Keep Moving Forward - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode # 027

Growing a business is hard, but it does not have to be.

Once a week, we take a break from the hustle and bustle in business to talk about innovations and what's new in the C-suite. This is the Fractional C-Suite Retreat, and I'm Joseph Frost. Pull up a seat at the fire, grab a drink, smoke a cigar, and just join me as we relax, learn, and get inspired. This retreat is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow with better marketing strategy.

Today's guest mixes his strong family values with growth and profitability. He's a passionate startup leader and is founder and CEO at manufacturingpower.com. Mike Franz, welcome to the show. How are you?

Hey, Joseph, I'm doing well. How are you today?

I'm doing great.

Good.

I'm excited to talk to you. It's always good to hear a good startup story because, gosh, every day is different, right?

A roller coaster ride. You couldn't be more right. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, very good. Glad to. And we'll get into a lot of topics, but the question I like to ask first to start the show off is, is there an opportunity that you see that you think maybe other C-suite executives should know about, or business owners should be thinking about?

Well, just— you mentioned it. I'm a startup guy. And one thing that— with not a lot of experience in the C-suite, to be quite honest with you. And one thing that I would offer, based on personal experience, for other startup founders that find themselves in a leadership position in a growing and upcoming company, making traction, hopefully, and finding their way is it is a roller coaster ride. And I tell myself, kind of my mantra is I have to keep moving forward no matter what it is. Every day I have to keep moving forward because you can get stuck in some pretty low spots and some pretty high spots, but keep moving forward. And in the industry that we're in, And we focus on my company specifically. It's a SaaS, but we have a SaaS-based company that is focused on helping small to mid-sized manufacturing companies. And one of the things that moving forward relates to in that industry is there's a lot of opportunity for those types of companies to really take advantage of technology that's out there that is not focused on their primary goals and making parts. I mean, they know everything about making parts, but there's other areas of their business they could utilize tech to really help improve their business. And there's, you know, some generational things that are happening. A lot of the old-time business leaders are— they have succession plans where a new breed of ownership is coming into the market. And there's a lot of opportunity for them to move forward with tech and other parts of their business. So I don't know if that really answered your question, but that's kind of a mantra of mine is to always keep moving forward. Yeah.

Well, it's a great mantra, and it is so real in the startup stages of life. You're up and down quite a bit. What are some of the ways that you try to stay up and not just move forward? How do you stay up?

Yeah, a lot of caffeine. Sugar-free Red Bull. No, how do I stay up? You know, that's a good question. There's— we're doing a podcast right now. And there's a lot of things that you need to do to— I need to do to stay motivated. And that's one of the great things about participating in this startup is that I'm learning something new every day. It is a lot to go from— I went from a Fortune 200 company, a mid-level person at a Fortune 200 company, mid-level, maybe mid-level, I'll say mid-level, anyway, to starting my own business and having to learn so many different things. And I learned stuff, it's been 4 years and I've learned new things every single day. And learning from other people, there's so many other people that know a million times more things than I do, and tapping into their knowledge and understanding that it's okay to ask for help and that it's— people are willing to help. That's a big portion of staying up is trying to learn something, understanding, you know, a lot of just simply You know, little tiny things as far as, as far as, you know, just an example, I'll give you, I'll give you just a real quick example. We were talking about it in the pre-discussion, but my computer went down. Okay, so not only do I have to understand how to get it fixed, but understand all the programs that need to be put back into it. And, you know, it's just tackling different tasks and staying organized and on task as far as what is a priority for that particular day and just again moving forward.

So what was it that motivates you to get yourself into this situation you're in now as an entrepreneur?

Situation.

Why did you leave and get into this mess that is entrepreneurship that I'm in and I love, but it is a unique experience if you've never been. What motivated you and what keeps you going?

I mean, the motivation, the motivation was, well, I got laid off. Okay. So that was, you know, full transparency. I got laid off at a time when there was some restructuring going on at the company that I'd worked for. And I had prior to that, I had an idea. And, you know, I thought it was a perfect time in my life to try to execute on it. And there was not going to be a better time. I mean, personally, financially, all those things kind of lined up for, for me to take that jump or that leap of faith or risk, however you want to say it. But yeah, it was— and the motivation was I really thought that I could help an industry that where I saw there was a gap. So it's been, you know, that was the motivation in, you know, having the belief in the concept and the idea, not knowing exactly what it would take, but, you know, being a bit of a risk taker, I guess, was something that I had always kind of dreamt with. I always kind of followed the straight path and the straight and narrow and did the things I was supposed to do. And then You know, that opportunity came around— I'll say opportunity— when I got laid off, the opportunity to try something new and jump outside the boxes was pretty exciting for me.

Yeah, we see that as an interesting pivot point for fractional professionals. A lot of people get laid off, are trying to decide, do I find a new job or do I take this opportunity to start my practice? And it's a good opportunity from, uh, from, uh, from, from that lens of What can I do next? It can be a very positive thing. So this gap that you saw in the industry, did you decide to bootstrap your way through it or do you go out and raise money or a little of both? Tell me your journey.

Yeah, so, well, just if you don't mind, to your point about fractional folks as well, That was one of the first groups that I ever— that I joined when I was laid off, was a group that was focused on fractional workers and people that were trying to find, not necessarily C-suite people, but it was a group and they were super motivating. Now I digress, but the question around, you know, did I bootstrap? And yeah, I mean, it was, I didn't know anything about raising money. I didn't know anything about— I had no idea about venture capital. I had no idea if I could go get a bank loan or— I mean, I had some ideas around it, but knowing the ins and outs of it was something that I had to learn. But yeah, I've been pretty fortunate. I was able to, through friends and family, raise money and then bootstrap the rest on my own. So that's been, that's been good. Now there's going to be some changes in the future, which I can't necessarily talk about right now, but, um, that's, uh, that raising money is, is, we'll just say it's, uh, it's going to be out there.

Yeah. It's imminent. What, uh, can you remember your first, uh, revenue when you first got a yes and a check?

Of course. I mean, I think every— I think everybody remembers that. Yeah, no, it was like the happiest day. And I couldn't believe it actually happened. It was like, oh, what did I say? What did it— you know, running back the entire thing in my head a million times to try to replicate that. It was pretty interesting because we had focused in our business, we had focused on a certain segment, so small to mid-sized manufacturing. Well, due to past relationships, I had developed a pretty good relationship with a company that was a— that's a Fortune 100 company, and I went to them with this idea not thinking that they would have any need for it, and they were the— they were the first people to buy, and it was— it was pretty amazing, and that kind of changed my thought process a little bit as well. But That was, yeah, that was a, that was a huge day. And it was, it was interesting too, because that those, that kind of those early first couple of customers, it was more or less relationships that I built up either from past experiences or actually on LinkedIn. Just reaching out to people on LinkedIn. So I'm a big LinkedIn proponent.

So you built, you got a few customers, allowed you to probably fund some of the development and work and building the SaaS product. When do you feel like you started getting some traction on the SaaS side where you're getting clients that are coming to you that aren't based on relationships or have you even gotten there yet? I'm curious.

Well, I'll say this, we got customers And then, then we started getting feedback about the product. So, and the feedback was good-ish, I'll say. So it was, we like the concept, the product actually needs work. Okay, honestly. And so They said, let's pump— well, we came to an agreement with all of our customers and said, hey, we're going to pump the brakes here and go back and add the features and make some changes to the product that you like more. And that was— what's today's date? That was a few months ago, a month, maybe about 8 months ago. And so now we're, we're wrapping up that portion of it. And we're about to almost release a second version of our product. So it's almost go time again, to start gaining customers. But we've, you know, maintained the relationships with our current customers. And that's, that's where we are.

So as a growing business, Have you seen the need to access some C-level talent of your own and, uh, but not had the dollars to do it and considered fractional as a, as a way to, to get some access to good talent to help you grow?

Absolutely. There's, um, timing is everything sometimes, but, you know, uh, my business partner and I, we are not computer engineer software engineers. We're not technically savvy, even though I've learned quite a bit over the last few years about it. I think I know enough to be dangerous, or at least talk a little bit of the game. But that doesn't help when you need programmers. So to, to answer your question, yes, we've it's now time. We've used out third-party resources to do the, I'd say, the bulk of our development. But now it's time that we find somebody that can kind of take over that portion of the business as we're about to release the new, the new product. But so yeah, we, we have been looking for a fractional CTO. And that process, again, I had to learn the entire process of how to do that and if people would be even willing to consider that. I didn't necessarily think there was— frankly, I didn't think we had enough to offer people to go that route when it turns out that there's a lot of people out there that are looking to do that type of— they get charged up by the opportunity. They like to see something grow. They want to be part of something from the ground up. And I mentioned LinkedIn before, but the way we approached it was we put out a basic JD, a job description, on LinkedIn and explained exactly where we were at and what stage we were at. Basically all the details of what we were looking for as well. And within the first day, we had 44 applicants.

Yeah.

So it was, I mean, high-level people too. It was, it was pretty— I was amazed by it. I was shocked. But yeah, that's, you know, we've— that's brought a whole nother element to our growth and how I think we're going to move forward.

So do you recall when the moment was where you decided you needed to get outside help at that level?

Ah, do I remember that? Um, well, we've been considering it for a long time because of the fact that, uh, there's a lot of tech that is needed. Let me rephrase that. We needed help with the technical side of the business where You know, we could, we could get by for a while, um, by explanations and working with the product managers at the outside services that we were working with. But when we encountered some challenges with them and their process, and, you know, not to get into the details of it too much, but we just didn't understand that and we didn't know how to manage it and we You know, we weren't able to technically communicate with them correctly, and that's when we decided that, hey, we got to get somebody that knows what they're doing and can not only understand that and find solutions for that, but also see the vision of where we want to try and get to and want to be a part of that. So that was what— That was 2 months ago.

So you got to a point where you realized you needed somebody else that understood this area better than you to, to manage the teams better than you were. You were kind of stuck. You were just at your limit. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And then what did you do?

I'm curious, like where did you first look? Did you first say, let's throw a job description on LinkedIn, or did you go to your network? Uh, did you ask around? Like, what was your process for trying to solve this?

That's a, that's another long drawn-out answer here. I'll keep it short though. Um, we had, so I guess the first beginnings of that were within our network of trying to find people and we considered them part of our advisory board. And advisors, uh, and not that that was a bad thing, but they were— we had established relationships with these people, and we frankly needed somebody that was fresh and who could come in, be brutally honest take the reins on it and run with it, where, yeah, we decided to go outside of our network to try and find somebody like that.

So who were— give me an example of some of your advisors that you started with, like accountants and attorneys and/or like customers and vendors. What would you consider an advisor at that stage?

We had, we had some of all of that. So we had, we had an attorney. Well, we still have these folks as our, as part of our advisory board. Some are listed on the website, some aren't. But we had, for example, other startup founders We had that work that had built similar types of products in different industries. We had supply chain experts. That was our, basically our ideal type of customer. We had technology partners that or advisors that were— they, they were great and super helpful, but were also very busy with their own careers.

So when you went to those advisors, were you looking for them to refer you somebody, or were you looking maybe to find somebody within that group that could fill the gap? At?

Um, we actually utilize them as to help us find somebody.

Gotcha.

So it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily a— yeah, it wasn't. We didn't look for somebody within their, their group, even though we, over the course of the years, we have found people that have been willing to put in so much time. I mean, they, you know, we're, we're pretty— we, we want this person to be like an integral part of the team. And before, we just would ask questions and, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't really a role.

So I'm always curious about these, these journeys that someone takes to find a fractional because that's my world. And yeah, for sure, we're trying to always better understand our customers. And although you're not looking for a CMO, you're looking for a CTO, but the process is probably likely very similar. Um, so you went to your network, didn't find any good referrals or thought maybe it was too close, and then you decided to go out further and that, that, that's when you went to LinkedIn. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, did you look anywhere else? Did you go to Indeed or, uh, you know, some of the job boards or did you say, nope, we're going to do it LinkedIn?

We used LinkedIn as our first step. And that produced very well. I mean, we had, like I mentioned, we had 44, 43, 44, something like that within the first day. Excuse me. And I started reaching out to them right away. And that was, that was, that seemed to be, that gave us a pretty good pool. A really good—

you're looking for what did you call it, a fractional CTO? Or did you call it a part-time or consultant, or what were the—

what are the— oh boy, I can't remember if we put fractional or part-time. I honestly can't remember the term that we used, but I think, I think maybe even we just laid it out as far as, um, hours per week type thing.

Okay, but it wasn't— if you were for sure not hiring full-time, you were looking for part-time contract, uh, and, uh, you got 40-some inquiries, what was your ultimate decision criteria? Are you there yet? Have you narrowed down the criteria that you're, you're really weighing to make your final decision?

Yeah, actually, you know, not to get into the specifics of that criteria, but generally speaking, we had received, you know, we mentioned the, um, the advisors that we, we've had, they gave us some criteria to ask the folks, um, that had applied, and it's various things from you know, just general knowledge type things and work experience and history and what they think they can help us grow and those types of things. But also, um, we've had them, uh, the, the candidates that have moved on to this stage, which we haven't ultimately made a decision yet, but the candidates that moved on to this stage, we've had them complete a technical review as part of the process. And that's, that's in process right now. Yeah. So, and that was at the advisement of our network. So, but that's going to be— we have, we have a vision of where we want it to go. We think that they can— we want to see how that they, how they can in the technical review help us get there. So that's part of the— excuse me— the decision-making process for us.

If you had to pick 3 criteria that ultimately are most important to you, what would you say that 3 criteria is?

For that particular role?

Yeah, for the fractional role.

Oh, boy. Well, they have to be a good person. Yeah. And we have to communicate well. That's in— you're asking about this particular role. I've learned over the course of 4 years in working with technical people that that's— there's a— we speak in a little bit different language. So communication to me is massive. If they can explain to me exactly what needs to be done and the vision and how to get there, that's, that's a, that's a, that's, that's probably number one, honestly. Communication. They have to be a good person, obviously. Their technical skill and their, their dedication to it. I mean, That's, that's one place where I'm a little nervous about it, because as you mentioned, fractional. So fractional means they're doing this, they're doing that, they're doing the other thing. And I have to be able to trust that— well, trust is probably the third thing. So be able to trust that they, they're dedicated to the to the mission.

Yeah, man, you nailed it. I, I ask that question a lot to actual fractional professionals. I say, what are the 3 criteria you recommend people ask and look for in a fractional? And I get a variety of answers, but, but the, the, the cultural fit, which kind of aligned with your good people concept. Yeah. All almost always comes up as a top one for the fractional, because what they've realized is that if that cultural fit isn't there, the engagement doesn't work real well. Communication always comes up in some way, shape, or form, being able to articulate a vision and communicate and work well across different segments of the leadership team is super important. And then I think trust is one that isn't said, but it's certainly implied. Like there has to be this level of trust established. And because the fractional professional wants the owner to trust them to execute just as much as they wanna trust other members of the team to do their part. And that to me, from talking to owners, is the hardest one to overcome. Is how do I trust that this person's gonna really do what they say they're gonna do? And particularly in marketing, because in marketing, people are— they've been burned so many times by marketers, it's almost like a PTSD situation. And we're coming in and trying to say, no, trust us, we know what we're doing. And I've heard that before. So that is—

and I didn't want to say anything about that, but yep, yep.

It's, uh, I hear it all the time. It's real. And, uh, but so how, how a fractional professional builds that trust is super important and then maintains it, you know, long term. Yeah.

So let me ask you, I mean, so how do you, with your business, how do you, um, emphasize that or how do you prove that?

Yeah, great question. Um, well, we, we feel that one, we differentiate ourselves from other solutions they may have tried before. So we are, as fractional CMOs, we are not an agency. We don't have anything else to sell. So there's no software that we promote. There's no people on our team that we're trying to sell their hours of design and IT or tech or what, you know, copy or video. We are truly a fiduciary. Partner when we approach an engagement. So that's one way. We recognize that agencies, their strategy may be to sell more agency work, and if you represent a very specific tactic, like you're a Google AdWords specialist or an SEO specialist or social media specialist, you are leading with a tactic. When, if you're a HubSpot provider, have another specific tech stack, you're there to try to sell the software to, to continue to, to utilize your services. And when we come in, we don't have any of that baggage, so we're a fresh fiduciary look. So that's one way to really differentiate it from our perspective. And the other way is we've got a proven process. So we take a lot of the mystery around relying on one person and their experience to be successful. We've built a process where all of our CMOs follow a specific framework for how to deliver fractional services. That doesn't take away their expertise and the nuances and their decision-making. We don't tell them how to market, but we have a process to deliver the service so that there's weekly scorecard meetings where we're clearly reviewing metrics and we're communicating along the way and there's no surprises. And traditionally marketing, that's, it's not like that. You, you somebody comes back 60 days later with a deliverable and it doesn't look like what we talked about. So we built in a process and we share with prospects that you're leaning on both the expertise of a CMO plus the proven process of a team. So that helps a lot. And then a lot of the time it's a matter of, once you get somebody close enough to have that trust and pull the trigger. We're a month-to-month service, so that's— it takes a little bit of the risk away from a long-term commitment. We have to then prove it out. So then the first 60 to 90 days is super critical for us as, as an organization to make sure that we clearly understand what the client's expectations are, what the wins are in the 30 and 60-day mark, and how we can deliver on that and still do our work, which is building foundational marketing audits and understanding the business, but delivering some results along the way. And if we do that, you know, we, we have a long-term engagement and it works out really well. If we miss any step along the way, then it usually doesn't get to the finish line, or we, we don't stay around very long if it does.

And I'll be honest, I like what you said about the process because that's, you know, in our consideration of not only the fractional CTO that I've mentioned, but in, in talking with marketing folks, or it doesn't matter who we've talked to, any sort of outside service. Um, that's one thing that I've learned over the past few years is if they don't have a proven process that they can execute and deliver on, um, I have a hard time even really talking to them.

Yeah, you know, because you don't know what you're getting. And, and that's—

I mean, you could have made mistakes.

Yeah.

I've made mistakes, trust me.

Yeah, yeah, in the CTO space, you know, there's almost any— well, like any C-level fractional role, there's kind of an assumption they know what they're doing. You kind of assume a little bit that you're a good marketer, a good IT person, or good here, but you don't know if they're a good person like you said, and you don't know, you know, if you can trust them to execute. And trust is around Are you gonna give me enough of your time? You're fractional, am I gonna get enough? Are you gonna be focused on the right things? Are you gonna truly be there when I need you and prioritize the urgent matter? And trust takes on lots of different meaning when you look at it from a fractional standpoint. It's not just, are you an honest person or trustworthy person? And process helps with that trust because if you have a process built in that you're, You know, in our situation, you're showing a deliverable weekly, you've got clear communications, you've got a methodology behind delivering your product, you've got a step-by-step approach, like all that stuff establishes kind of the expectation that you've got a process and then delivery each step of the way builds that trust in the process and in the person.

Well, it's interesting when you were talking about our process of finding somebody, I didn't have a process. But then, then, within the first day, I developed a small little process that I stuck to, which was, you know, looking for a fractional CTO. One of the first things without even kind of knowing it, and building that trust initially was response time to the email that I sent them that I was interested in talking with them.

Yep.

And, you know, if somebody didn't respond, obviously they're out. But if somebody responded within the first day or within the first few hours, they were immediately put to the top of the list just because that, you know, we talk about communication, that's a big thing, um, that went a long way for me to start developing, okay, you know, response time, we're looking for communication, we're looking for trust, we're looking for those couple of, you know, pillars. And those first couple things help. So our process is not clearly defined. It is a little bit in my head of how I would look for somebody in that role. And it has developed obviously over the last 2 months, but that was one of the first things that was part of it.

What were some of your fears or still maybe some of the things you're afraid about or concerned about when hiring this person?

This is a, this is a good one. So we've we've worked with a few outside tech partners. And I'm very— like you mentioned, in the marketing, in the marketing industry, that people kind of say, oh, I've heard that all before. That's not just marketing, that's in development, that's in— it's in anything, sales, marketing, develop software development, it's in every industry. And that's my, that's my biggest fear is I really don't want to make— we have to do our due diligence in order to make the right decision to be able to have it be a partnership that we want to move forward. I mean, our end goal is to in 30 years, I'm still working with this person. Yeah, you know, and that would be great. Is that likely? I don't know, but, um, based on some of the past stuff, I'm very apprehensive about kind of making this decision. But yeah, so that, that's, that's kind of my biggest fear, is that I make the right decision based on experience, based on doing the due diligence around the correct candidate and understanding that they're a good fit for us. So, and that lies— that lies— sorry, I mean, that's on me.

So yeah, it is on you, but, um, you know, it's— it's— you're definitely doing— you're doing a good amount of the right work, it sounds like, to make sure you end up with a good client. That's, that's good to hear. And, uh, I could only tell you that from my experience, that cultural fit, it seems to be the biggest thing that on the other side that I hear from fractional professionals that makes— there has to be that fractional CTO you hire has to feel as good about being part of your culture as a full-time employee would, even if they're never going to be full-time. They're only going to be X hours a week or X hours a month or however it looks, if they're not a culture fit, it'll fizzle out and it'll slow down. It'll not feel right. And that's the harder one I think to really measure and assess for upfront. It's just difficult. Sometimes you don't know those things without the time around somebody long enough, but there are things, there are questions you can ask, there's assessments you can do. You can certainly share your core values as an organization. Hey, these are our values. Do you align with these? What do these mean to you? Like, that's a great way to just try to flush out, at least have a conversation around it.

Yeah. And that's a great point. And I left that out. We actually did that in one of the, in one of the interviews.

So that was as part of one of the interviews, but did that help you? Did you screen some people out because of that?

Yeah. As a matter of fact, yeah, that was, I mean, that's a portion of it. But yeah, that was a contributing factor. But one of the other fears— sorry to dip back into the last question— but another fear that I've had is based on the fact that the fractional person and bundle them in with the technology partners that we've had. Have been all over the world. And this, uh, this person that we hire, at this point everybody is here in the U.S., but they're all over the U.S. And it's, it's doing Zoom calls and things like that, uh, or Google Meets or whatever tech we want to use for that. But, um, that's a little bit— I'm apprehensive a little bit about that as well because We've worked with people, like I said, all over the world in tech, and that is a barrier for us. And that creeps into my mind a little bit as far as how to manage that. But that's a, that's kind of a minor thing, I guess.

But explain that more. You're concerned about this person's ability to manage global workforce like that or something else? I was just curious what you were getting to there.

Uh, sorry. Um, no, it's— it goes back to maybe our internal communication. So I'm not worried about them managing a, an outsourced team or anything like that. If they, if they're confident in doing that and have proven that they can do that, that's fine. That's great. Um, it's more about the trust internally and the communication internally that, um, I'd want to make sure that that's seamless and that that's not a barrier, uh, for either of us. And, you know, that's just a— that's just us making sure that that's, that's clear and that there's open communication and that there's You know, there's no need for concern on that.

Yeah, that's good. Are you— are you— the rest of your team geographically, like leadership team, geographically together, or is everybody kind of dispersed on the leadership team as well?

Um, for the most part, everybody's close. Yeah, kind of within driving distance.

But so is this CTO potentially not going to be close then?

Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. So that, that's a couple—

the couple of candidates— candidates are actually on We're right in the middle of the country and they're on both sides of the coast.

What we've discovered is because we are fractional before COVID we were hybrid before COVID we've had a virtual organization from day one, then COVID came and kind of normalized it for most organizations. But very recently we've realized that We have to create in-person connections with our clients for it to be a healthy long-term relationship. And so we've started mandating across the company that all new engagements will start with an in-person. We usually do a full day, we do an audit, then we do a full day kind of, or day and a half foundation session collaborative, and then we do quarterly sprints is how we do it, and we reset every quarter. That's our, that's That's our cadence. We've mandated across the board that all initial foundation sessions will be in person. And as much as possible, all the quarterlies will be in person, but it's not required quarterly, but that first one we definitely want in person. And we're encouraging, and we hope that most people will adopt the quarterly in person because it's so, there's just so much trust and relationship that's built in person that's so, that's hard to, recreate over the web. We've got clients out of the country. That's a hard one to make that guarantee, but we, we still are. So we are committed to doing that. I'm flying to Singapore for a client kickoff call in a couple weeks to make that connection, and sounds like fun for me, but it's important, you know, because that's And for you, as you're looking at candidates, and that might be a criteria, are they willing to come visit you on an initial or regular basis? I think that would be healthy.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned, you know, when COVID kind of kicked off, there was, there was that, and a virtual happy hour is a little bit different than a happy hour in person. If you can sit and have a beer with somebody, and if that's your thing, uh, have a beer with somebody and talk to them face to face. There's, there's a definite difference there. Excuse me.

Yeah, well, great. Well, thanks for sharing all that with me. It's exciting to learn a little bit more about how somebody's going through the process, um, because it helps me understand my, my client base, my prospecting base, because a lot of things you shared are likely the same things similar to what, uh, someone looking for a fractional CMO goes through as well.

Yeah, well, who knows, we'll probably need one of those at some point as well.

Should be your first hire, your fractional CMO. So I tell everybody. So what do you like to do for fun?

What word did you just say?

What do you like to do for fun?

I don't—

Yeah. And then 20 hours a day on your business. What's, what's fun for you?

Um, oh man, I almost had a smart-ass answer for you there. Um, well, we're up here in— I'm up here in Minnesota and it's gonna finally break the 70-degree mark this weekend. And a buddy of mine, we've had an ongoing golf tournament for his birthday the first weekend in May every year for about 20 years now. And it grew from 12 guys getting together, going over into Wisconsin for a, for a day of fun. And now we rent out 3 nines and have 160 golfers that come, and it's all sponsored and things like that. So that's this weekend. Um, I like to play golf, but I'm horrible at it. As most people are. Uh, there's that, you know. I like, um, there's, there's— I'm a— last weekend I'm a curler. So I was in a— we had our end of the year curling tournament last year, or last week. And, uh, yeah. And then, you know, family and friends and getting together with them. That's, that's always the best way to blow off some steam and relax and do that. I, you know, every morning I try to— this is a podcast, I'm gonna, you know, continue listening to your podcast and support that. But there's, there's other podcasts I really enjoy listening to. Startup stories and business success stories and motivational stories around business that Every morning, I, you know, I either exercise or I, I actually take a drive in the car and just drive around and try to think about nothing and listen to a podcast about how we can move forward. So tying it all together here, moving forward. And there's a lot of inspirational stuff out there. There's some pretty smart people out there. And I can— I try to learn something new every day. So that's, that's exciting to me, and that's kind of what I do for fun too.

Well, I think, uh, I can, I can, I can join you in my love of golf. I'm not— I'm also a bad golfer, but I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't get out as much. I just gave my clubs to my son, so now I have an excuse to go get new clubs, which—

there you go—

get me spending a little more time this year. And there's a handful of us guys in Omaha that curl together. Oh yeah, been doing that for the last 4 years.

Nice.

And we're not very good at all, like really not very good, but it's such a fun sport. We really enjoy it.

Um, and you'll have to come up to Minnesota for a bonspiel. Actually, we actually just got sponsored by, uh, Montucky Beer, our team did this year. So that's awesome.

I would love to do that. We've talked about— we've never done a bonspiel. There's like You know, there's a bunch of them around, but we've just never done one. So that's, that's a, that's a goal of mine.

Nice.

The, uh, the family thing, that's, I think, probably share— most people share that, that willingness and to, to have that outlet with your family. Um, but the driving around for an hour, that's interesting. I like to, if, when I can, I found that my, my best morning starts are when I can just get like 15 to 20 minutes in my journal. I do. I don't get it. I try to get it every day. I don't get it every day. But when I can just sit down for 15 or 20 minutes and I have a pattern, I write down the things I'm grateful for. And I actually write down my calendar for the day. It just helps me kind of see what's coming up and puts me in a nice baseline perspective and then spend a few more times. And that's such a refreshing start. Kind of clears your head and just gets you in a good place.

Yeah, yeah. No, I should have mentioned that too. The calendar thing, I do that, I do that every morning too. And I actually type it into my phone and put reminders to it and things like that if I, if I remember to do that. But yeah, no, that's, that's totally— that helps with focus for me so much. If I don't get up and kind of write away, because I'm sure like you, like with you, your mind is spinning like as soon as you wake up in the morning, mine is. And it's like, okay, if I don't focus and write this stuff down, I'm going to be all over the place all day. So that helps definitely. And then just kind of take that either exercise time or driving around time to just kind of, okay, chill, and then when you get back, get after it. So, but hey, the curling thing, let me ask you this. What club are you— what club are you part of?

Oh, so it's the Exarban Curling Club.

Say again?

Uh, so it's Exarban. It's, it's Nebraska spelled backwards. It's been a club for, gosh, I think 30, 40 years. It's been around for a long time. Um, but it's the Exarban Curling Club, and We've got some good curlers that have been doing this forever, but yeah, you know, I'm kind of in the bunch of old guys that run businesses that just need to let off some steam and have found this as an interesting way to do it.

It's, uh, it's so much fun. Yeah, I've been doing it for, gosh, 15 years now.

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, it's, it's just part of— I mean, it's just part of life and like part of my routine when it comes to be wintertime. We have— I don't know what your season stretches for, but, um, we go from about October until we just finished up. So October until end of April, even though there's some time between the end of the season and the final bonspiel.

But, um, so yeah, they do like 8-week seasons, so like it's about the same like time frame, but it's like they'll do an 8-week session, another 8-week, and then they'll night we can— I think they used to do 3 or 4, um, and we'll— my team will get at least 2 of those sessions in, um, between us. But the last— I want to say the last year and a half, I don't think we won a game. It's sad. Like, we— when we first started, we, we were doing good, we were winning games, and we were figuring things out, and then we just got worse.

Joseph, man, you're, you're preaching to the choir here. We always tell people that we're 500, but we're never 500.

But it's still fun. I mean, we still like doing it even though we're not winning. Uh, it's, it's an interesting game, and for those that have never played it, you just don't understand it. It's because it's just unique, uh, experience getting on the ice and pushing those stones around and And then when you can play it and then watch the professionals and see what they can do.

Yeah.

Like, oh my God, it's amazing.

Well, so we have some pretty high quality. I'm out of the St. Paul Curling Club in St. Paul. And it was established in like 1906, I think. We've had some curlers come through there that are, I mean, world-class. And one of the weeks that I was actually out, a— he was rated the top sweeper in the entire country at the time, subbed in for our team. And we're— we're nowhere near that level, okay? Nowhere even near that level, um, in our particular league, we're a C team, so it's like, and our league is not good, but, and everybody would admit that. He just happened to be there and subbed in for me. Anyway, he was, you'll, you'll appreciate this, he was able to seriously manipulate the rock by his sweeping, which was like amazing to my, my other teammates. Like we don't even come close to being able to manipulate it the way that he was. I mean, we sweep it and get it to go a little bit further or shorter or whatever, but he was able to actually, as it's curling, make it curl more, make it less, do all that kind of stuff. So it was— That's insane.

Yeah.

So the level is quite a bit different.

We've had the Olympic curling trials at Omaha. The last couple years, or a couple, uh, 4 years. Um, so we get some good world-class curling that's going on in, in that, and the Xarban hosts it. We actually don't have our own club. We, we have a, uh, like practice ice that, uh, is at this, at the college, local college arena. But, um, that's where they held the Olympic trials in the arena, and they brought in fresh ice. And I always thought it was interesting. People don't know this, but there are specialists that make ice for curling.

Yeah.

Like, that's their deal. And they go around the country and they make the ice. Yeah. And there's a special formula. It's not just water.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's fascinating. So you— I wanted to— I wasn't in town for the curling trial, or I wasn't able to volunteer, but they were asking for volunteers. I wanted to be on that ice group. I wanted to learn how they were making this special the ice, but I didn't make it. I didn't get there.

Well, it's a unique sport. Once you're in, you're kind of hooked. I don't know. I've been doing it— actually, a former boss of mine got me into it. And then through weird circumstances, I met the current team that I'm with. Um, which is another completely random story, but it was people that I went to junior high— junior high school with that I didn't— I hadn't seen them in a million years. And then turns out they curl, and we all got together again, and it was like old times, which was kind of funny.

But that's awesome.

Yeah, so it's a good time. Yeah, you'll have to come up, come up to the St. Paul Curling Club for the bonspiel called the Hobberdobber. Come on up.

The Hobberdobber.

Oh man, it's a blast. It's a blast. You'll be tired afterwards, but it's a blast.

Yeah, I heard it's a lot of fun.

Well, good.

Well, it's been great talking to you. I'm glad you joined the podcast. If people want to get in touch with you, reach out about anything they heard or thoughts that might've triggered, questions, what's the best way?

Yeah, anything on LinkedIn, Mike Franz, just look me up. Manufacturing Power, www.manufacturingpower.com. My email is mike@manufacturingpower.com. You can reach out, no problem. Those are pretty much the best two ways to find me. We're on Twitter as well, @mfgpower.

Um, there, uh, that's— we'll have all that detail in the show notes so they'll have access to that easily. So, um, well, good. So for our listeners, thanks for joining. You learned a little bit about curling today, which is always a fun topic, and, um, excited to have you, uh, listen to the show. And see you next time. Thanks again, Mike.

Joseph, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Yep, and that's a wrap. There's another successful episode of the Fractional C-Suite Retreat. See our show notes and more episodes at fractionalcsuitretreat.com. This podcast is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow, save time and money with better marketing strategy and fractional execution. Visit them at yourcmo.com. Your CMO dot com, spelled wrong on purpose.