Episode #615 - The Weight On Business’ Shoulders with Robert Cornish, Founder and CEO of Richter

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. But the thing is, it never ends because, you know, there is a principle that I am amazed more people in life have not accepted enough. And this is in every area of your life, grow or die, you know, run or rust. And you're going to, you know, you retire, now you're bored, now you're going to try. You know, it's just like it's always going, if you're going to grow, you're going to have those challenges. If you're going to scale, okay, great. Well, if you scale up and you did it right, well run companies grow. So you're going to have to scale again. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, that's right. Right. You're either, you're contracting or expanding and it's really, there's no in between. It's like it's one of the other.

Yeah. And one of the things that, why you need outside help from time to time is the fact that a lot of times the people that are on the ground level that see the things that need to be done don't have the authority to speak up. And they certainly don't have the authority to come in and make a change and bring in this, that and the other. And they know if they squeak too much, the squeaky wheel, you know, does it get the grease? The squeaky wheel gets fired, you know, and the, you know, just look at the history of whistleblowers in the country. And so the thing in all business and everything. And so if you go in there and you see things, you're at a level where you see stuff where you're more likely to see things because they're breaking down, they're not working, and realize we need this, this, this. Chances are that's a couple layers of management above you. And the person is in that position is already covered up with another hundred things they've got to do.

Yeah, that's right.

And you're lucky to even get their time. You know, at one time I talked to CEO of our company, you know, and I love, decades ago, did I stop feeding in a steady stream of new ideas and suggestions to him? I just gave up. But he said, he said, larry, let me explain this to you. He said, even when you give me an idea that I love, he said, It'll take me 18 months to get it installed. By the time I get it through all the departments and the legal does, how do we change the procedures? And so a lot of times when you bring in an outside consultant or an outside person, they're empowered with the idea to be able to get everybody's attention, make the suggestions, be taken seriously, and much more likely to be in, able to get the change implemented because the problem has already been recognized, you know, because a lot of times when you bring it up, you're trying to say this is a problem, this is, this is what it is. But when they bring you in, they've already recognized this is a problem and you're the solution. So they're not geared up. The psychology of that is not to fight you and know you guys are full of crap, you know, stay out, you know. And so they're more likely to be receptive and say, give you time to explain what you're talking about and actually get it implemented. How hard is it to go into the big companies and get these things implemented?

Initially it was very hard. Initially. When we were first winning new logos and getting new customers, it was very tricky. We kind of had to force our way in. You have to be brave. You gotta be able to call people and get through and get to top people and kind of sell your way through. But I noticed over more and more years here that we have a good reputation and we really obsess over stellar products and a world class customer experience. We talk about that internally all the time. And after a while people talk and so it's like, we have a really good reputation, but you also have to be brave enough to go and call and reach out to help that person and then prove yourself. And going back to what you just said, the execution prime, what you're really talking about is idea is one thing, execution is the other thing. And you know, after a while when you prove yourself as someone who can execute and who can solve this challenge or help solve this problem, you know, it is a sigh of relief for a lot of companies because we're all begging for that. Right? Like, thank God you have somebody who has an idea, but also who can execute. And I think that that's a big part of what we, what we're doing. And we get a lot of feedback and praise on that exact point. We survey customers after every single project and every single thing we're doing. We're always getting feedback.

Talk about feedback, talk about running off of feedback to solve the problem. And after you've implemented, talk about feedback.

Yeah. So I mean, I've always been very ambitious. The companies that I've loved have had a great customer experience or a great customer service culture. And I'm a finicky customer myself. And so I've thought about what I look for. So early days with Richter, we really put in little sort of checkpoints to get information from the customer and kind of like, how are we doing? And you know, you know, sometimes people say, oh, it's great. But what we really often try and push for is where, where can we get some negative content, where can we get some negative feedback and get something where we can actually improve and we can actually get better.

Yeah.

And make the experience better for them. And it's okay because we have thick skin. We're not going to be insulted. I want to make a world class customer experience. I want to have a company that when they interact with us, it's a pleasure to work with us. So we've always, we've had little points in the process where we're getting feedback from them and we're sort of encouraging that feedback. And I think every company could, could put, could, could do that. I've often said to people also, just on this line, I've said, you know, think about five, the last five incredible companies that you, that you work with that a stellar customer experience. And I don't know what you think about, but I know that it's actually difficult to come up with five in many cases. And when you think about that, you think, wow, that's amazing. There's so few great, great companies that have delivered a stunning customer experience.

Right.

When you get that right, it stands out.

Yeah.

And so there's an element of like, in order to get that, you got to figure out what the feedback is. You got to, you got to fix those things that make people upset and frustrated. And you know, for a company on.

The way up, how important. What are things? You know, like, I feel like probably feedback and is a way of implementing earlier than you maybe thought about doing, but you know, systematizing it where it's a regular thing, it's not a sporadic type thing. But how do you, how would you. From your trip up the ladder, And I'm sure it's in your book too. But what would you, what can people learn about making a positive experience for their customers? What are the, you know, like the biggest one, two, three things?

Well, if they want to be in.

That thing, a company that's thought of as, you know, oh, those, you know, like. Yeah, I just went through it with an interior designer right now. And I'll tell you, it's like, yes, you know, I'm very skeptical early on. You know, some of the things that personality graded on me a little bit. This, that, and the other, and then one thing and another. But then all of a sudden, no, I'm in. You know, I do the next five projects with her, you know, and so, you know, after going through the thing is, like, she's proven. And so to get to that point, how. Where do people blow it?

Well, I think. I think it's two things. I think one is you gotta talk to your customers.

Yeah.

You know, simple. I mean, you know, really everything does boil down to a simple solution. Like, you can overthink it and get a little bit too complex. But fundamentally, you have to talk to your customers and you have to understand your customers and you have to ask questions. So you gotta ask questions from the customer. And then secondly, you gotta sort of dummy run it. Right? Like, you gotta be the customer yourself and create the own. The flow from one from the start to the end and go through it yourself and look at what does that experience feel like. And one of the things we did early days was we. We made Richter a customer of Richter. And so just treat it exactly like a customer and. And do the exact work that we do for our customers, but for Richter, and then. And then follow it along and find the areas where it's frustrating. One of the things in more recent years, in the last bunch of years, one thing I realized, for example, was I was in the airport and I was. I got a baggage fee and. And I was like, fees. I just hate fees. Like, even if it's. It doesn't matter what it is. I just don't. And I was like, man, I wish it was just baked into the thing. And I don't want to have to pull out the card or do any of that. And we did have some fees for, like, edit fees and different things like that. So then that was another thing where I was like, I hate fees. They probably hate fees. Let's get rid of them.

Yeah.

So we got rid of fees. And sure enough, the feedback after doing that was like, people were like, oh, thank God. I hated that. Such a nuisance. It was a small fee, but they added up. And it was a nuisance to po and get approved, but they weren't saying it. They weren't telling us per se. So it was kind of an example of like sort of dummy running it myself, me being the customer and kind of going through and Going, I hate those, or I hate this. And always looking at the process of like, what would make it better? What would make it better? So I think it's a combination of talking to the customer and then also kind of being the customer.

Yeah, that is really, really good insight. And there's no reason even small companies can't do that, right? I mean, yeah. And that's where, you know, that's where the logic comes in of a small company like you. You know, you take your product and you go to your relatives, families and friends and see how they use it, get their feedback and, you know, but anyway, when you go out there, did you. Is this business more competitive than you thought it would be or is it just unlimited opportunity out there?

I do think there's a huge amount of opportunity. And I, I do, I, I, I rarely think about competition, to be honest. I, I'm so just focused on what we're doing. I rarely think about it, to be honest. Yeah, yeah.

And you haven't seen it come up. Do you pay attention to the leaders in your industry to kind of cherry pick ideas, things they're doing and that for models, for. What do you lock into? I think I know the answer on this because we're going to go to your book here in a minute. But what do you go to for improvements?

I do not pay attention to what competition is doing for ideas because I think if you do that, you're always going to be behind. Yeah, I, we talk to our customers, and when you talk to the customer, you're having sales calls or any type of calls, you got to ask a lot of questions. And when you have those questions, you're going to have opportunities, solve problems, and you have to be very good at solving problems. So a lot of your product ideas and service ideas are going to be coming from talking to customers and understanding challenges, problems they're dealing with. And from that, it's going to, you're going to have ideas. The other thing I'm just going to say, which is kind of random, but I run every day and I go for a run at the end of the day and it often, you know, frees me up. And I think about a lot of ideas when I run and then I come back and do stuff, you know, and I don't know, I don't know what to say other than there's definitely a correlation to sort of extroverting and then diving in. Right. And I think things like running can be a great way to sort of generate ideas. And I tell people I think you should be generating ideas every day because it's kind of something where it's like you condition yourself to be able to problem solve and be able to come up with ideas, have your moleskin, you know, have your moleskin, have a journal, write ideas, force yourself to do that, and after a while it'll just come to you. More and more will come to you.

Well, and what I tell people is like, you don't have to improve enough right now. You're not challenged with improving for the rest of your life. And to be 10 times bigger, all you should be focused on as a leader right now is how can you keep growing? And so you look, usually that's related, in my experience, to bottlenecks. If you got a business that's flowing, that's successful as it swells up, usually doesn't swell up equally across. And so wherever the bottleneck is, try and deal with that, you know, make that better. And then the flow, then it backs up at another pot. Well, then fix that, you know, but if, if you're improving by 1/10 of a percent a month, even that's going to add up huge over. But if you're improving 1% a month, 100%, you know, like, and, and like you said, there's big companies, there's all kind of areas, all kind of departments. Well, in every company, there's all kind of things you do that, that have to be done. And pretty much everything you can do, you do, can probably be done a little bit better, a lot better. But it's just like, how could, you know, and it's like you fall into the quicker, faster, better models. Like, what would be quicker, what would be that? Because that makes it more fun. Well, you know, the one way, even routine business, you know, every kind of exciting activity is going to have some element of repetitive routine in it. Sure. And the way you keep the excitement up is to increase your efficiency, get your times down. And they ask like Mia Hamm, she was the big female soccer player, University of North Carolina and the Olympics and everything. And she would have it like, you got your moleskin. There's, they said, what did you do on your, like May 10, you know, 76 or whatever like that. She went and got the journal out and this, that and the other. This was the off season. Okay, this was off season where she said, I did eight 50 yard sprints, I did this, that the other. She had like 12 things down like that. And what she was trying to do is she was challenging herself, you know, to refine her technique because. But specific things to work on so that would get better. Even Sting, you know, the. Not Sting, but Slash, the guitarist he was talking about, you know, because he looks like a big cloud, but actually, you know, he's not a big clown. You know, he works at playing the guitar. He loves it. But he said he was playing one riff on YouTube and he said, somebody showed me this and he said, for the life of me, I could not play this, this riff, you know. He said, but, you know, the next day I could. He said, now I use it as warm up every day.

Wow.

Yeah.

And I think, I think many of the greats are like that. You know, when you study enough greats, whether it's the Mia Ham or the Slash or the, you know, whoever, generally speaking, that is the trend. They are like that. They're constantly trying to improve. They're constantly trying to get better. It doesn't matter, you know, how much money, how much fame. None of that really matters. It's really the pursuit of greatness, the pursuit of improvement, the pursuit of getting better. And it's like Nike says, there is no finish line, you know, and. And so that's what's true for me as well.

And it's one thing to stay in the game, but it's another thing to stay in the game and enjoy it. And to be, you know, is where you're refreshing yourself. Thanks for listening to the Million Dollar Mastermind. If you felt there were any valuable takeaways from this episode, please take a minute and leave us a five star review. Your feedback is important and really helps us get the word out to a wider audience. Remember, we have a valuable webinar that is absolutely free. Register for it right now@whitealawnwinning.com thanks for listening.