Letting Go of the Vine | Mike Frommelt & Tony Bednar

I was specifically looking for someone who was not in the search business. I really felt like we're building something here that's different in the executive search industry. And so I didn't really want to bring in somebody with kind of the bad habits of the search industry. So I reached out to people that I just felt had the right background, skill sets, track records and started having conversations.

Hey everybody, this is Mark C. Winners, coordinating author of Rocket Fuel and expert EOS implementer. Welcome to the Rocket Fuel podcast where visionary and integrator duos from entrepreneurial companies share a behind the scenes look at their relationship. These amazing leaders blend their unique skills to create what we call rocket fuel. I'm really excited to introduce today's guest to you. Mike Fromelt is a visionary and the co founder and CEO of Keystone Search. Mike has over 30 years of search and recruitment experience working primarily with president and CEO assignments and integrator assignments for companies running on eos. Tony Bednar is an integrator and Keystone Search's president. Tony has over 20 years of experience in senior leadership and executive management and is accountable for managing search projects for companies utilizing eos. Mike and Tony have been working together for three years and in this episode they share how new visionary integrator duos build trust by prioritizing same page meetings and spending time together outside of work.

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We're going to begin the show as Mike describes where his company was when he started his search for an integrator. Let's hop in.

We started running EOS at Keystone back in 2009 and I think when you were running rocket fuel was 2011, 2010, 2011, and so where the business was, I actually had a few partners in the business with me at that point in time. And when we started to run traction, I have to admit we didn't run it very well for the first few years and I had some struggles there and wasn't until 2015 or so that I actually ended up bringing in a fractional integrator before Tony for a couple of years, who spent time with me then.

So talk to me about the decision process then. So you kind of fought through it for a while, right? And then, you know, probably started feeling more emphasis and kind of feeling the impacts of not having the integrator on board. So what was kind of the, you know, the trigger for you that says, you know what, I gotta go ahead and we gotta do something different here and bring in a fractional integrator at that point. What was the trigger for you?

Well, a couple of the partners had left the business at that point. One had retired, one had left. And I was really looking at kind of, what's the next generation of Keystone? What do we want to be when we grow up? And I knew that we needed to change our model a bit and really wanted to create more focus in the business. And so that's what really led me to bringing in that fractional integrator. His name's Jerry. Rick came and was with me for a couple of years and really helped me get the model right and make those changes and get the team right around that model. And then after having Jerry on board for a couple years, it became obvious.

So hang on, let's don't move off that yet. So those couple of years, I want to talk about your first experience. So, you know, Jerry came in fractional. Like, how many days a week was he working fractionally for you?

He was working a day and a half a week.

Day and a half a week. So, you know, you get into it, and let's talk about sort of that evolution. What was some of the first benefits that you experienced? So, like, what was some of the first kind of like, oh, wow, this is great kind of things. And then after that, I want to kind of hear the other side of the coin. What was kind of different for you? So what did you like most about it out of the gate?

Well, one of the things that Jerry and I did was we went to breakfast every Friday morning, and Jerry would say to me, what's keeping you up at night? And it was the first time that I had anybody who really kind of just picked my brain and started to sort of organize it, because there was all kinds of things that were keeping me up at night and all kinds of ideas and things that I had going on. So. And Jerry would write those things down, and we kind of talk through them one by one, and he'd sort of throw out the stuff that really wasn't pertinent and get us focused in on what we needed to accomplish. So that was probably my biggest memory of working with him. And the biggest impact was just that he sort of got my head straight around where we were going and how we were going to get there and.

Kind of up out of the weeds. Right. So you started probably thinking about a different level of issue and problem, right?

Yeah, exactly. And the time that Jerry and I spent, he was mostly spending with me. So it was really that visionary integrator relationship. And he was really kind of helping me, as I said, set them create the right model for where we wanted to go. He certainly did lead our L10s and had contact with the team as well. Led the team, but most of the work was with me because we were trying to get things straight for the future. And so he just really helped me kind of sort through and evaluate my ideas and get things right.

So talk to me about kind of the other side of that. What felt like weird or awkward or different? I mean, was there anything going on with you just psychologically at that point as you're kind of stepping into a new structure there?

Yeah. Felt weird to have somebody listening to me. But it wasn't a bad thing, for sure. You know, it was a great thing. So I don't really remember anything that was really negative about it, but it was just. It was the first time somebody started to sort of hold me accountable, though, too, that every Friday morning I started to get prepared for those Friday morning breakfasts, like, okay, I know what Jerry's gonna ask tomorrow, and I know I better be clear on my thinking and be able to put it out there in some sort of way that he could digest. So that forced me to get more focused as well.

Cool. Okay. So that goes on for a couple of years. So then that relationship kind of. Well, talk about it. Tell me how the transition kind of happened from the fractional relationship with Jerry. And then ultimately, hey, we need to do something different, or how did that happen?

Yeah. So we got to a point where, you know, we felt like we had the model right. We had. The team was right, and we were starting to make progress and really going after what we wanted to do. And I realized that now as we were, we added a couple of team members, and now that team piece was going to become much more important. And I felt like having somebody only a day and a half a week was not going to be able to take care of leading the team, taking out the drama, all those things that from a people leadership, people development standpoint, that we needed to do to keep the business going in the right direction. So Jerry and I had a conversation. So I feel like it's time that we bring in a full time integrator. And so we started a search to do that. And that's how we wound up with Tony coming in.

Okay, so for context, how big was the team at that point?

At that point, I think the team was five.

Okay. So not a huge team, but again, you know, more than. And let's see, you're pretty high on the visionary score, so not very high on the integrator score. So I can imagine the more people that takes you out of your sweet spot. And so. Okay, so that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so now let's talk about the search. So, you know, you're kind of eating your own dog food here, probably right as you're going out and looking for Tony. So walk us through that. So how did you approach solving that puzzle for yourself?

Yeah, well, you know, we're. We're an executive search firm, and I've been a recruiter for 30 years, so I feel like some, you know, maybe to my detriment, maybe I could make some shortcuts here and there when it comes to doing a search. But, you know, but I really did try to follow our. I absolutely followed our philosophy and our process in terms of, you know, reaching out to quality people that I felt, you know, could handle. The role there was. I was specifically looking for someone who was not in the search business. I really felt like we're building something here that's different in the executive search industry. And so I didn't really want to bring in somebody with kind of the bad habits of the search industry. So I reached out to people that I just felt had the right background skill sets, track records, and started having conversations.

Let me stop you there for a second, Mike, because the point that you just made. I get that question a lot, which is, do I need somebody? Does the integrator need to be from my industry? And in my experience, what I see is the answer is no. It's a skill like any other skill, whether you're a finance leader or operations leader or sales leader, whatever. It's kind of that technical skill that's the key. If they have industry experience, okay, maybe. Maybe that's a plus. But, you know, maybe you're looking for somebody like you said, with fresh eyes. So, you know, if somebody asked you that question, hey, do they need to be from my industry? What would you tell them?

I would say, no, absolutely not. Now, when we're guiding our clients on this, we will say that, you know, it's. You want to find somebody that's from a, you know, similar industry, more maybe from. Maybe from a business model standpoint than an industry. You know, it's sort of. So there are certain things that would be really far away from what you do that would really take someone a long time to understand. But for the most part, coming from a similar industry, similar business model, looking at the Right. People, they're going to be smart enough to pick up your industry pretty quickly and like I said, give you that advantage.

On a related vein, what about firm size? So I see sometimes we work with entrepreneurial companies, right? They're nimble and not huge and they're moving quick and a lot of responsibility. And sometimes you're wearing a lot of different hats. And sometimes I see them bring in people that really just kind of have a big corporate background. And sometimes that entrepreneurial environment breaks those people, you know. So when you look at firm size, it's same kind of thing. Are you looking for people that kind of are coming from a similar firm size or you think about that in a different way?

Well, the way that we think about that is that we want to generally want to bring in somebody that has seen what bigger looks like. So as seen where you want to go, because there is a big difference between a $10 million company and a $25 million year company. And so if you're 10 and you want to go to 30, we want to bring in somebody that's seen what 30 looks like. But there's also a point there, like you said, where the big corporate somebody that spent their whole career in billion dollar plus is probably going to be a tough transition for them to step back. So like in the case of Tony, Tony has worked in bigger businesses and had been in sort of smaller divisions of larger businesses as well as, you know, some bigger company types of assignments as well. And so he definitely had that ability to look at us and say, I know what it's going to look like when you're two, three, ten times your size.

Perfect. So you start, you know, putting your feelers out and you're looking for people like you said. So similar business model, somebody that's been where I want to go, you know, that kind of fits the criteria that you're looking for. So Tony's been sitting here patiently this whole time, so we're to check in with you. So at that point in time, when Mike kind of first starts that search, where were you? What were you doing?

When I first met Mike, I was the president and integrator for a publishing company here in Minneapolis. So I had recently kind of discovered EOs. Read the book Traction. Read the book Rocket Fuel. And I'd been with a printing company as an executive for a number of years and left that company and kind of was out just trying to figure out what I wanted to do next and through just personal networking, got introduced to traction and really quickly zeroed in on the fact that I want to work for a company running on Eos. And so I focused all my efforts in networking to talk to folks and get those opportunities. Got an opportunity to work with a company that was going to start implementing EOs. They were using. Sean O' Driscoll at the time was a great entry into EOS and learning the operating system. And then actually through that company, I joined a executive peer group, and Mike was a member. So when I went to my first peer group meeting, we did introductions, and he was sitting across the table from me. And we had met previously just through networking, and that's kind of what started our relationship. And then from there, kind of got involved in the search process.

Great. So Tony was kind of at that point where he's open, he's. Has an idea of what he's looking for. He's already sort of adopted the integrator role in a traditional sense. Like we would think about it and talk about it. So, Mike, your search. You come across Tony and other candidates and whatever, talk to me about how long your whole search process took end to end, and kind of how wide you cast the net before you narrowed it down and made your final decision.

So it took about two and a half months or so, maybe three months really, to get through the process. You know, reached out to a number of people that felt were qualified, some that I knew, some that I didn't know, some that people on my team knew, some that Jerry knew, my fractional integrator, some that we didn't know at all, that we just reached out to, like we do in our search process. And then had four or five candidates who were interested and had kind of the. We thought had the right stuff on paper. You know, Tony actually interesting with Tony, he was. Since he was in that peer group, I just. I sent him one of those little tricky executive search things where I sent him a note and said, hey, this sounds like a crazy idea, but would you ever consider.

Do you know anybody?

Yeah.

Okay. You didn't do the. Do you know someone? That would be good.

I think I actually came at him directly. I said, would you ever consider. I didn't ask him if he knew anybody because I really. What I really wanted to do was to talk to Tony. So, you know, and he said, hey, I'm open to a conversation. And so we got together kind of informally. And then once we established there was some interest, we did a more formal interview. Had an interview with Jerry, met a couple of team members, I think, as well. And so, you know, it was a three or four step kind of interviewing process and, you know, and ultimately made the decision to bring Tony on. But we did have a couple of other candidates that kind of went through a couple of interviews as well. But Tony clearly stood out as the top candidate.

So two and a half, three months, kind of end to end. So, you know, first, at that point in time, relative to your expectations, was that fast or slow?

Again, being in the executive search business, that's what I expect. So I think it's. Yeah, I mean, I tell our clients too. Don't. You know, you can't expect to do something like this in less than close to just under three months. You really gotta walk through a process and be thorough and make sure you get multiple looks at a candidate. So that's about what I expected.

Okay. Yeah. My reaction is that's pretty good. That's pretty fast. I see a lot of people take a lot longer than that to work through it if they do it well. And then of course, the other end is they move much quicker than that and they don't go through all the steps and they make a bad hire. Right.

I wouldn't suggest shorter. I'll say that. Wouldn't suggest doing it any shorter.

Yeah. Okay, Good wisdom there. Okay, so now you've completed your search, you've found Tony, you're feeling good about it, Tony's feeling good about it, and so the relationship begins. And so talk to me about how that started right out of the gate. What did you do to kind of make sure that this thing had every chance to be great?

You know, one of the things that happened, and I don't even know all the things that happened behind the scenes here, but Tony reached out to Jerry and the two of them got together. And I think they got. They got together and talked about all my flaws and things like that multiple times before Tony even got started. And so when he came into the first meeting with me, you know, as an employee, he was well prepared.

He was prepared.

Yeah. That's one of the best things about Tony is I've never seen him unprepared for anything. So he came in with a series of questions for me, and it was oddly similar to the way Jerry used to ask those questions. So I know that they had gotten together and discussed it and just started setting the table. You know, what do we want this to look like? What are the key things? What are you losing sleep over? Here's where Jerry had.

Let me reframe that question a little bit. So I want to. At A high level, kind of where was your focus? So, Mike, what was, you know, if you were thinking about. All right, here's two or three things I need to make sure happens to help Tony be successful here. So at the beginning, what was kind of that short list for you?

Well, I knew that we had to spend an extensive amount of time together, really start building trust. And so we had numerous meetings just to talk about family, personal values. I mean, we just, you know, just spent a lot of time together. We went out to dinner with the wives. Just intentionally spent a lot of time. And Tony, coming out of a different industry, we did spend a good amount of time, too. With me just kind of doing a download on. Here's sort of the executive search business, what it looks like, the quirks of the business, the key things that you kind of need to understand to be successful and things like that. Tony did a wonderful job of pulling that out of me and sort of still pulling that out of me today, because a lot of it's up here and not on paper where it should be. So that's my strongest memory. Kind of when we got started was just intentionally spending a lot of time and maybe, maybe Tony.

Let's hear, you know, Tony, from your side of the relationship. You know, you're coming into this thing. You're experienced as you're coming in. It's like, all right, boom, boom, boom. I got to make sure these three things get done right out of the gate. What was that short list for you?

You know, really getting to know the people was top of my list. So having the conversations, going out for lunches, you know, just really listening and learning the business. So getting to know the people, learning the business, shadowing Mike, sitting in on interviews, on conversations, you know, trying to just be a sponge and absorb as much as I possibly could. And then while I'm doing that, I'm starting to really dig into the P and L and the financials as well.

Right.

So really understanding the business from that perspective. And then, you know, Mike mentioned meeting with Jerry. That was invaluable. Just getting the download from him on, you know, where are you at? Where are you and Mike at with your conversations? Tell me about the business model that. What's the vision? And really going through the vto, you know, and word by word, and it's just really understanding what every word means, understanding the core values. And Mike and I spent a lot of time with the core values and kind of just making sure I understood it. We rewrote a couple of things, you know, Just to make sure we're on the same page with exactly what the core values are and what we want to build around going forward, those types of things. So, you know, I. Man, it's been, you know, the first 90 days for sure, just listening, observing, learning, asking a lot of questions.

Do you remember your first big win as integrator where, you know, you did something or you made something happen and Mike and. Or the team kind of took notice, and it's kind of like, okay, this guy's going to help us. This guy's the right guy. Do you remember a moment like that, Tony?

You know, there's a couple that come to mind. One was just, you know, going through the financials and looking at the expenses and, you know, to sitting down with Mike and just going, okay, what's this expense for? You know, what is this for? It was almost like a combination of multiple partners over multiple years and subscriptions and everything else. So there's just, you know, thousands of dollars in expenses that we can just make go away, day one, right? So that attention to detail that I brought that wasn't there before was something that I think Mike took note of right away. It's like, oh, my gosh, this guy, he knows where every dollar is going. You know, that was never my mindset to understand that or dig into that level of detail. And so just my documentation, you know, so when Mike says I, you know, a lot of it's up in his head, you know, man, I was just. When I say I was a sponge, I was creating process documents. You know, we've got our proven process, but here's kind of the next layer down, right? And this is how we want to document so we can onboard people in a more streamlined way going forward. So building those tools that we could use, you know, to train new employees going forward, I think was another thing that he noticed right away.

Nice. And your same page meeting. So we talk about the importance of the same page meeting. Was that different back then than it is now? And if so, how the importance of it?

No, not at all. You know, we get together every two weeks for two hours, and that works really well for us. We rarely miss one if we do. I mean, our goal is to meet monthly at a minimum, Right. We like to change up the venues prior to Covid. We're, you know, we get in the boat and go fishing, you know, for an afternoon or do different things that we both enjoy doing. And that helped build our relationship, too. There's some common things that we like to do outside of work that we have a lot of fun with. Right. You know, we can have good conversations and tough conversations in those environments, and that works really well for us. So, you know, we follow the process. And, you know, I always like to say that the number one reason a VI relationship doesn't work is a lack of commitment to the same page meeting. I say that to all of our clients when we're onboarding somebody. We go through, you know, here's the steps that you can take to kind of build that solid foundation you talk about. You know, Mike and I use the Delegate and elevate tool as a way for me to understand what was in his lower right quadrant. And those are things that I really like to do. So I could take those off of his plate early on and provide that immediate relief.

Right.

So that was some of the things with the, you know, review of the financials and month end close and some of those things that he was involved in that he didn't like doing. Well, I've got a. I was a CPA out of college. Right. I've got a strong finance and accounting background. That stuff takes me no time at all to do and I enjoy it.

Right.

So just really understanding kind of what are those things that I should be working on as we look at building out the accountability chart and having that evolve over time. So we started at a high level and we just kept working through it and working through it to get to where we're at today.

You know, you mentioned the importance of the fact that VI relationships fail when they're not committed to the discipline of the same page meeting. We've got a tool called the rocket Fuel power Index. And, and you know, I'll have a group take that and I'll often ask them, you know, which of the different areas they see the biggest gap in in their relationship. And that's number one is the same page, so you're dead on there. The other one, interestingly enough, is role clarity. You know, they don't take the time to get really clear on, you know, this stuff's in the visionary seat, this stuff's in the integrator seat. And so they end up getting tripped up and crossing each other over. How did the two of you get that crystal clear so that you were able to avoid that kind of friction?

One is we use the Rock Fuel Power Index. We revisit it quarterly. And I think it's a tremendous tool to use and we introduce that to all of our clients that where we place integrators. So, you know, the accountability chart, you know, can evolve over time. And the way we approached it, there were certain things that Mike wasn't comfortable as. We're building that trust and building that relationship that he wanted to hold onto a little bit longer. And that's totally okay as long as the accountability chart reflects that and you're communicating that to your team so they're not confused and they understand what my role is and what Mike's role is. That can work really well. You know, it allows me to focus in certain areas while he's continuing to grow the business in others. And so, you know, that was a big part of how we've, you know, built that foundation and built that mutual respect and trust.

Great. As the first full time integrator, Tony, did you have much of an issue with end runs out of the gate? So you've got a firm where, you know, Mike's been the go to person for a long, long time. And then, you know, we put you in there in a full time basis. A little different when a fractional sometimes, you know, people still tend to go around them some, but somebody that's there full time. Did you have people that had been going to Mike directly for a long, long time and they just were reluctant to come to you or, you know, treat you as the integrator in that role? As it was defined?

Not as it was defined, no. Mike, obviously, with 30 years in search business, has a knowledge that I did not have right coming in. So, you know, he needed to have interaction with our team members from that training onboarding, you know, continuous, you know, development standpoint. So we were always, you know, I was usually involved in those because those were things that I could learn from as well. But people went to him directly. But we again, just having that open communication and, you know, sharing those conversations and making sure I wasn't surprised about anything that was said or anything direction that he gave that was important. We just needed to make sure we stayed close.

Yep. And that's, you know, when we teach about end runs, you know, we make the point that it's. We want communication to flow freely all around. And so, you know, teaching, training, sharing ideas, all that stuff's good as long as it stops short of making decisions and giving direction that ultimately would surprise the integrator. Right. And so sounds like that's how you managed. Is that right? Is that a good representation?

That's correct, yeah.

Cool. All right, so we're rolling on. So how long have you guys been together?

Three years. Little over three.

Yep. Little over three years.

A little over three years. Okay, so in the three years. So Mike, you're looking back on that three years, what was your most frustrating moment? So what was a time when you're just like, man, Tony just isn't seeing it like I'm seeing it. You know, there's just something where you really felt like it was getting crossways and don't say nothing. Gotta be a time.

I'm really thinking about that one. Cause there's nothing. Many times where I've felt that way. You know, I'd say maybe it was in the first six months somewhere in that period where it was like everybody, right. I think our industry and our business is unique and everybody kind of feels that way. And so, you know, that little bit of nervousness on you're really going to pick this up and really understand this and really buy into it and really, you know, be successful in doing this. And I think there was maybe some with a couple of early clients that Tony worked with where I was kind of worried about that. And I thought, is he really getting this? Is he really seeing this? And. But that's really all I can point to where I felt a little nervousness. Not even frustration, just a little nervousness.

So what'd you do? So you're feeling that way. Did you keep that to yourself? Did that come out in a same page meeting? You know, how did you process that?

Yeah, we talked about it. We talked about it in a. I get a same page meeting. But we also. It's not just our same page meetings. I mean, we communicate almost, almost daily. So, you know, and when, particularly as it relates to client projects and so forth, you know, we're connecting quite often about those. So. So I just, you know, I was just very upfront and said, I'm just a little bit worried about this. Is this something you want me to help you with? Is this something I should kind of step in here? And Tony's always been great too about check in with me on particular things that he's doing with clients, in particular things he's doing in the search business. He's not arrogant at all. Come in and say, well, I know, I know how to handle this. He's always kind of checking in with me just to make sure, hey, have you seen this before? Have you seen a client do this before? How did you handle it? So it's just great that way. In terms of really over communicating with.

Me, that sounds like that might match up with one of your core values, not being arrogant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. Cool. All right, so, Tony, let me ask you the same question from the integrator's perspective, right? I'll be working with a room full of integrators, and they're a lot of times telling horror stories about, you know, their visionary did this or that, that kind of pulled the rug out from under them, or they won't let go. They won't trust me. They, you know, push so hard and so fast, you know, just kind of really makes it challenging for the integrator. What was kind of in that last three years, kind of your, you know, pressure moment or boiling point moment or, you know, whatever you want to call it, where, you know, Mike just being Mike was kind of making the world challenging for you.

You know, a couple things come to mind. One is when Mike just referenced a lot of the process was in his head, and it's trying to figure out a way to get that out of his head and on paper. And we ended up. It just, you know, was me shadowing him, and it was doing it real time. It wasn't a separate, you know, kind of defined event. It was just doing it in the normal course and me kind of documenting things as we went and then checking in with him and showing him kind of, here's a process. Did I capture this all correctly? And it's like, yeah, that looks great. Or no, I tweaked these couple of things, right? So that was challenging, and it still is. We're still creating those learning opportunities as a firm to leverage Mike and his experience and bring that into our day to day. So that's something we continue to work with. But we've got a good process in place now to do that, you know, and he's an idea guy. He has lots of ideas, and he wants to provide additional services and things. And so trying to balance, you know, our resources and, you know, kind of what's our capacity to take on something new and to launch it and to service it and all those types of things, and being really thoughtful about those additional services and how do they tie back to our purpose and our niche. Right? And just the core of what we do and making sure it's always something that's gonna be feeding kind of routine executive search and things. So having those conversations where it's a great one off, but that's not who we are. And so let's put that on the back burner, let's put that in the parking lot, and we'll talk about it in the next quarter.

So how do you deliver that news to Mike? So, Tony, when you feel like you need to say no, and you've got your reasons, it doesn't fit our core focus. It doesn't. Whatever. Mike, it was his idea, and all his ideas are awesome. And so he doesn't want to hear no, particularly. So how have you found is the best way to kind of deliver that feedback, deliver that news to Mike that, you know what? This isn't one for us.

1. I like to make sure I have the conversations to fully understand his vision. But then I'm a very practical person. I'm numbers driven. I'll say, here's what that means from an investment standpoint. We're going to need to hire two new staff, and that's what that, you know, here's the onboarding, and this is the impact it's going to have on the P and L, and is now the time to do that, so. Or you know what? Love the idea, but we got to get through these three things first. Right? Let's get to this point. And then that'll be the trigger for us to take on that new initiative or add that new service. So it's never. It's not necessarily just a no. It's not right now.

It's more of a yes if or yes when.

Yep, exactly.

Cool. So I like that. And so, Mike, how does that feel? So when you hear the no as Tony presents it, how does that process for you? You've gone, hey, this is a great idea. I came up with this. Hey, let's do this. And he says, well, here's what that would mean. And then how does that land on you, typically?

I mean, there's always that versatile gut reaction, like, oh, they're shooting down my idea. Right. There's always that first versatile negative reaction. But I've learned to kind of quell that pretty quickly, you know, and just kind of think through what Tony's telling me. Because what's so great about Tony is he's the first person that I've ever had close to me that I can say, hey, can we vet this idea out? And so it's kind of gotten to almost, you know, to a reverse situation where I'm not just necessarily throwing ideas out. I'm saying, here's an idea, Tony, could you vet this out and see if this one will fly or not? And he's so great at doing that. And it's just such a relief for me, actually, to be able to do that. So, yeah, I still. I mean, I still have those little gut pain, but I hold on to it pretty well.

I love that though, what you described, that's sort of the evolution of the conversation where it's kind of like, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you pointed that out. I wouldn't have seen that. Right. And so it's that other perspective that, you know, we're different. We're the two piece puzzle. And so that's the whole point is we're not the same. And so we uncover things, think about things in a different way. That makes the whole thing better. All right, so another thing I'm curious about in your interaction and Tony, this is for you, but I know a lot of integrators that they sort of, over time, they're able to kind of decode their visionary. And so they sort of know when the right time is to ask them about certain things, you know, the right way to kind of phrase or, you know, deliver certain information or news. Sometimes it's as simple as, you know, before or after the meal we're having together. And if you've got some kind of a. A secret code that you've kind of figured out for how you deal with Mike in that regard, you know, not.

Really in the sense of our relationship has gotten to the point where there's so much trust and mutual respect that I don't hold things back. I don't wait to have conversations. If I have a question or something happened, I pick up the phone and I call him or, you know, immediately it's. There's not a. No hesitation on our part.

Love that. Love hearing that. So let's play the future game for a second. So if I'm talking to you guys 10 years from now and you're still together as visionary and integrator, how is your relationship different?

So I'll answer that first, Mike. I mean, the relationship I don't think is. I honestly see us spending more time together away from work ten years from now. I see us going on fishing trips up in Canada and doing different things that we like to do. We've been focused the last three years on really redefining Mike's role and what he's focused on on a day to day basis and taking him more out of the day to day in terms of actually running search and doing more writing, doing more presenting, just being the face of the organization and doing what he really. Yeah. Being on podcast, doing what he really loves to do. Right. Which is where he wants to spend his time. So in 10, you know, I don't even want to wait 10 years. In three years from now, we better be in, you know, we will be in a really good spot from that perspective where he doesn't feel like he needs to retire because he's loving, you know, his day to day and his life and his job. Right. So we're getting close. We're getting close. So from a relationship standpoint, I think it's just going to continue to grow. I think we're going to become even better friends, you know, every year than what we are today. And that's what I see for the future.

Cool. Mike, what about you?

Yeah, I agree with that.

That's a pretty good start.

That's a really good start. That's a really good start. No, I agree with that and I think that, yeah, I see my role hopefully changing. I'm still today sort of that subject matter expert with all the recruiting experience that I have inside, you know, inside the organization. But I've seen leaps and bounds as far as, you know, really that understanding from Tony and the rest of the team. And so really, truly, kind of getting myself into that pure visionary chair is where we're going. And when we get to that, yeah, I think our relationship's just going to be that much stronger and like Tony says, probably spending more time together personally and talking about some of those bigger visionary type things than some of the day to day stuff that we still have to kind of talk about today.

Love it. Love the vision. Okay, so we've got lots of people listening that are visionaries, lots that are integrators, all at different stages of the journey. Right. Maybe they're on their own now trying to figure out how to get paired up. Maybe they're in a relationship that's pretty good. Maybe they're in one that's bad. Maybe they're at a similar place than y' all are, or maybe they're even a little further down the road. If you looking back on your experience and getting to where you're at right now, which, you know, feels really good based on how you're describing it. To me, if you could give yourself one nugget of wisdom back then when you were kind of just starting or just starting down the visionary integrator path, what would it be? And so, Tony, I'll start with you.

So in terms of being, you know, the best integrator, being humble, being vulnerable, having open and honest, timely conversations is key. And not feeling like you have to have all the answers and you got to, you know, you're there, you've got great team members and you're there. To take advantage of everything they have to offer. Right. And I am just a member of the team, even though I'm in that integrator seat. Right. I always had the philosophy, people don't work for me. They work with me. Right. I'm in the trenches with them every day. We're accomplishing great things together. And having that mindset and then using that to kind of build the foundation of that VI relationship is what's given me success and what's helped me build my relationship with Mike.

Love it. Mike, same question for you. From the visionary perspective.

Yeah. I would just say that from a visionary perspective, you have to be ready and what ready? I was very ready because I had been through a number of frustrating years in there, and I was really ready to let go of the vine, and I was really ready to be humble and to. To listen, to accept somebody else into the organization that could do the things that I couldn't do. And so we talk with a lot of visionaries, and they read the book and they say they read Rocket Fuel, and they think, I just got to get this integrator in here, and that's going to fix everything. It doesn't if they're not ready. And then that's about being self, aware, about being humble, about letting go of the vine and say, luckily, I was at that point in time. But if you were talking to me seven or eight years ago, you'd be talking to a totally different person with totally different kind of mindset on business. I was about ready to chuck it, quite honestly.

Interesting. Interesting. Very different than the future Tony described. Right. Of a future where you really. It's so good, you don't want to leave it. So that's pretty cool. So now you are also in the unique position where you have not only your relationship, but you deal with all these clients that you're solving for. Right. And so I tell people, you know, visionary picks up rocket fuel, Somebody gives it to them. However they find out about it, they read the first chapter. It's about them, and they love that chapter. And then they read the next chapter, and it's about the integrator, and they go, oh, that sounds great. And then the next question is, how do I get one? And obviously, y' all are, you know, one of the paths that they could use is to, you know, a recruiting firm that specializes in helping them find that integrator. So if you're talking to somebody that's kind of. They're kind of trying to figure out, gee, is that right for me? You Know, sort of on one end is kind of they do it themself and they figure out, you know, put the word out, you know, kind of let everyone know they're looking for an integrator and kind of do that. Maybe they get a little bit of help from somebody that's not as specialized as your firm. And then, you know, your firm, obviously at a high level, can sort of hold their hand and really walk them through the process. How does somebody make that decision? How does somebody decide which level of help is right for them?

That's a great question. I think, you know, the only way I think I can answer that is to say that, you know, this is the most critical hire you're ever going to make. So again, being honest with yourself, how much help do you need to get that done? I think a lot of people overestimate, you know, how big their network is, or they overestimate how much work it's going to take to actually go out and really, truly can conduct a search for themselves. And yes, using a partner in search is going to be expensive for sure, but when you consider kind of what the return on investment is and what the cost is, if you do it the wrong way, you know, you should probably get some help. So as again, just kind of being honest now. There are times, though, when there's somebody great in your network or there's somebody great inside your company already and, you know, if you give them the right opportunity, opportunity to step up into that role, they can do fantastic. And we do have a process. We can help kind of evaluate candidates as well and help companies that way. And quite honestly, I think if you can do it from inside, that's always the best because you're going to know if they for sure that they fit your culture and your values.

Yeah, good advice. Well, I really appreciate both of you taking the time to visit with me today. You know, I'm grateful for that. I know that you've shared some experience that's going to be very helpful to the folks that are listening. So that's a big impact. And to the folks listening to the podcast today, really appreciate you listening. And until next time, go rock it.

Thanks so much for joining me today. I really hope you were inspired by our guests. If you're interested to discover how your current visionary integrator relationship compares to the relationship relationship you'd like, I invite you to go visit rocketfueluniversity.com and take our free crystallizer assessment. You'll get both your visionary and integrator indicator scores and that's going to help.

You figure out your next step.

Whether you're a visionary or an integrator, Rocket Fuel University was created to help you master your craft and get more out of your business. If you haven't already, join now to access resources like educational videos, interactive community forums, and monthly IDS sessions, all for free. Go to rocketfueluniversity.com to get started.