Episode 77: How Pushing to Become a Person of Influence Pays Off with Author and Former Chief Mar...

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell and let's get started. We're here today with the former chief marketing officer from a top 1000 fortune company and with a lot of stories and a lot of insight about how to go from the absolute minimum wage almost inside a cor all the way up to the top. How can you climb the ladder? And these, of course, are the same skills you use when you're starting your own business because you always start at the bottom. And so welcome Ches Britt.

Hey, Larry. Good to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you.

Yes. And this is going to be a extra special bonus. We've got my son Adam is sitting in here today to kind of comment and help drive things along. So welcome. Adam, Good morning.

Afternoon. Yes, sir.

Hey, Adam, how are you?

Great.

How you doing?

So wonderful. Chess, introduce yourself to the people that are listeners on our podcast. And as you know, it's a million Dollar Mastermind. We only let the elite on there, people who have proven they know what they're talking about. It's not, they've just got a collection, a sack full of ideas they've got from interviewing somebody else or reading books. They've got their wisdom from the streets and they've used that to climb up the ladder. And so give people a little bit of a idea of your background, where you started, where you went, what happened to the company while you were with it and those kinds of things.

Okay, Larry, so if you, if you look at my career, I did in fact start at the bottom. I started an entry level position and I had a 36 year career and the last half of my career that are, that I wound up reporting to the CEOs of the company and whoever the CEO was at the time. And so if anything else, I would give people on this call hope. Okay, Because I do believe that I wouldn't recommend starting at the bottom, but I do believe if you start at the bottom that you can work your way to the top if you do the right things, if you're fundamentally sound in what you do in business and you have good personal values that make you attractive to people and people want to work for you and people want you to work for them. And so, you know, if I describe myself, you know that still today at 63 years old, I see myself as a kid from Grayson, Georgia, who had an opportunity to go to work at a company and made the most of the opportunity.

And how big was the company when you started? How big Was it when you left? Roughly?

Well, that. So, you know, that the company started with 85 salespeople in our sales force and that through the company's history, I mean, you know, when I left, we had a sales force of over 130,000 representatives. If you look at the size of the company, you know, that we sold insurance and investments and the insurance portion of our company, when I left, we had, you know, close to $800 billion of life insurance in force, which is a, you know, a huge number if you look at what we did on the investment side. I mean, when I left, you know, we had about 70 billion of assets under management. So we started as a very small company and evolved into a company who only serves Main street families, middle income families. And that if you look at those numbers and consider the number of clients that you're serving, that's, you know, that's huge results.

Now where you. How many people were in the actual administrative side of this thing when you started and when you left, how did that grow?

So it was, you know, the reality was back then, okay, that, you know, we were spread out in multiple locations and, and nobody really, you know, took up a true count of what we, you know, how many employees we actually had. And so, you know, we started with a small number, but the company started in 1977. I came to work in 1982. And in 1982, the insurance company that we represented was doing significant hiring because what they wanted to do was get the business process that our sales force was producing. And, and so, you know, and then you wake up one day and, you know, we're a company with 2,000 employees. We got locations in Canada. We've got a home office with 365,000 square feet that's specifically designed to serve our sales force. And so from humble beginnings, okay, we built a company that is, you know, I guess in most ways, you know, one of the most significant companies serving Main street families.

So would you say, it's fair to say you went from a few dozen or maybe a hundred or so people over the 36 years to where you had 2,000 in the United States. You had people in offices in Canada and things like that, not counting the 130,000 people out in the field?

That's correct, yeah.

And so you had a central role inside of this thing as kind of an umbrella title as head of marketing. So what did you. What do you think are the things that you would. That. That really made a difference? Is that what we will find in this?

Yes.

You know, Your book that you've just written, Seek to be wise, Are those the lessons that you put inside that book?

So. So the book that I've written it is the lessons from my personal life, which helped me in my business life. Okay. And so I was blessed to be around some really impactful leaders. And so if I'd have written a book strictly on my business principles, it would be a lot different than the book that I've written. But I believe the things that I've written and seek to be wise are the things you need to have to be grounded in such a way that you'll be able to take on huge responsibility, that you'll be able to understand the leadership principles that you'll learn as you go through your journey in business, that you'll understand. You'll better understand and know how to implement how to win. You'll be grounded. And when you're challenged, you'll know how to react to that challenge because you'll have some substance to who you are.

Well, let's talk about how important that is. Have you seen. Did you see people that crumble? You know, people that were higher up from you and people below you that just kind of fell apart, never reached their potential because they really just did not have their act together, terms of what they believed in?

Yeah, yeah, I think. I think that's true, Larry. I think that when I look back over my career and over my life, I'm 63 years old, and I couldn't imagine going through the struggles and the trials and the things that you have to do to be successful in business and not have my faith to rely on. And so, yeah, so I. So I've seen, you know, I've seen some really wonderful people who couldn't handle the pressure, who couldn't. They didn't have the right moral compass. They made mistakes that. Where people wouldn't follow them because they couldn't trust them. And so I do believe that, you know, that I read a book one time about the guy who runs marketing for Chick Fil A. Okay. And what he talked about is the one thing you can't teach his character. And so the one thing that the company did get, in fact, when they hired me, was a guy who did roll out of bed every day and tried to be a good person, who did the right thing and who worked very hard to try to have good character and be somebody that folks could count on. I didn't always chin up to that bar, but I always tried to live up to that potential.

Yeah. And so when you know what you believe in and you're faced with, I guess you had a lot of decisions to deal with. So how did you force, how did you work your way through those confusing times where the company was on the verge of going out of business, you had new leadership, you know, it was, it was panic time. How did, how did you go about evaluating and coming up with the advice that you wound up giving, passing on to other people?

So, you know, so, so one of the things that, that my mother always talked about was do the right thing and, and the rest will come out in the wash. Okay? So how I acted in the good times and how I acted when there was a struggle, okay, I was always looking at every decision I made. And when I didn't know what to do, I searched very hard to try to find out what was the right thing to do. You know, it might not always be the popular thing, but that, and so it didn't matter who was running the company. It didn't matter whether the company was in a growth cycle or if things were headed on a downward trend, okay. I kept focused on what we had to do to be a better company and that I never tried to make decisions in the short run, okay? I was looking to be a part of something that you were building for the long run. And so, you know, you can make a, you know, you make some short term decisions for, you know, this quarter's earnings or you can make a decision that's, that you'll be able to wake up, you know, 10 or 15 years from now and you've got a viable, healthy company that'll support the people who are relying on this company to deliver for them.

What is your valuation of the leaders that you've seen, the ones that are really outstanding, that kind of electrified you, that challenged you, that inspired you. What kind of characteristics did you see among the people who got the most done?

The people that I related to, okay, were the people that were enthusiastic about what they were doing, that, that they had, you know, that they treated what they did as more than just a job. Okay? They loved what they did. You could see it when you talked to them, you could feel it when they spoke to you. And so it was positive, excited, enthusiastic people who wanted to go somewhere, who had a vision of where they wanted to go, who, who would make decisions. You know, there's nothing worse than to work for a leader and they don't make decisions. And the only thing worse than a leader who doesn't make a decision is a leader who doesn't make good decisions. So I always value judgment in their ability to make decisions. And I like to work for people who made decisions for the right reasons.

You've worked for all kind of leaders like that. What was it like working? I know some of them personally, but what does it do to an organization when the leader is just indecisive, will just not call a shot, will not take responsibility? What does it do to an organization?

Then you got, you know, you got everybody within the organization calling their own shot and you just got a mess. And so, you know, if there's a vacuum, you know, it gets filled and so, and that everything can grind to a halt. You know, if you've got a major decision that needs to be made and it just keeps, you know, and all you do is debate the issue and never make a decision. You know, that, that, that the last CEO that I work for, you know, he had, he had this saying that nothing good happens in this company if you don't make a decision. And so, you know, the early leadership of our company who grew the company exponentially, okay, you know, they made decisions. And if those decisions turned out that they wouldn't heading us in the right direction, then they adjusted course. They were adaptive. They, they, they could, they could read the tea leaves. They knew you couldn't just stay where you were, that you had to keep, you know, adjusted, adjusting where you were headed to make sure you were getting to the right spot. Life's not static. And so you got to always be making sure that you're on course, that the actions that you're taking are going to get you the results that you want and that, you know, that early on in my career we had a leader that all he talked about is leadership is everything. And that I've, you know, that in, in my career that's proved to be absolutely true. You know, it didn't matter if, you know, it didn't matter. It didn't matter where I was at in the company, whether I was, you know, over a small group of five or six people early in my company, early in my career, until I had hundreds of people who reported through me that, that, that I didn't give myself a speech that was pretty much, you know, if you want your people to be excited, you gotta be excited. You want your people to work hard, you gotta work hard. If you want your people to love this thing, you gotta love this thing. If you're gonna be the leader, you gotta be the person that, that you want your people to be. And you gotta have Those traits and characteristics that you want them to have, or they're probably not going to follow you. Certainly if they follow you, they're not going to be enthusiastic about following you.

Yeah. And I think Adam's. Adam wants to jump in here with a question.

Yeah.

Chess.

So moving up bottom to the top like you did, each of those levels, having the people, you know, come to you and look to you, what were the things that kept you the most excited to keep pushing up to go to each level, you know, on up through the levels to the top positions you were at? What were the main things that kept you. You're personally excited through those times?

For me personally, I always like to get results. Okay. In. In. And I always wanted to be a Put in a position of influence. I mean, when I was growing up, you know, I was. I was always the guy who, when you playing backyard football, would be the one that would organize it and. And choose up teams. I was captain of my high school baseball team. I was a quarterback in football, you know, not a very good one. I was mainly a backup quarterback on the. On the varsity team in football. But I always, you know, and I always studied coaches and I understood, you know, what it was to be a leader and that I always wanted to be in a position of influence. Okay. And so the beauty of. Is every rung of the ladder, as I moved up, that it gave me an opportunity to make a bigger impact. Okay. And so that in terms of your ability to make a difference, okay. It's a lot different when you're reporting to the CEO and when you're reporting, you know, five or six levels below the CEO. And so, you know that. So, you know, and I do believe that you got to be, you know, that you got to be ambitious. Okay. There's nothing wrong with ambition. There's nothing wrong with wanting to get ahead, and there's nothing wrong with. With. With wanting to work hard and. And get ahead, but I think you got to do it the right way. I mean, I never had agendas. I never, you know, I never played any of those games that you hear about in corporate America that. That always took responsibility for where I was at and that I felt like if. If I did my very best and, and looked around at who I was competing for for the next promotion, and. And I outperformed them, then I had a pretty good shot of getting that promotion.

Yeah. And the thing is, what. What kept. When you look for motivation, I mean, were you in a position where you had to come up with goals or had to come up with answers for your team or other people, or are you just implementing the plays that other people are calling, you know?

Well, I think throughout my career, it was, it was, it was a combination of, of a lot of those things. Okay, so, so, yeah, because talk about.

Talk about the fact that when you're, you know, when you're. Even if you're running your own company and you come up with an idea, we need to do this, you're not going to be able to figure everything out. And then when CEOs come down and they say, okay, we need to do this, that doesn't mean they're telling you how to do it and they're answering all the questions. It's basically they're giving you a job to do and there's a whole lot of creativity and drive and everything you've got to have if you're going to excel in those situations and also provide direction for your own team. And go. And you had to do that a lot.

Yeah, and that's absolutely true, Larry. So what. So what I found out is what I always respected in the people that I work for was for them to paint the picture of what we needed to accomplish. Okay. And then give me the freedom to, to get with the people who were going to have to deliver. And let's come up with, how's the best way to do it. And so, you know, for me personally, that what I like to do is to, is to get with my team and say, here's what we need to get accomplished this year. And I wanted them to go back and put together their plan on how they thought we could get it done and then bring it to me. And let's make sure everybody who was reporting to me that we were all singing off the same song page and we were all heading in the same direction. And so I do believe there's synergy and there's energy in that. And that another thing that I always thought when you got a group of people in a room and if you can get some creative energy within that group, that you can come up with some extraordinary answers.

Hey, thanks so much, Chess.

All right, Larry, you're the best. Appreciate you. And Adam, thanks for having me.

All right, thank you, thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other Million Dollar Mastermind episodes and check out my Widel Academy YouTube channel and video. Visit us on wdlonwinning.com I'm the million Dooll Mastermind. And until next time, go, go.