Growing a Business with Mark Winters

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Hello dear listener. Before we get into today's show, quick ask if you find value in today's show or you've gotten value out of a previous show. Please leave us a quick 5 star review. Be super grateful. Thanks a lot. Welcome to Money Savage. A savage Approach Personal finance. This is George Grumbacher and the time is right. Welcome today's guest, the strong and powerful Mark Winters. Mark, are you ready to do this?

Let's do this.

Excellent. Let's, let's do this. Mark is a certified EOS implementer. He's a number one best selling author. He's a keynote speaker. He is the visionary of Rocket Fuel Ventures. I'm excited to have you on, Mark. Tell us a little bit about your personal life, some more about your work and why you do what you do.

So personal life. I'm a father of three boys, so I'm a boy dad and I've had the wonderful pleasure of raising those guys and being their coach in youth sports and we've had tons of fun with doing that and my wife and I have really enjoyed watching them grow up. My work is really about entrepreneurs and helping them get unstuck, sometimes get out of their own way and expand their unique version of freedom, whatever that is, exponentially. And so I do work through Rocket Fuel on helping the visionary entrepreneurs get coupled up with their amazing and important counterpart that we call the integrator. So I spend a lot of time these days thinking about working on, helping folks with that.

Nice. Appreciate that. And you've been at this for a while. The landscape of entrepreneurship, business ownership, startups, it seems like that's been really romanticized and I think for good reason. How has that changed from your perspective?

Well, so that's a good question. So when I first came out of undergrad, I worked for Procter and Gamble and I sort of had this idea in my head that that basically was where I was going to retire. And I literally had mapped out I was going to be the CEO of Procter and Gamble. I had mapped out exactly what age I was going to be, how many people were going to have that role in between the time of that time and the time I would get it and all this kind of stuff. And then somewhere along the line, I kind of figured out that that picture didn't really look like I thought it looked, and it didn't look like maybe it had looked for decades before. And I saw people around me getting good people in their 40s getting sort of trapped in or stranded on, I guess I'd call it corporate island. And they had kind of made that deal, or they thought they had, and now they're in their mid-40s, and all of a sudden the company's going, look, you have to move here. You have to uproot your family and all this stuff, and you have to go here and do what we say, or you don't have to. You can leave, you can lose your job. And that wasn't part of their plan. And so I just thought, man, that seems really dangerous, that seems really risky to kind of bet everything on some company that somebody else is in control of. And so that's part of what led me to sort of catch the entrepreneurial bug, I think. And I think you meant to use the word romanticized, of course. People read about all the good stuff that happens in the big wins that seem to happen out of nowhere, and somebody looks at that and they think, wow, that was easy. That was easy for that entrepreneur to kind of hit it big and cash in or whatever. Unfortunately, what they don't see is all of the time that probably went into that and all the pain and suffering and sacrifice and all of that. So it's certainly a challenging road for those that choose to take it.

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. That's interesting. Were you, like, early 20s and you've got your notebook out and you're like, okay, I'll be CEO when I'm 50, and before that happens, there's going to be 12, whatever.

Literally. Literally. I wish I could find the piece of paper, but it was. I kind of looked at the levels in the corporation because it was very clear structure. You could kind of figure it out, and you could figure out, all right, so each person needs to stay in this level for between this many years and that many years. And so if I go as fast as possible, if I kind of hit all the limits on my way up, this is how old I will be. Here's the dude that's in there right now, and he's this old. He'll retire here. There'll be another one here. And then there's my slot, and I Literally had. I think I was age 40, I was going to be age 43. And I forget what year that was, but yeah, I wish I could find that piece of paper, but I literally did have it all written out.

Yeah. So was going to work at P and G. That had to be a big deal, right? That's not easy to get in there.

It seemed like it. You know, I just did on campus interviewing out of the University of Oklahoma and, and just kind of talking to my buddies. It seemed like I got a pretty good deal coming out in terms of what I was getting paid and the opportunity and people talked about the training was going to be fantastic and I was going to learn so much and there's things I learned there probably a little bit different than what I expected. But yeah, it seemed like I landed the plum gig when I was on my way out.

And so you were there for how long again?

Six years.

Okay, six years. And then you just recognized, okay, great company.

But yeah, so. So it. I went back to graduate school at the University of Chicago. And so I was literally every weekend I would fly from. Fly into Chicago and spend all day Saturday. So my day on Saturday lasted from about 4am until about midnight. And in. While in business school, I'm sitting in a class. I remember it was the strategy and tactics of pric. Great class. And we're doing team projects or whatever. And so I'm sitting there one day and these teams are coming through and one team has this widget that they've created that here's the market for it and they can sell it for this much and it's going to cost them this much to make. And this is how many units they think they can move. And so here's how much they're going to make. And then the next team, they've found some unmet service need out there and here's the demand and here's the price they could sell it for and here's how many they think they can move. So here's how much they're going to make. And I thought, man, that's just so much more interesting than what I'm doing at P and G, where I'm basically in the grocery business. And my future looked like just more and more bigger grocery business. Right. You know, bigger accounts and whatever. Even though I'm on my path to be CEO, that's kind of the game that you're in. So I had those thoughts kind of in the back of my mind. And then I'm seeing what these people are doing on the entrepreneurial front. And it's like, I got to do this. This is the move I need to make. And then, you know, it's a pretty interesting story. I actually drew the conclusion that, you know what, I've got a lot on my plate with P and G. I'm still in business school. I wasn't out yet. And if I'm really serious about this, if I'm really going to make this move, then I kind of need to burn my boats. I kind of need to really commit. And so I quit P and G, you know, which was sort of unheard of and unexpected and just set off and did it. And, you know, that led to Now, I think 14 different companies that I've either started myself, bought from somebody, shut down or sold off, and all different kinds of industries, all different sizes, all different degrees of success or failure. So, yeah, it's been quite a ride.

Nice. Yeah, I appreciate that. So through all this experience and now you've worked with thousands of other companies with EOs or hundreds, lots. Is it enough just to have a great idea or how often do you see this amazing idea and then it just doesn't go anywhere?

I love that you said that. So, yeah. So ideas are frankly a dime a dozen. And most visionary entrepreneurs have drawers of them just sitting there, not doing anything but gathering dust. And so, you know, in my experience, it's the execution side of that. It's the ability to take that, that napkin, that whatever, and actually go execute on it and make it happen that makes all the difference. And so, yeah, that's. That's the scarce ability, the scarce, you know, commodity out there in the marketplace is actually being able to make it real.

Yeah. And, you know, as I said that, you realize probably everybody that I know and everybody, you know, probably has had some kind of an incredible idea, or it's just a new product or a better way to do something, but for a million different reasons. Probably 99.99% that never comes to fruition because it is the execution of it. And that's really what. That's really what. What. What you're all about.

Yeah, I mean, it's frustrating for as a. As a visionary entrepreneur myself, you know, I've got things that I'm like, I drew that up, I wrote that up, and then I didn't do anything, or I wasn't able to do anything. And then I saw it actually happen. You know, one I remember was back in, actually in business school, which would be the early 90s, I had the idea of combining A printer, a fax machine and a copier.

Nice.

Because I had, in my office I had three big separate machines. I thought, that's stupid. These things all basically have the same things inside them. Why can't we put that all into one? And then I just kind of scratched my head. I'm like, I don't know how to do that, you know, but, but, but I can see the need. Right. And, and so, yeah, so the visionary that can see that need and then the, you know, the integrator, the execution oriented resource that can make that happen. That's a, that's a killer combination.

So tell me a little bit more about that term. So the visionary is the person with the idea that's oftentimes the founder. And then this integrator is the controller or the chief operating officer, the person who drives everything.

Yeah. So think about the visionary. A lot of times they're the founding entrepreneur, but they're the one that has that entrepreneurial seizure and says, yeah, they burn the boats, they make the jump, they see the opportunity and they make the leap in some form or fashion. And there's a certain amount of comfort with risk that they have to have. Right. So they can deal with uncertainty. They, you know, they, they feel like even if this thing crashes and burns, I'll be able to, you know, rebuild it, rise from the ashes, whatever. And the integrator is not wired like that. But you know, the integrator, they are able to make things happen, they are able to get things done. And frankly, they kind of need that juice, they need that idea, they need that vision to give them something to work with. So they're really different. And left to their own devices, they can be really kind of combative and really frustrate each other. There's a lot of natural friction there. But when we see an entrepreneurial company that has both in place, they can do magic. And you use the title coo. When you kind of think about it in terms of traditional titles, the visionary may be often the owner, the founding entrepreneur, maybe the CEO, chairman. Sometimes they. A lot of different possibilities there. The integrator. A lot of times we'll find them as the CEO, the general manager, maybe the president, maybe the head of operations. So there's different titles, but as you know, titles can be really misleading and confusing. So we really like to focus on just the functional description of here's what they do. And so the visionary generates the ideas, the integrator takes that and works in partnership with them to then orchestrate execution harmoniously through and between all the different functions of the company to make it happen, make it real out there in the world.

Just based on what you described, you probably can't have one without the other. But if you do, you're probably leaving so many efficiencies on the table and you're probably never going to reach that total potential.

Yeah. So if you, you know, it's most common in my experience that you'll find a visionary without an integrator. And what they're doing is they're kind of filling both roles and they're usually not doing the integrator role very well. So they're, you know, they can do their visionary thing, but they're trying to do this integrator thing. They're not doing it well, so they're frustrating their people. They don't like to do it, so they're frustrating themselves. And all that energy is frankly coming away from what they could be doing as a visionary. So it's just all suboptimal. Right. And integrator on their own. Typically they didn't start a company. Right. Because they don't really feel that. So they probably didn't do that. They may have inherited one or been left with one in some way and then they're kind of there by themselves and their success is going to be a function of how much visionary their business really needs. So if it's the static, flat, simple business, they may be fine. But if it's a dynamic, growing, rapidly changing, lots of complexity, lots of different opportunity and risk out there on the horizon, they're probably not going to be in as good a spot as they would be if they had an effective visionary that was part of their team.

Yeah, that makes sense. Like any great relationship. Right?

That's right.

And we spend a lot of time and I don't know what the, I don't know what the numbers are for online dating and matchmaking, but I bet it's, I bet it's a trillion dollar industry at this point. So it's easier said than done to find your perfect match or mate. What if I'm a visionary and I don't have one, if I don't have an integrator or vice versa? Like, how do you figure that out?

So first I want you to think about a construct I talk about as the three piece puzzle. Okay. So the first two pieces are the visionary and the integrator themselves. And think of the edge where they connect and we've got to understand the shape of those edges. Right. So start with really the Visionary, because typically they're the one that's initiating the search because they're like that example, they're doing both and they're feeling it. And so it begins with the visionary really looking at themselves and going, all right, who am I? What do I want? What do I really like to do? What do I not really like to do? What am I really great at? What am I not so great at? And really kind of building out the shape of that edge. And we have an assessment to help do this. Profiling companies can help you understand parts of this, right? But it's about looking at themselves and really understanding the shape of that edge. And then from there, the other piece of the puzzle, the third piece, is the business itself. And so we talked about how much vision does a business need? We can kind of do the same thing with how much integrator a business needs and talk about these as the visionary spectrum and the integrator spectrum. And on the integrator spectrum, it can be really, we just need kind of project management, we just need kind of simple focus on execution, sort of on a smaller scale, which is still a form of integration, kind of pulling the different players together to make it happen. Or again, it may be a big global, multi discipline, multi operation kind of a business that the integration puzzle for them looks a lot different. So you got to understand where they are on that spectrum. So if I understand my visionary, I understand my business and the shape of those edges, we kind of back into what we're looking for for that integrator puzzle piece, right? That's going to fit right in and give us the best solve. And of course, the question is, typically when I'm talking to a visionary and they read Rocket Fuel, they read the first chapter, it's all about them. They love that chapter. And then they read the second chapter and it's about the integrator, and they kind of go, hmm, that kind of makes some sense to me. I think that would help me. And then they go, great, how do I find one? And candidly, that's when it gets hard. And so they've got to go through this exercise to understand those shapes, understand the gap that's missing. And then they've got to figure out how they're going to pursue it. One option is there are recruiters out there that have really begun to focus their practice specifically on finding integrators. And so if you want to spend the resource to get somebody to help you that does that stuff all the time, that's a great way to go. But short of that, it's really about getting the word out and leveraging your professional network and those that you're connected to and say, hey, I'm looking for an integrator. Here's what they look like. And we've got a sample job description of one to kind of give people a good start with that. And what we see is a lot of sort of grassroots connection being made like that just by putting the word out. This is what I'm looking for, this is what they look like. And then somebody will go, well, hey, I know one of those here you should talk to so and so and kind of makes it come together. But a couple other options I should mention. One is there's the idea of a fractional integrator. Fractional professional services have been around and really growing for a while. When we released the book Rocket Fuel, a cottage industry sprang up around fractional integration. Maybe I can't afford full time integrator, but I can afford one day a week. And maybe that helps me. Maybe that gets me started, maybe that gets me to get some of the benefits of, you know, what this can bring to our company. And sometimes that's sort of like dating.

Yeah.

So we start off one day a week and, you know, it feels good, this is working. So let's, let's grow it to three days a week and then maybe we finally grow it all the way to, you know what? You're, you're the full time person that should be, you know, should be in this role.

I love it. We're going down the aisle, Mark.

Yeah, I love it.

Well, Mark, Savage Nation is ready for your difference making tip. What do you have for them?

So I think the big, big thing is you need to know who you are. So are you a visionary? Are you an integrator? So I'd take those assessments and kind of figure that out. And then once you know, you know, you got to find out. Find your, find your ideal complementary counterpart. Whichever one you're not, find that other one. Because then when you've got that duo together, that's when you're really going to be able to go change the world.

Well, that is great stuff. That definitely gets. Come on, come on. That's that rocket fuel. Come on. That is the rocket fuel. When you find both of them. I love it. Well, Mark, thank you so much for coming on. Where can Savage Nation learn more about you? Where can they find the assessments that you were talking about?

Yeah, so go to rocketfuelnow.com as the website for all the rocket fuel stuff and assessments and other resources that can help you are there and on. If you want to find me pretty much any of the socials Arc C. Winters, Mark C. Winters and pretty much any platform you can get to me that way.

Excellent. Well Savage Nation, if you enjoyed this much as I did, show Mark your appreciation and share today's show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas business owners that you know, go to rocketfuelnow.com check out those assessments and pick up a copy of the book as well. I imagine anywhere that sells fine books.

There you go.

Thanks again Mark.

Awesome. Thank you George. Great to talk to you.

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