say is strategic planning is a hypothesis. It's not a fact. Whenever you create a beautiful strategic plan and put it into a lovely document and you say to the world, this is what we're going to do, what happens is you get incredibly bad ego and you think you have to follow it or you're dead or you lose your integrity. And that's just not true. You have to have a mindset that this is an idea. This is our best idea. But we recognize we're going to run into hedgerows. And when we hit those hedgerows, we're going to change our strategies to still get to our objectives. That mindset is super critical because that's the difference between a strategic plan that has a bunch of dust on it or one that actually ends up working. And so that's why we actually— it's okay to put it into documentation, but we believe actually putting in software is far better because we want it to feel dynamic. We want people to recognize it's going to change. We don't want them to think it's a solid document, like a book that can't change.

Right. You want it to be what I've always heard is a living document. It's something that you edit, you plan to always change, always change the plan.

Right. As you're going. That's right. Yep. Once again, keep in mind the biggest book was D-Day, right? It was all of the upfront work. The easy part was overcoming the obstacles. It wasn't easy at all. Right. But it was like you had an initial plan and you had, you went through all these crazy obstacles and then you endured because you still recognized what your original mission was. You still had an original mission to reach your objectives. And going back to the vision of that, we wanted freedom, right? You think about it, right? We wanted freedom for the world. That's literally what was at stake in World War II. No joke, right? Because think of what happened once at the end of the war, you had the East and West. and the Berlin Wall that got put up right at the end of the war. And literally you had a bunch of people who were under communism control versus those who had democracy. That's obviously not everybody gets to have that big of a thing, right? In terms of remission. But we still can be thoughtful and think about the difference. Once again, we're going to have in the world as a result of us being around.

Absolutely. Yeah, I will. I'll add this quote, keep getting told, and it's, I think it's Einstein, He's quoted as having said, I'll spend out of an hour, if you gimme a problem to solve, I'll spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and then 5 minutes solving it. And I think that's that, that, and I think it was a, the other one I, I think I grew up hearing was no plan survives contact with the enemy. It was like one of General Patton's quotes. And that, yeah, those 2 things have always stuck with me. Like, that's, that's accurate. My life, my life would say yes to that.

Definitely. Yeah, those are great examples. They totally support, right? You know what we've been talking about? Once again, strategic planning is a hypothesis, it's not a fact, but we think, we plan, we, and we adjust, then we reach our objectives. And what's crazy is when you do the right thing, when you have this approach, you actually triple your likelihood of success. This is data. Like, I'm not making this stuff up. Each one of our 7 phases have Research behind it. When you focus on your leading indicators versus your lagging indicators, Harvard Business Review says it's a 3x improvement. When you—

That's amazing.

Do the Pareto principle, focusing on your 20 most important things have 80% of the impact. So we were working with a client the other day that had 80 goals. We got it down to 15. The 15 ended up becoming the strategic plan because that was gonna have the most impact on the outcome. The other 65, great ideas, but we're not incorporating the plan because they're not going to move the dial enough. So going to Ian, another big aha moment, right, is stop doing the things that have small movements. Do the things that are going to move the dial more because otherwise you're just wasting your time. Some people, and I agree with this, sometimes it's easier and it's more exciting. You can have the same company and one company's goal is to grow 5%, which is basically inflation. And another company, and they're like proud of this, and then you have another company that says, we're going to grow 30%. Sometimes the effort is the same, the effort to go from 5 to 30. The difference is what they're working on, right? One company's being strategic and changing their habits to get to a better result. And the other company like loves status quo and they just like doing the same thing over and over again. I am so concerned about those status quo companies in this next, in this current decade. I think unlike any other time, I mean, they've been getting demolished for years, But I am concerned, really concerned over the next few years for those who are not adapting their approaches of being, even if they're a local in-store small town company, you need to consider being a global player, meaning your resources and how you get things done, the technology you use. This is the most beautiful thing what people miss with generative AI. This is built for us, the small guy. This is like built For small clients, we can now get access to technology in the past that only clients like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook had. It's at our fingertips now.

Right.

We get to use this data for ourselves. And what is it? I did a, I read a study the other day and wrote about it. What, it's like 5% of people, what was it, 50 and above or 55 to, I can't remember the exact age group, but 45, like 50 to 65. Have even gone into ChatGPT, folks. You know, it's like wake up, McFly. You know, remember Phil in Back to the Future? It's like, we need to wake up. We need to get involved. And if you are afraid, you need to find somebody to help get you there. That's, we're actually having a course right now, Ian. We're helping people just to use one simple prompt, how to write your vision with ChatGPT, to take what can feel like a very difficult process. And we can accelerate 10x. How cool is that? Right? You know, so all these things that seem so, you have to write. I don't like writing. It's funny. I wrote a book. I don't like to write. It's actually hard work. But what the cool thing is, is when you use these tools, it can just make it so much faster. So I know I'm going into a little bit of detail, taxes. It's just, I'm trying to implore, if you don't have in your future plans, part of your initiatives, to use generative AI or to use global resources to help get things done, you're going to fall behind.

I think it's important to be aware, right? And look at all the resources available. Like, what's your— I think people will realize it a little bit more, right? With global supply chain and what happened to that in 2020, people are a little more aware of how interconnected, right, is some of those bubbles we all We thought we were in, uh, got burst rather harshly. So hopefully people are become even more aware, right? And we were able to get through that or they won't make it. I mean, that's, that is how business is though. As we're wrapping up here, I want to make sure if there's anything else you wanted to share, but also make sure for people who would want to work with you, find your book, what's going to be the best way to find you and Anything else you'd like to add?

So, Ian, first thing, I don't give this gift to all my podcasts that I'm on, but for all of your listeners who have listened to the show, and you could actually put it in the front end part if you'd like as well, but anybody who's listened to this, if they send me an email directly, I'll give them a free signed copy of my book. So it's Lost at CEO, and the book, it's easy to read. It's intended that way. It's a fable, how a typical company goes through the strategic planning process, the same way they did in the past. And a consultant whose name is Charlie Joseph. Yes, it's not me, but it's me. They help give guidance along the way on how to do it a different way. And very fun kind of interactive and stressful kind of book because that's what the reality is when you're an entrepreneur. It helps guide you through it. So that's the gift for all your listeners once again is if they, so the email specifically is carljcox@carljcox.com. at 40strategy.com. So 40strategy.com. If you could put that in your show notes, Ian, anybody who's done it, we'll give that. So other places to find us. First of all, if you are like, oh, I don't wanna sign a book, I just wanna buy it on Amazon, please do. So Amazon and Audible and barnesandnoble.com, you can find it and buy the book. Other ways to get to us, we have our own podcast, the Measure of Success Podcast, where we talk with top leaders about effective strategies that inspire success. We talk to CEOs, authors, and crazy high achievers. Feel welcome to go to that. We have a significant presence on LinkedIn. So once again, again, find me Carl J. Cox. I do that, by the way, because there's a famous DJ Carl Cox who's based out of England. And so if I, from an SEO perspective, I had to do the J just to make you aware of. So, and it's funny when I travel internationally, they see my name Carl Cox. It's sort of like the Michael Jordan of DJs, you know? And so I'm like, oh yeah, Carl Cox. They're like, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. So that's another place. And then our website is 40strategy.com, 40strategy.com. And by the way, why we're called 40 Strategy, There's 2 reasons. Number one is because most organizations spend 2% or less of their time on strategy, which is equal to 40 hours per year. So we're called 40 Strategy for that reason. The, it, the intent is, look, you don't have to hire us forever, but you give us 40 hours, we're gonna help turn your company around. So that's why we're called 40 Strategy.

Right.

And not just turn around and help grow to the next level, I should say appropriately. Number 2 is there's kind of a, a bigger thing that 40, there's a, 40 has a, the reality is to become successful, it is a struggle. And sometimes, you know, there's like 40 days to break a habit or 40 years to go through a struggle in our life or whatever it might be. And there's a truth to that, right? You know, you have— that's once again, I keep on going back to is it's so important to have a long-term focus so you can get through the pain and struggle and obstacles of being an entrepreneur or a CEO in your business. But when you do, rewards happen and it's so awesome when you get there. And so I just wishing once again to all your listeners the very best of going through that process. Please feel free to reach out to us and we'd love to talk to you to help out if you need. And if not, please get a free signed book. This is an offer I don't— I can't give out forever, but to your listeners, They have it.

Absolutely. Well, and for everyone listening, we will make sure that all of that is in the show notes. We'll make sure it'd be easy if you want to just click on things, whether you're watching or listening to this. Yeah, I really appreciate you taking some time to chat. It's really important, the strategy part that people, I think, don't always pay attention to. So the more you and anybody else who's championing all this is able to share, I think it's a good Hopefully more and more businesses will take a look at that and actually have a strategy so they can survive. We need small businesses. So really appreciate your time being on the show.

Ian, it's been an absolute pleasure and thank you so much.

Hey there. Thanks for joining us for this episode. I hope that you're enjoying the content we're putting out. If you're looking for more ways to learn about this, to get involved, create your own consciously designed products, So there's a couple of ways that you can do that. First is our book Conscious Design, which you'll find a link to in the description of this episode. Please check that out. Go over quite a bit of information, what the process is, how I've applied it to product design, and some really great examples of companies out there that are doing really great work. Some of whom you have seen on this podcast. The other way is our course, 4 Weeks to Launch, where I peel back the curtain on how to develop a product start to finish in a way that can create positive impact rather than any negative ones. So please check that out. That is a great resource that will also be linked in the description as well. And see you on the next one.