The Schedule of a Fast-Growing Leader with CEO of Propellant Media Justin Croxton

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here talking with Justin Croxton, CEO and founder of Propellant Media, one of the fastest growing companies in the country according to Inc. Magazine. And they're in the highly competitive digital advertising technical business, and.

They'Re learning how.

To differentiate themselves and win. And Justin, talk about how your week goes. What is a week? Is there a flow to your week? You know, because we talked earlier about thinking, strategic study, you know, which leads to having a method to your madness and organize your approach. And so how do you organize all of the, you know, you'd also talked about strategy, execution, cash flow, your people, all of those things. You know, there's a lot of things you have to juggle when you're in business. And so what does your week look like?

So, you know, I realized that, you know, in business that homestay realized that. I always knew that my family was more important. But balance with your family is incredibly important. And I'd say for many years I was really struggling being able to wake up early in the morning to exercise, be able to take care of myself, have my own sense of like, this is my time type of thing. And you know, you could work out in the afternoons, but I need to give myself, get myself another hour or so so I can be successful and not be thinking about how am I taking care of my own self, my own weight and my own health now that I'm going into my 40s in the next couple of years. And so now every day I wake up at about 5 to 5:15, usually doing some form of exercise, usually done by about 6:30, showering, all that good stuff and getting my son ready for school, typically getting a little bit of time with my wife. And at that point she's typically off to work doing her thing, I'm doing my thing. And then when I get to get to the office or if I have to work from home due to Covid, usually my day involves client interfacing, thinking strategically and meeting with our leadership team on what we got going for that week typically, or any planning sessions that we need to do for the full month. We're looking at invoicing cash flows, what's coming in, what's going out new business development opportunities, individual partnerships that we're going after. Just big picture things that me as a CEO has to think through to ensure the growth of our company. Cause it's not a perfect structure. It's not like we're a 500 person company. And so there's still a sense of certain things that I still do partly because I'm enjoying it, but also because I think it's necessary to the growth of the company. But normally my day, I'm usually done with work by 5, 5:30 at the latest. And then I usually block out a good, you know, four to five hours between both my wife as well as my son. Just pure quality time with them. And usually in bed by about 113012 usually. And then I sort of rinse, repeat and then usually on the weekends I don't do as much work either. You know, just push a couple of emails from time to time. But that's really what my week looks like. And I can't tell enough to those. There's a lot of folks out there that aren't morning people, I get that. But you know, any, if there is a way for you to get yourself more time and really just spend at least 30 minutes a day focusing on your own health, whether it's a walk in your neighborhood or you know, some other form of exercise, it's going to make it. I'm committed, not committed. I believe that it's only going to be a huge, a bigger benefit habitually for myself as I get into my 50s and 60s.

And so what's different about now? When you hit, you kick off the week, you kick off a month. You know, I've always believed in kicking off the week, the month with a bang, you know. And how do you, what's the difference now with how you kick off a week at this point versus what you did in the beginning when you started this.

This may sound, I mean this may sound funny, but it really is. Waking up at 5, 5:15 for me to exercise, for me. I look at it as an accomplishment because it was so hard, just like the public speaking, it was so hard for me to do it at first. Like I just, like I just, I literally would have my alarm set for 5:30 and I would hit it every single time. I just could not get myself out of bed. I just couldn't do it. And then I just started to kind of get present to, you know, the things that were more important in my life, you know, being able to spend more time with my family and those kind of things. And so, you know, when I know that like on a Monday that I'm able to, you know, kick the day off with a good exercise and then like have my emails cleared even before anyone else has woken up is huge. And it's, it's a feeling of accomplishment. And so knowing that I was able to do that and then I can do it again on Tuesday and then Wednesday and then Thursday and then Friday, it's like, okay, I really killed it this week. I exercise, I did this, you know, I worked on these aspects of the company. I was able to spend incredible quality time with my family. We went to the park, we, you know, went out to dinner together. I had date night with my wife, you know, you know, that, that's, that's when I feel that sense of balance is when I feel like, okay, I got kicked off the week, well, in the morning waking up and doing all that I did. And I finished the week knowing that I had incredible balance. I think that's sort of the way that I look at it and basically.

Staying in control of what you're doing. But what I'm talking about is when you hit the office, when you hit the office, what are you doing? What are you looking for? What do your eyes go to?

Yeah, when, when I get to the office. You know, let's just say if I get to the office, I'm, you know, put aside looking at emails. Typically the first things that I'm looking at are sort of my schedule on what I gotta do that day from a meeting standpoint and planning with our senior leadership here at Propellant Media. That's usually the very first thing that I'm typically doing, just trying to plan that out, not just for that Monday, but also the entire week. So having conversations with them or on, you know, what, what the plans are for the week, what we need to execute on some big hurdles that we need to be aware of, some partnerships that we're looking out for. That's usually what I'm hitting on when I'm getting to the office. Particularly on Mondays, let's say.

Well, you know, what I found was I would my time, I would either do a big meeting with everybody or the, the bulk of the time was spent with one on one with the key leaders.

Whatever.

You know, the people who are going to actually get a lot of the work done. You know, you get, the bigger you get, the more you work through people. And there's certain people that are got, that are more talented in certain areas. And if you don't carve out you know, one thing about being creative is you can't be in a hurry. You know, when you're solving problems and you're coming up with solutions, you gotta, like you said, think things through and you can't do. Also, I'm not a big meditator, I'm a big prayer, but not a big meditator where I just try to empty my mind, you know, to me, that insanity. And so for me to think about an issue, I need somebody to be bouncing it back. It's like we're paying, playing verbal ping pong, you know, we're bouncing ideas around. You have somebody who's pretty knowledgeable of that subject, got a pretty good opinion. A lot of times you have ideas if you don't say them out loud. Yeah, you know, you don't know. The first thing I've seen if an idea is valid is talk about it out loud, tell somebody about it, and then see what kind of feedback comes from them. And then you start to unravel it. You know, it's like, like you've been doing the videos, you know, you got to throw it out there at some place and then get the feedback. So as you're going through the days now, how many key people do you have?

We're about 25 to 30.

And how many direct to you?

About five.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Most great revolutions are run with, you know, like very few people at the core, you know, and like if you have. And that's the way it's gotta be because there's so many moving parts in it. Who are the five people? What, what do these job. What are the jobs that these people do?

Yeah, a couple of them are our actual partners. We have a chief operating officer, we have a VP of client, we have a creative director. And that's about it. I mean, I sort of act as the de facto CMO and also CEO of the company until that expands. And we actually need to offshoot that part, that functionality within the organization. But those are the folks that primarily report. Also our sort of finance manager. But those are sort of the key folks that are reporting directly to myself. And I have those conversations with how.

Does somebody get a company get recognized by Inc. Magazine in the way that you have?

Well, they look at your revenue growth over the last three years. So that's the first you got to look at. Okay. Yeah, I think we actually grew quite a bit. And then honestly it's really just looking at different platforms like the Inc or Financial Times. Like we were number eight on the Financial Times list out of 500. And the only way that you find that out is just by researching it and saying, okay, I'm going to apply. And it costs like 500 bucks or so to apply, but it's well worth it. The recognition is certainly well worth it as well.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business that's accrued over $5 billion in assets under management and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar. I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others.

Move up and so how many of those agencies, publications or whatever do you track your company in?

I'd say maybe like three, maybe four. Not a lot. There's only a couple. It's just like when someone's, when we're doing a pitch and someone sees it, they're like, oh, okay, just a checkbox. And some, some of it is like, like, wow, that's really impressive. But other times it's like just more getting the box checked. So someone knows that we are serious and they don't have their concerns like, oh, this is a small company, you can't do the job for me kind of thing.

If everything went perfect for you for the next year, what would happen?

We would have a fully built out outbound sales function. I. We would have. That mean we would have a, have a team of three to five people that's doing nothing but outbound sales for the company. Meaning they are where they're not only relying on inbound leads that come to us, but they're actually strategically doing some level of account based selling and targeting individual accounts within our key verticals that we are successful in.

So in other words, not only would you be dealing with incoming inquiries, you would have a group that was generating significant volume, that was on the attack, creating those leads and creating those sales. Is that right?

That is correct, yes.

And the advantage that is that it gives you more sales and makes you not dependent on the other side, right?

That's exactly it. We just want to, we want to have a place where we can have more control in sort of our pipeline. And that's one of the key ways that you can have more control.

Bottom line, the things that, you know, I heard this phrase for my friend Josh Huffman many years ago. But he, he talked about their primary offensive prospecting strategy or game plan. And it was like, you know, it was just so perfect to have that identified that every company, everybody's in business, needs to know what is the primary thing they're going to get behind to make sure they've got new clients coming in. And referrals are great, you know that people just call you up, but it's really better if you have something where you can go, you know, you can survive by being on the offensive yourself. If nobody calls in, you still can go out there and get them.

Right.

That gives you a great confidence. And to know most time you'll have several things you experiment with to try and see if this will work or that will work. But to have one go to strategy is really key if you're going to have a growing company, wouldn't you say?

It is. And I'll take it a step further. You need to have multiple recurring strategies for client acquisition. So for us, we have a referral plan. We have a plan within our company where we actually work with a lot of other agencies that want to white label our services. On top of our direct channel as well, we get a ton of inbound leads. We also get opportunities to speak at different conferences. And so that's another business customer acquisition strategy. And then we're really focused on fine tuning our outbound sales approach as well. And so you can't put all your eggs in one basket. You gotta keep thinking about the recurring mod that you build for your own company so that, you know, you're not simply relying on referrals. I mean, unless you're like a big consulting firm. I mean, that's, that's hard. It's tough to, it's tough to know where the revenue is going to be coming from.

Yeah, and the thing is, even the big guy, you know, the big guys crumble, you know, because they don't do this stuff. They kind of assume they've got it made and live off their name and client base. And eventually the market shifts like a glacier shifts and they, they fall off and fall into the ocean and die, you know, and so it's better to be hungry and lean and control that yourself. The other way you do that is you keep your stinking eyes open. Like, you know, the great advantage of going and speaking at a conference or, or things like that is also you're mixing and mingle with, mingling with people from other areas and you hear things, you know, and you Hear phrases and like, oh, yeah, I should be doing that, you know? Yeah, geofencing. What? What?

Gotta be willing to try new things.

Got to, gotta be, gotta pay attention because if other people are doing it, you can do it. And people are changing fast now. And so what worked last year, especially in the Internet, the digital era, what worked in the past is not necessarily going to be working in the future because everybody's going to be doing it. So then you got to have a little shift to your strategy, and you do that by paying attention and following leaders. And what I've always, I've always had great success by copying what the people at the top are doing. You know, somehow whatever they're doing, for some reason it works. And if it works for them, you know, a great idea doesn't care who has it, you know, and doesn't care who uses it. So the people that are using the great ideas are the people that are having the big success. So, you know, a lot of this stuff is pretty simple if you just let yourself think about it and pay attention to the right things. Is there a final word, Justin, that you want to pass on to other entrepreneurs and other companies on the way up? Because I know you're dealing with lots of companies right now and you see a lot of things that people are doing right and a lot of people things are doing wrong. Do you have kind of a. A final word you'd like to pass on to people if they really want their business and their career to be great? Yeah.

The first thing that I'll say is, like my mom said, scared money don't make money. So you have to be willing to take the risk. You took the risk on the business, so you got to take risks in other areas of the business, and that includes marketing. You may not know marketing, you may not understand it, but you have to. And if you want to build a sustainable business where you're not solely relying on referrals, that's how you do it. You just have to do it. And I forget the name of the book, but just always think about your business in those four different areas. That's really important for startups and just any business in general, even the large ones that are out there, your people, strategy, execution and cash flow. If you think about those four areas of your business, you'll consistently work to hit on those areas that will grow your company ultimately. And then just don't lose sight of the things that are important to you, like balancing your life, taking care of your health, you know, Even if it's 30 minutes a day, walking, whatever. You got to do something. Spending the quality time with your family. Those things really do matter. And there's. I just know a lot of people that just are workaholics. They, you know, work, you know, from 7am to 8pm they don't get the chance to see their kids. And, you know, by the time you're older, you're like, oh, man, all the time that went by, you know, I certainly just don't want to have that. And you may have all the money, but the memories are more valuable than that. And so those are the three things that I'd leave for everyone that's listening.

Yeah. And what that is, is you got to run your life rather than let your. Your life run you, and you got to run your business rather than let your business run you. And certain times you reach crisis points where, you know, it's all hands on deck 247 and. But you can't live your whole life.

That way, you know, you definitely can't.

And you've got to have. You know, the thing about it is, Justin, you've got to have a game plan for stability and continuity so that you have some reserves, so that when a crisis comes, maybe you get a chance to merge or to take over another company that will dramatically multiply the growth of your business, you know, change the whole dynamic. But that might mean for a month or two, you're going to be working around the clock to pull that merger off. I've seen that happen on Wall street all the time.

Absolutely.

But if you don't, if you're basically not in control of your life when those opportunities come, you're not going to have those reserves because you'll already be stretched thin.

You'll already be stretched thin. I mean, it's going to. You're going to have moments where, like, three weeks or so, like, I have to work from this time to this time. And that's going to happen as long as you always think about balance and where that balance needs to come in, you know, and that's, that's really, that's really the piece that I, that I, that I felt was important for folks to get, you know.

Yeah, it's no more complicated than rebooting your computer, rebooting your phone. You know, it's just too much in there, and you just have to reboot. And so if, you know, those timeouts, I find the same thing. I started journaling a couple years ago, and when I start off the day, I've already got it planned out what I'm going to be focusing on and thinking about. And, you know, because it's kind of like sales, you're doomed in sales if you start the week and you don't know who you're going to go see. You know, it's too late to plan the week on Monday. It's the same thing with starting the day you want to be able to start and have things to where while you're waking up and your mind is coming online, you've already got things laid out that you're going to be looking at that you're giving yourself a head start. And then doing that early in the morning gives you a head start on the day. And head starts are advantages that pretty much always help you win.

Yeah, they do. Absolutely.

Great, great conversation. Looking forward to seeing your agency continue to climb the charts up in the top 25, top 50, and number one down the road.

Thank you.

Great conversation, Larry. Thanks so much. Really enjoyed this.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.