FMC Fast Chat with Jeffrey Hayzlett

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes. Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

So much in the news today is about businesses struggling and the U.S. economy in need of a jumpstart. That's why today we wanted to speak with Jeff Hazlett to get his expert insight and to answer So first off, Jeff, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you very much, Jaci. It's a pleasure to be here with you and to join you with the Fair Media Council, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

So, so let's start right from the beginning. All right, we're just gonna jump right in because turnarounds are your thing. So let's talk about, you know, when I look at businesses, whether, whether they're small, medium, or large, No one's quite sure where they should start. So, where— what is the starting point to rebuilding now in today's economy?

Go! Go! Go as fast as you can. Listen, nobody knows the answers because every freaking day it changes, right? I mean, in essence, every single day it's like, oh my gosh. I saw a meme the other day that says, what's next? And it showed the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters walking down the street. I mean, that's the only thing we haven't seen, you know. I just saw locusts the other day in South Dakota where I'm from. So, it's amazing what we're gonna have in front of us. So, you know, look, I said at the beginning when this thing hit around March 14th, I think that's kind of our demarcation date for almost all of us.

Yeah.

And I was about to jump on a cruise ship to go on a cruise for 5 days and give a bunch of speeches and we decided at the last minute not, but it got canceled anyway. You know, and I, look, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse. I can't even sew a mask, but what I can do is help businesses and be a business first responder. And that's what all of us have to do in business today is be a first responder for business. It's our job to get this economy moving and get us started. And so what I said isn't about survive, it's about how do we drive and thrive? Because that's really what we have to do. And we have to change. Now, is there, is there businesses that are going to fail? Absolutely. It's terrible. But there are many businesses that are thriving, I mean, who have never, you know, who have never been busier than they are today. So, it's all about embracing whatever the model is. You can, and you can, we can cry about it, we can whine about it, but it won't change anything. The only thing that can change is our mood and our attitude and the ability to say, we're going to do something different than what we did yesterday and we're going to make it better. We're going to adapt, we're going to change, or we're certainly going to die. As a business.

Okay, well, now though, do you think there are businesses who have a viable business in place if they just change the model, or do you think their actual products and services have to adapt as well?

Well, some products and services do. I'll give you an example in the restaurant business, for instance. But yeah, certainly if you're, if you're into a digital model, and I'll give my own example for the C-Suite Network, we were doing hundreds of meetings in face. Okay, face-to-face, can't do that. That was our funnel, was to have meetings in, you know, conventions, you know, salons, conferences, meetings, you know, council summits, whatever. And we were doing those all over the place, and then we wake up on March 14th, all over, not gonna happen. And it's not coming back anytime soon. So, we had to move all of our conferences, everything, everything to a digital model. We've adapted. Membership is like a hockey stick right now for us. So, we've changed that model. So, if you have a digital, a way to be able to present the business digitally, then you're going to survive and you can. Now, it might, you might have a learning curve with that. What works? What doesn't work? How do I get to those customers? You know, will they, will the dog eat the dog food? All those kind of things. And then, some products have to adapt. I mean, I use the restaurants as a great example. I had one I run a podcast called All Business on C-Suite Radio, and we have about 250 to 300 shows now. But, but I interviewed one of the leading guys, gals in the, in the restaurant business, and he said foods that travel. He said he has to now have menu items that are foods that travel well. And I thought, what the heck's he talking about, travel well? What he means, takeout. He goes, because my, you know, my My dining room, it's not open. He was in New York and he owns Meatballs, the big shops in New York, and as well as a fish shop, a fish restaurant as well. And, but he said, I just have to have foods that travel well. So, he shut down the fish place. He got no restaurant traffic inside and everything's delivery. So, he's gotta have— so, there was a, you know, he has a product that travels well. So, he adapted all of his— his menu items to Travel and Well. I thought that was a very smart move.

Okay, all right, so that's your product and service, but when we come down to customers themselves, like you mentioned, we can't network anymore. We can't go out, we can't shake hands, we can't get together for lunch to sit down, meet each other, decide we actually like each other enough to do business with each other. So what do we do?

You do it online. I mean, we're doing it. I mean, Jaci, we're doing it daily. So, we have mixers almost every single day, breakfast meetings, gatherings. You know, this morning I was part of the Irish Business Organization right there in New York. It's a, you know, you have to be Irish to get in. Well, we might let non-Irish, might let a few Italians, Norwegians in too, I guess.

Okay.

But, you know, there's a group that's meeting in New York having breakfast once a week. Everybody brings their Irish oatmeal, you know, sits down there. We have a program, had the ambassador to Ireland with us the other day. And so, you mingle and you do it here. We do it this way. It's just different. And so, you have to find the ways. And Thursday, I've got a cocktail party. Everybody brings the beverage of their own, you know, and we have a little speaker who's gonna be talking about podcasting. And then, we mingle and in the chat rooms, we're trading business cards and doing things just a different way. And then, of course, you can do breakout rooms and everything else. But, Is it, is it the way I'm used to? No. Is it the way I would really like? No. I mean, I like people. I love to shake their hand. I love to have a hug, but you can't do that stuff right now. So, you have to do it and do it another way. So, again, adapt and change or the business dies. And I think that's what you have to look at.

Yeah. So, now that though, it sounds like you have quite a few of these under your belt though, in terms of the networking and the recreation. And what's going on. So from your—

I laugh, I laugh because I'm literally doing 5 or 6 of these a day.

Are you exhausted?

Yeah, constant. It's just constant. I've, you know, everybody else is talking about the COVID 15. I've dropped 30-some pounds already this year, so during this time period. So yeah.

All right, well, that's good. I mean, that's a positive out of all this.

That's a positive.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, but in your experience now, because you're hitting this so heavy, What are the best practices versus the don't do these things if you're going to do like a networking breakfast or meet with new customers online? What, you know, what are you looking for?

Yeah, that's a great, great question. The first thing you should be doing isn't taking, is giving.

Okay.

Right now, everybody should be looking at, Jaci, what can I do to help you? How can I help you? How can I be of service to you? And not look for anything in return. Because if you're doing that, and by the way, everybody should be doing that, it makes it a nice, a lot better world. All the way around, right?

Right.

And so, the more you give, the more you get. So, you wanna learn about what things that can I give to you? What can I do? How can I introduce you to somebody else? What's important? So, you know, build the relationship. That's the do. You wanna build that relationship before you start saying, hey, you wanna buy from me? You know, and in the chat room and those kinds of places, don't start selling yourself. Don't start verbal vomiting of information up, you know. Take your time, relax, act as though you've been there before, and then have that maturity to give. And the more— again, the more you give, the more you'll get. And that, that's one of the biggest things that people have to do. And you don't walk into a room where we're meeting at a, you know, at a mixer in a hotel or at a bar or restaurant or something like that and just say, hey, hey, hey, buy from me. So why would you do that online? So you want to say, hey, How can I help you? What do you do? Get to know you. Those are some of the best things you can do. And whenever you sell too much, I will tell you, you're going to get, you know, get a negative reaction.

Okay. So, the hard sell is over for the most part right now?

The hard sell is over because I think most people aren't, they're not, well, there's not, they're not, not very tolerant of it. I mean, you still wanna sell, you still wanna ask, you still wanna go, but, you know, it's really about making sure that you've got value. And the best way to give value is to give right now. And by the way, it's just good for business too.

Yeah, well, here's a question. It's a little bit off topic, but not really. It's with the branding today. You know, so many brands now have become political. They want to put out a political message about what they're supporting. How do you feel about that?

Well, you should, you should pick a side. I mean, I have no doubt about it. I wrote about this 2 years ago, and I started talking about Black Lives Matter 2 years ago. I started talking about diversity and inclusion, and I wrote a book called The Hero Factor, and The hero factor is those businesses that have values do better than all other businesses. So, there's nothing wrong with it. And by the way, if the CEO of Goya wants to say this or do this, that's his prerogative. I'm still gonna buy his beans, all right? And he's got good beans. Now, if you don't like that, I guess you don't buy that product, but that's not the real reason. I thought this, in this country, everybody has the opportunity. And I'm not— this isn't a commercial for Trump by any way, shape, or Let's be clear, you know, I know him. I used to be a judge on Celebrity Apprentice. He's batshit crazy. All right. So, but, all right. So, we just get that out. But my point is, it's a free, it's a free country and we're allowed those kinds of things and freedom of speech is one of those. And, but you should have values in terms of your business of what you stand for. And I've written about this, like Starbucks, when they closed down their operation after 2 young black men were arrested in Philadelphia. for sitting in a Starbucks doing what Starbucks says you can do. Because we've all been in Starbucks and you're allowed to sit in Starbucks and you can sit in there all day and not buy one cup of coffee, not one thing from them, and use their bathroom and do everything because that's a community center. That's what they say they are. And it just so happens they sell coffee and other treats and some very nice muffins. Now, so, but it's about values and, or Kathy, or Truett Kathy, who owns who owns, um, uh, Chick-fil-A. You know, he, he, he closes on Sunday. I don't like that.

Yeah.

He closes it because of his religious beliefs. Well, more power to him, but I'm still gonna buy his sandwich. You know, he has different views than I do in terms of, of, of same-sex marriages. Don't, don't particularly care. But again, he makes a great chicken sandwich, and he has that right as the owner of that company to do whatever he wants. And we have the right to, to go away and not do business with them. But, but I think what we have to start to learn in this country is that we don't want to polarize ourselves. And I don't think— my job isn't to convince you to agree, to get you to agree with me. It's to make sure we both have an understanding. That's our real job. And we need all types and we need diversity and inclusion. And as long as you're not, you know, harming other people, you have the right to do what you'd like to do.

Yeah, but now do you think though that there's a dividing line between companies that can come out strong with some kind of statement, whether it's political or cultural or social, versus maybe your smaller businesses? I mean, if you're just a local pizza shop, should you be, you know, making a stand when you have a finite amount of customers to begin with?

Yes, you should be true to yourself. And if you can't be true to your values and who you are— I give you a good example. I was talking to my wife last night. I said, I We had— we lost a, you know, we have memberships anywhere from $1,000 a year up to, you know, $25,000 as part of our group. And I'm losing one of our major members and all because of Black Lives Matter. Doesn't like our philosophy and our stand around that. And I just said, sorry, we'll miss you. You know, does that hurt? Yeah, I want, I want that person's $10,000. I need that person's $10,000.

Right.

Just like anyone else does. In terms of business, but I also need to live with my values. I need to look myself in the mirror and I need to know that what I'm doing is right. Does that mean I might, I might not be able to buy the pair of shoes or the next, you know, next glass of scotch because I missed out on that sale? Yeah.

Okay.

I'm all right with that.

All right. But here's the key question, because you see this playing out on Facebook all the time. You can part ways business-wise, but can you remain friends now that you know you have a difference of opinion?

Absolutely. Certainly, that person is a human being. Now, I don't, you know, I don't share the same value set with that person around that and we choose to disagree. But my job will be over time to convince, if that person remains my friend, to convince them that maybe they should have a better understanding of what this means. You know, that when you say Black Lives Matter, it doesn't mean that white lives don't.

Right.

When you say, you know, Black or Blue Lives Matter, you know, we don't, when someone has cancer, I don't say, well, but yeah, this person has cancer. I don't, you know, so to be able to educate that person over a period of time, and I have friends on both sides of the aisle. I have a group that gets together every single Sunday night called Scotch Sundays. And it's a very eclectic group of people way on the far left and people way on the far right. And, and last week we talked about this very same subject. And afterwards, you know, no matter what the opinions were, and it's very much like a local pub. You know, we all still, we all still have one thing in common, and that's we're Americans, and that's okay. And it's okay if you kind of believe there. And again, until you start treading on someone's rights, until you start treading on someone's, you know, own virtues, then that becomes an issue. But, but, but like any pub or bar, you know, you just tell them to sit down and you maybe you need to drink some coffee.

Okay. Fair enough. Now let's get back kind of to the idea of polarization here, because, you know, the free enterprise system that we operate with and believe with is that there's room and a need for businesses of all sizes— large, medium, and small. Business of the future, do you see that shaking out that way, or are we seeing almost a divide between you'll have very large and very small and maybe nothing in between?

Well, if you really look at it, you've got more bigger, more at the bottom level in the small. There's 28 million businesses in North America. Now, let's take the 28 million businesses in North America. 20 million of them are less than $1 million. There's 7.5 that are between $1 million and $10 million.

Mm-hmm.

There's 7 or 500,000, 585,000 businesses between $10 million and $100 million. There's 15,000 businesses between $100 million and $1 billion, and only 7,500 over $1 billion. Now, given that, given that, okay, in terms of numbers, the sheer numbers is in the small business category without question. All right. But 95% of all the revenue is done by companies over $100 million. Okay. So, So, less than really 21,000 businesses, you know, a small percentage of the 28 million control 95% of all the spend in B2B, primarily B2B spend in North America. So, that's a large part of our GDP.

Right.

So, there'll always be that divide because the big businesses do need to have the scale. They have the ability to have the scale, but that doesn't mean there's not a lot of room and growth for some of those smaller businesses to Okay.

So when, when you're a large business though, it can hurt you in terms of you're slower than a small business to be able to turn things around. So does that mean the small businesses are actually better positioned today than the larger ones?

Yeah. In terms of agility and the ability to achieve growth, without question. The difference is the resources they need to be able to do it, the accelerant that they have. You know, they can provide great value as a big company can as well. The problem with that acceleration is you typically need fuel, and fuel means capital.

Yeah.

And if you can gain the capital, then you could probably, and you have a great product that people wanna buy or a service that they wanna buy, then you can certainly accelerate that and you can do that a lot faster and quicker than big companies. And I've been, you know, I've bought and sold over 250 companies in my career, over $25 billion in transactions. The last company I was at was, you know, hundreds of, over 100,000 employees. And roughly $87 billion, and I controlled a $17 billion marketing budget. And trust me, to move anything in that organization was like moving molasses on a cold day. It just was slower and slow and slow. So, I always liked the fast stuff and always used to set up inside those big companies tiger teams that didn't have to operate with real rules so that you could move new projects along because it was so difficult.

Yeah.

All right.

Did that ever go awry though?

Oh, it always goes awry. You always have problems. I mean, if it was, you know, if it was easy, everybody would do it. And that's the case. Not everybody can do it. And there's always problems, you know, because whenever you, let's say, create a tiger team inside of a big company, everybody, all the captains of no come out, all the champions of no come out. And everybody tries to say, well, we tried that. Well, we don't have a budget for that or whatever it might be. I've got, list and list of excuses like that. But the key is the tenacity and the wherewithal that says we're going to do it no matter what.

Okay. All right. So if you had the opportunity right now to design a business from the ground up that you think can not only survive but thrive in what will be the near future, or the new norm is what people are calling it, even though I hate that phrase personally, what would it look like?

Well, I'm doing it right now. I'm doing that with the C-Suite Network. I think there has to be a trusted community that you can work within. I believe that I want to know that you have to be this tall to get in and that you've been checked out and vetted by other people like me or others like us, you know, meaning business people. You know, I can go on LinkedIn today and I can't tell whether that person's real or not. I can look at a website and I can't tell whether they're a false prophet or a guru. I can't tell the difference between them because they can make themselves look that way. And so, what I want is a trusted, vetted network so that I can get some education, some inspiration, some motivation, and somewhat some monetization. And to do that, you have to have trusted relationships. And so, I think trust is going to be a big part of the future, especially with all the fraud that we see going on. You know, over the last number of months, I can't tell you the level of fraud that I've seen that's increased because people are trying to do business You know, digitally and don't know who they're dealing with.

Right.

Right.

Okay. Yeah.

And you sell that a lot with the personal protection equipment and supplies. We created C-Suite Supplies just to get around that. So we, you know, I knew who those masks were coming from. I knew who those gloves are coming from, or my team did. And so we could have a trusted, vetted supplier, just like a trusted, vetted network. And so I think that's important. And then, you know, personally, I've got my own ideas about creating some virtual businesses, service businesses that I think will, That would withstand, you know, that people are going to need online or, you know, or want to have some fun and do things a little bit different. So some individual brands I think will stand out.

All right. So what brands just off the top of your head stand out to you right now about they're getting it, they're on the move, they're restructuring, and they're doing it live and doing it well?

Well, I think the car companies are getting it. I think they're moving ahead, although I'm a little concerned about some of the practices they're doing. You don't have to make payments for the next 60 months and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Or, you know, if you can't, if you lose your job, then you can give the car back. There's gonna be some problems with that coming up next few months with all these people went out and got new cars and they can't afford them and they got to give them back. So there's those things. But I've been really impressed with a number of brands to watch what they've done, both in a regional or small brands like a Fairway or what's called a Hy-Vee. These are regional grocery chains. But then I've watched like Popeyes or Papa John's where they totally revamped how they serve people and the way they serve people and then started showing people how we're doing it differently with, you know, a safe environment for you to come up to, order your product, take it out. You know, there were some really cool things along those lines. And at the same time, I gotta hand it, I gotta hand it to some really great companies like Menards and, and others who say, You're not coming in unless you're wearing a mask.

Yeah.

And there are people who I've watched physically, or lately I have heard from my wife, because I'm— my team is sequestering me so I don't, you know, I don't get ill in any way, shape, or form. Um, but they, they have seen people who've just been upset, you know, and throw temper tantrums, you know, and say, I'll never bring business here again. But I've been impressed with businesses that have done that, and then they just said, that's our policy and that's what we do. And if you don't like their policy, don't do business with them.

Yeah.

Okay.

The underlying theme, though, of everything you're telling me, though, all seems to come back down, though, to one thing, which is trust.

Well, trust is an important piece. I mean, trust has 3 components to it. One, one is sincerity. That's the first, and I think the biggest piece is that, you know, for me to trust the Fair Media Council, I'm going to first grant you sincerity that you're good at what you do and how you do it. The next 2 pieces I'm going to judge you on is your reliability. How reliable are you? And does the webinar start on time? Does the programming come on time? Does my information newsletter come on time? And then, the 3rd piece is competency. Are you competent to do what you do? And I think we all measure everybody based on that trust. You know, say, well, he broke trust, he or she broke trust with me. Well, really, what was that trust? Did they really lie? Were they sincere or not sincere? Well, If that's, that's a hard one to overcome. But reliability and competency, we see this all the time. And, and so, I can break that down where I have an employee who might be reliable but not competent. I mean, they screw it up every time.

Right.

So, and then I can have, I can have unreliable but competent. They're really good at what they do, they're just always late, you know. And so, if you look at things from that perspective, it makes it a lot easier to be able to Figure that out.

Gotcha. So when you were 5 years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

You know, that's a great question. I get asked that. I always knew that I wanted to do something big. I just didn't know what it was. You know what I mean? I had this sense of, I'm going to be big and it's going to— I'm going to be this or I'm going to be that. And my dad was in the military. My mother was a bookkeeper. Uh, they worked really hard. So I worked really hard and I just knew that I'm just going to go do what I like to do the way I like to do it. And I'm going to be good at it. And it's gonna be big.

Yeah.

And so far, that's played out. You know, I've been a, you know, a primetime television host on Bloomberg. I've done, you know, 3 seasons as a judge with Celebrity Apprentice, did that. Have my own podcast now, my own TV show that I do. I've got, you know, hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and, you know, over half a million followers on Twitter and equal numbers on LinkedIn and so forth. So, you know, all those are great, you know, You know, I don't let it get to me, but, but I just like to do things I like to do, and I do them for my reasons.

Okay, fair enough. So, what out of all that though is your favorite?

Out of all the stuff that I do? Well, I love to— well, personally, I'd rather just be on a tractor on my ranch and cutting grass, but, but, but I got to pay the bills. I really enjoy— I actually really enjoy the interviewing, uh, that I do on the media and the TV and, and podcasts. I enjoy having conversations or on stage. I do a lot on stage. I really enjoy that. But mostly, it's about connecting people. It's fun to watch and see on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, you know, and so forth, and watch how somebody connects to me and then immediately they connect to all these other people that are part of my network, you know, and I know they didn't know them before. And to watch them grow and succeed and be bigger than what they are. To me, that's exciting, and I just, I love it. I love to watch that.

That's very cool. Let me ask you one question that brings us actually back to the Fair Media Council, because so much of what we do focuses on the quality of news and making sure people get the news that they need to live a better life. What kind of stories do you wish you were seeing in the news about business today? What do you think they're missing?

Well, I think there's a lot more good news out there than bad news, but the traditional media as we know it today is focusing more on the bad news.

Yeah.

And, and I would love to see a lot more of the success stories and watch people who are actually pivoting and changing and doing things like the yoga instructor who, who called me in March and said, I'm gonna go bankrupt because they're go— they're closing my operation. And we had a discussion and we talked about different things that she could do. And so, she started offering courses online and now her business is up 40%. She doesn't have the overhead. She's enjoying it a lot more. She's leading classes in a different way. And who would have thought of that? You know, I would love to see that and the leadership of that shown. And then I would love to see stories about our leaders in government doing a better job. And I actually think a number of them have. I think this PPP program that they did was masterful. You know, the fact that they did it in a way that kept people in the business, Imagine what would have happened had we not had the PPP, how much unemployment we would have today as a result of that. And, and then I would like to see us do more stories on rewarding those businesses that are just doing a great job, who haven't taken the PPP, who are doing the right things, have kept their employees in, you know, employed and are really trying to make it good. I— that, that to me would be, that would be nirvana.

The Fair Media Council is a 501 nonprofit organization advocating for quality news and working to create a media-savvy society. For more information about the Fair Media Council and upcoming Fast Chat shows, check out fairmediacouncil.org. This podcast is a part of the C-Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-suite-radio.com.