The Importance of Direct Communication with Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss

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If you have a meeting that is with your leadership team, just to set that standard, say, can we be real here? Like, is this a meeting where we can speak the truth, even if it is hard? And I would even say, and frankly, can we have permission to call each other out? Because if the number one priority is protecting each other's feelings, and I think this is the difference, this is perhaps what separates somebody when they join a leadership team. When you join a leadership team, you are basically saying, I am going to subordinate myself to the company. That's what it means to be a leader. If somebody's coming in as an individual contributor, they're fairly entry level at the company. Look, I mean, they're there, they're performing a particular thing. I don't expect them to have that same level of commitment because candidly, the company isn't making an equivalent level of commitment in them. Not yet. They got an opportunity to go there. But when you're at the highest level of the leadership team, you're saying, I am subordinating my own immediate needs for the sake of the company, for the sake of the group, I'm subordinating my feelings to that. So we gotta be able to say like, yeah, this sucks, and that kind of hurt my feelings. But if that's the case, then I can go back to be like, hey, that kind of hurt my feelings when you said that. Let's have a conversation about it. That's a real thing to do. I don't believe a leadership team can be effective unless they can kind of piss each other off and still move on from it.

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Hey, everybody. Roland Frazier and Ryan Deiss with another episode of Business Lunch. And today we got some cool things to talk about. One in particular. Ryan, you want to set that up?

I think it's cool, but. Okay, so I'm going to set the stage. So every Tuesday, we do our leadership meeting. So it is us. So Roland and I, Richard, and then the folks that are on what we call team one. So team one is all of the centralized. The centralized leaders in our shared company. So it's not like a formal board meeting that we might do with the general manager. But if you think about our structure, right, we basically have a central holding company that is, you know, scalable equity. That's the central holding company. And within that holding company, we have leaders on, like, marketing and sales and growth, and they go and, like, deploy their skills across a lot of our other, you know, a lot of our portfolio companies. So this is kind of like the leadership meeting of the holding company. It's. This context is going to be somewhat helpful. So we're in this meeting. This is. We do this meeting every Tuesday. We're kind of talking over priorities, and the meeting is going fine. It's just a normal meeting. And then out of nowhere, Roland just starts yelling at this one guy and. And he sends. He did, like, the verbal equivalent of paying somebody to, like, knock on the door and then, like, punch this guy in the face. And it actually wasn't clearly exaggerating, but it was a very. It was a tough meeting, right? I mean, we had had a number of projects that didn't get completed on time. We had had a number of goals that we had set. And we talked about this in some of our past episodes that just weren't hit. And it's safe to say that you got a little frustrated, Roland, and you let your feelings be known publicly to all in. To all involved. And so I want to talk about a couple of things. Number one, I'd love to get kind of your impression of that, because I was surprised. I was a little bit surprised. I knew that we were all feeling the same way, but I haven't seen you come with guns blazing like that. It was cool. So I want to talk about that aspect of it. I also want to talk about what does it mean to. Kind of the old adage is praise in public. And what are you supposed to do in private? I guess discipline in private or reprimand. Reprimand. Yeah. Praise in public, Reprimand in private. There's a nice way to say it. So talk about that. And then just the difference between how do we talk to people at an executive leadership level versus, you know, people who might be our. You know, our subordinates around them. Because I think there's some different dynamics here. Just in general, how do you yell at people when they're screwing up? That's kind of the topic of today. So I want to start off, like, number one, how do you feel? Like, did I accurately characterize how you behaved during that meeting?

No, not. Not even close. No, to me, it's. I.

Go ahead. I mean, give it. Seriously, like, what? Because I really was, like, from my perspective, it was like, you know, we were going around. I knew everybody was kind of grumpy, but I also knew there were gonna be some conversations had. And then you were like, all right, look, screw all this. Here's what we're talking about.

Yeah, I felt like it was just a bunch of bs. I mean, I felt like we were. I was in this perfect image kind of thing that was completely inauthentic to what was going on in the company. And this is supposed to be the leadership team. And I was surprised because I had a conversation with you two days before. I had a conversation with Richard the day before. And then I just kind of hung out on the meeting, and I figured we would say something about something. There wasn't any reprimand. And you hear. This is the other interesting thing about going through these meetings is that after, from Richard, I got a thing saying, one of the guys is super upset. I call the guy immediately, because I'm never about. I'm only a direct communication guy with that stuff. To me, there's too much bullshit that can happen with that. So I just reached out to the guy and I said, hey, man, if I caused you to feel reprimanded or scolded or anything like that, I apologize, because that was not at all my intent. And he's like, no, no, no, you didn't. Now what? Somebody tells you also, you have no idea. So the cool thing to know, guys, and this is a good thing, as an attorney, you learn, I will never know the truth. And none of the other people will know the truth either. Only the one guy who may or may not have felt like he got reprimanded knows the truth, but even he won't tell us because he's going to tell Richard a different story. And Richard's going to have his own interpretation of what he was told that he communicates to me with his own things that he wants to communicate to me by telling me. And it's good for us to all know that. So I'm coming in through the lens of I get that the truth is not going to ever be completely revealed. But to me it started with looking at in that company, the financials. That company received PPP money and that company has a line of credit. And so the company had not met its goals the month before and missed them by, as I recall, a fair amount. Like maybe one of the worst misses out of the last 12 months. And then the current month was tracking even worse than that. We made a lot of changes and have goals, but we had made a lot of changes and missed goals before. So to me, what I watched was line of credit drawn down, then PPP drawn down. And the PPP was to be held sacrosanct as it wasn't really money that we should have had in the company except for the grace of the government saying here's some money to help you out if you'll keep people employed. And we did and we met all the requirements and all that stuff. But to use it is to me and I use the word and I believe it's accurate. Dishonest. It's dishonest to the budget to take found money and throw it in and say, hey, everything's okay, because it wasn't. And I felt that the team needed to know because there were also rumors of the team, some people saying, you know, I don't know, we're not getting any variable comp on top of this and these guys are taking their big money home. And we hadn't taken anything out of that company in months. So not being taken out in months, plus watching credit line go up, PPP go down. That's not a good place to be. And I didn't hear anybody communicating, guys, this is dumb. This is cannot go on like this. It's gotta actually you need to understand that you gotta perform because it is in the hands after Ryan and I create whatever content. And Richard says, here's the plan guys, that you agree on, which they all set, then they have to execute it. And so they were not executing. And I love them all. And so my communication was in this tone of voice. This is closest you'll ever hear me yelling was, look, guys, And I said exactly what I just said. This can't go on. Otherwise why are we all here? It doesn't make sense. It's got to be fixed. And it's really coming from the leadership team that that needs to happen. So that's the other context that I.

Would give the real story. So what I heard did you feel like we were just kind of all there playing business, like we were going through the motions of a meeting and it was like, yeah, yeah. I felt like we were putting a.

Veneer that was window dressing on. And I also felt that the leadership team deserved to know what was going on. And so, I mean, if I was going to reprimand somebody, if I was going to, you know, reprimand, meaning pick them out, call them out, I would have a conversation with them first. I was calling all of us out and just saying the reality that you guys think exists is not the reality and we haven't communicated it to you. And that's a failure on our part because you deserve to have us authentically represent the position of the company and it isn't good.

Yeah. And that's. And so that was something that I did really appreciate that you did there. Somebody's got to do that. And you'll see this, like, because in business it's not always great. Things don't always go according to plan. Sometimes you're doing something and stuff doesn't work out either because of outside external forces. Sometimes, you know, bad execution, sometimes bad selection of priorities, which is just another way of saying bad execution just on the front end. Sometimes crap doesn't work out right. And it can be very tempting in that moment to sugarcoat everything and to be like, you know what? It's going to be okay. And there's times when that can be okay. When it's truly like, yeah, I know we planned for this. This didn't happen. It's going to be okay. Here's the pivot we're making. But sometimes it's like, no, no, no. There's been like, like multiple pivots, multiple screw ups. Like it needs to be acknowledged.

We did.

Right.

And that's important for the context of this is we did do that about six times.

Yep. And so there's times when you got to do that. And so when you ever find yourself in a meeting or just going through the motions and you're like, you feel like you're just playing business, usually what that means is something needs to be said. And if you wait too long, everybody's going to realize that you're going to lose credibility with your team, and you're going to ultimately lose credibility with yourself. Like, the further away you get from saying the thing that needs to be said, the harder it is to say it. You know, it's like a diamond. It just gets. The crap just ultimately gets compressed into a hard diamond. So that I. That I liked. There were times when. So you said it was like, to the team as a whole. Right. But there were definitely times because there were obviously some departments that are doing better than others where it was like. And this department in particular, now, that department is run by one person. So it's not, though.

It's. It's really not. It's because the hands that are in it are too many in the marketing. I don't mean that as a criticism. I mean it as an accurate representation. So I said, we are failing at marketing to fill the top of the funnel, because that is the problem. Everything else is kind of clicking along fine. And we have a head of marketing, and that was Matt, the guy who we talked about whose feelings were hurt or not hurt or whatever. And so, yes, I did point that out, but again, that was. That is the problem. And there are multiple people that are in charge of that. There's Matt, there's Keenan, there's.

Well, you would think we as a company would be better. And this is where, again, this is me. I'm now acting as your defense attorney. I'm kind of opt in. I'm going to, like, throw a rock at you and then run behind you, be like, why'd you do that? Because it's interesting to me.

You can throw rocks. I got tough skin.

Oh, I know, I know. Believe me, I would never pick a fight with you. I know I would lose. No, the thing that I think wasn't fully appreciated in the moment is that one of the companies that we own is called Digital Marketer. If there's any area of the company that we should not be struggling with, it's marketing.

Right.

So if you're listening, you should know that even the stuff you're supposed to be good at every now and then, you're going to suck at it. And oftentimes because you just think you're good and so you stop trying new things and stuff gets old. But sometimes, yeah, you just are going through the motions. And sometimes even when you're good, you still screw up. But I think that it's why the words that we use, because looking back on it, it's so obvious that, yeah, you were talking to all of us, because all of us do marketing, right? And especially the people that are on this leadership team, many of them came, were leaders on this pesky company called Digital Marketer. So it's like we as a company are a marketing first Company marketing is everyone's responsibility. So I can on one hand appreciate how the person who heads marketing today could be like, what the heck? But I also understand that wasn't what you were saying. That being said, this is something I thought about later. The praise in public, reprimand in private. I almost wonder, like. So, yes, I think that that is generally true. And I think, especially when you are talking to somebody who is an individual contributor or fairly new at the company. Fairly. I think you got to be really, really careful there, right? Because you can really damage somebody, not just them, their psyche, but you can really damage them reputationally if the boss comes down on them hard. But for us in that meeting and when you're meeting with a leadership team, that to me feels different. That to me feels like we should be able to say what needs to be said. Because, yeah, we're the bosses, but in that moment, like, we're in charge, but these are also leaders at a particular skill level. Like, we're almost treating them like peers as we're working through this kind of stuff. And we need to be able to speak directly and not have to sugarcoat stuff. So how do you. Do you think that there's a difference? How would you approach it differently if you were seeing it and maybe having that conversation with somebody who's a little bit lower level in the company?

I actually have never heard praise in public, reprimand in private or whatever the actual saying is, But I believe that it is very valid. I also believe that you should be able to be honest with your team and that the people that are. If you're a leader, you should be able to take a rock. And before you consider it a rock, you should say, is it a rock or is it just true? Because to me, a rock. When we. When we do. When we use words. I'm a recovering attorney and a lover of words, right? So I'm very careful. Like, I don't. There was not an emotional outburst there. There was an intentional delivery of the facts in the way that I thought would convey the biggest impact. And I thought about the words that I was using and in particular chose marketing. Not Matt. Like, I didn't say, and Matt screwing up because I don't believe that he was. I believe that we all, you know, as a company had to Figure out something better, but we all better be aware of, like, what the facts are in terms of money. Because if we're not, then we might make different decisions all up and down. So I think that the key would be if you were going to talk to a person about their performance or lack of that, that would be something that would be done in private. But when you're talking about the company and you're saying, here's where we are falling down and here's where we stand as a consequence of that, and that can't continue, and we all need to pull together and figure out how we're going to help correct that, then I think you got to be able to have that conversation. Otherwise, the leadership team is the wrong leadership team. A leadership team needs to be able to hear things the way they are. They don't need to be beat up on. They don't need to be singled out. But they need to hear the way things are, and they need to hear where our collective leadership is failing. And that's why also, the minute that somebody gets upset or you hear that they're upset, don't go through a third party. Go to them directly and say, sincerely, I was not trying to call you out, and I apologize if you felt that I was. And that's a sincere apology from me to him. If that was the case, it's a conditional apology in that I am sincerely sorry in the condition that you got upset by that. At the same time, man, this is why I said it. And it's all of us, and then I talked about all the things we've just talked about. So I think it's important to do that. I think you have to be authentic and honest and say, this is the way things are. I think you have to say, this is what I believe is causing us the problem. Especially when all of us have talked about it in advance. You, me and Richard, the owners, have talked about it in advance, and we all agree on that. So I wasn't going in blind not having talked with you guys about it either. I think that's important so that you are all on the same page. We weren't on the same page, I guess, about the communication of it. But, Dagon, it's like what I should have done was said, I'm going to bring this up. But I thought that that was the whole point of having this leadership meeting. And if the only thing we're talking about is, hey, good, everybody's doing a good job and we're going along, then that's a Fantasy. And then that to me is not like, I don't want to be on that leadership team. I want to be on the leadership team that says, this is what's going on. We got to fix this.

You're totally right. When I remember thinking during, I was like, God dang, I wish I would have known that Roland was going to bring this up.

Yeah.

Just so I could have been emotionally prepared for it.

And that's fair. That is fair for me now to communicate that if I'm going to have a conversation about that, because I actually thought Richard was.

But to your point, that's quite literally the purpose of that meeting. Right, right. So, I mean, I remember thinking that in the moment and then going back and saying, well, if this isn't what this meeting is for, then what is it for? If we're not going to be here to have this real talk, then why are we there?

Right, right.

Certainly us. Like, why are we there to do that? This is the one time when we get everybody, you know, like on a zoom at the same time. It's the one time a week that we do it. If we can't have real talk, then, then when do we do it? So I do think that's important. Like one thing that I love to circle back and it might be a good thing to do at the next meeting and it might be a takeaway for, you know, everybody who's listening out there. Because this wasn't just a Ryan Roland therapy session. We really do hope that you get something from this. But the I think something worth doing is if you have a meeting that is like that and is with your leadership team just to set that standard, say, can we be real here? Right. Like, is this a meeting where we can speak the truth, even if it is hard? And I would even say, and frankly, can we have permission to call each other out? Because if we've got to wait and do separate, you know, like, I'm going to go here if we're going to. If the number one priority is protecting each other's feelings. And I think this is the difference. This is perhaps what separates somebody when they join a leadership team. Right. When you join a leadership team, you are basically saying, I am going to subordinate myself to the company. That's what it means to be a leader. If somebody's coming in as an individual contributor, they're fairly entry level at the company. Look, I mean, they're performing a particular thing. I don't expect them to have that same level of commitment because candidly, the company isn't making an equivalent level of commitment in them. Not yet. They got an opportunity to go there. But when you're at the highest level of the leadership team, you're saying, I am subordinating my own immediate needs for the sake of the company, for the sake of the group. I'm subordinating my feelings to that. So we gotta be able to say, like, yeah, this sucks. And that kind of hurt my feelings. But if that's the case, then I can go back to be like, hey, that kind of hurt my feelings when you said that. Let's have a conversation about it. That's a real thing to do. It cannot be. I don't believe a leadership team can be effective unless they can kind of piss each other off and still move on from it. If everybody's so hyper obsessed with making sure that they don't hurt anybody else's feelings, I just don't see how you get good work done.

Agree.

That goes for business partnerships. I think, going back. I think we should go back and have that conversation, especially being a week removed. Agreed. And say, hey, I know it got a little heated last time. This needs to be a place where we can do that and kind of. Well.

And the question is, again, the languaging right. To me, it didn't get heated. I wasn't like you guys. I was like, hey, this is where we stand. This isn't working out. It's dispassionate. It's not needed or not needed.

It's certainly a fan.

It's not pleasant.

But you're an attorney like you, you know how you are better. And this is why you're so good at doing deals. Right.

When we.

The last company we sold, I would have blown that thing up three or four different times just out of spite. Which is dumb, by the way. It is dumb. Like anybody in business, you've got to learn to turn off your own carnal, emotional instinct because it's business. Right. You are better at that than anybody else I've ever met in my entire life. I think that I am particularly bad at it. I think there's Glenn.

I don't think you are. I thank you for the compliment. I don't think you are. I do think that I would be the good person to introduce that since I was the person that had that conversation.

But I do think it is important to recognize that what isn't seen as an emotional thing for. For you might be seen that way for somebody else. And not saying this.

Yeah.

Because for me, I was like, yeah, no, this was pretty tense. And you're like, that wasn't tense at all. And I've known other friends, like attorneys, especially like litigators. They'll like, you'll have two attorneys that are litigators, like, yelling at each other, calling each other like, politicians are the worst and they'll go and like get a drink afterwards. Like, you guys are serial killers. So I think, you know that I do think, like for us that's something we should do for everybody else. I think it's appropriate that your next leadership meeting and do this when things are good. Yeah, I think it's a good thing to say. Like, things are great right now. It's not always going to be like this. And so we're high fiving and we're hugging and we're talking about how great each other are. We need to make sure that when it's not like this, we can be equally honest when it's time to flip it the other way. Because when I tell you this.

Hey, business lunch listeners. We're going to get right back to the show, but Roland wanted me to invite you to a brand new training that he's doing on acquiring businesses with no money out of pocket. It's something that he's talked quite a bit about on the show, but he's doing a free training where he's going to walk through the entire process. So if you want to get access to that, go to businesslunchpodcast.com EPIC. That's businesslunchpodcast.com Epic. And you can get signed up.

And I say that you're great and what we just did is awesome. I'm really proud of this team. You're gonna know that that's real when the inverse happens and we talk the same way 100%.

And I think that's a really big important part about having the ability to be real is cause otherwise it's just, you're great. No, you're great. No, you're great. You know, that's horrible.

And it's these like backstabby little frenemy kind of crap that I've got no time for in my personal life and frankly have no anything for in business. Because it's one thing if it's like I've known this person since college and I guess I have to tolerate them, which I don't do that either. But definitely when it's in business and we're paying people, I'm not gonna do it. So I learned a lot from this. I do. Thank you. I really do. I think the company benefited from you being willing to speak truth even when it isn't comfortable. Somebody always needs to be willing to do that. And I hope, and I think that as a leadership team, we will be stronger from having gone through this shared experience. It'll be something that we reference back to.

I think so too. And I will say, you know, in my own personal evolution in the past, 20 years ago, I would have been screw those people. If they don't get it and their feelings are hurt, that's dumb. So I've gotten a tremendous amount over the years and a whole lot because you have done such a great job and Richard, on being focused on culture, that I 100% buy into the importance of that. You do hear people and you are sincerely sorry if you hurt somebody's feelings and you're not afraid to risk the hurting of the feelings. If you're doing something that you feel is right and it's constructive, not destructive, then ultimately that's just human nature. There's going to be an ever changing balance of happy, unhappy, hurt, happy, you know, hurt, feeling, good support, whatever. The contra is there, but the paired opposite. You're the paired opposite guy, so you got to give me one. But that, like, that's really important that you can do that. And then you do it thinking about the culture with the right intent and you don't have a screw you attitude. And you're not emotional at all. Because if you're emotional, then that generally means that your lizard brain has taken over your logical brain and you might say things or do things that you regret to me going into it with the intent of here's what I took away. I talked to you first. I talked to Richard first. We aligned on what we thought I should have said because we haven't had a negative. We haven't had a critical conversation like that before in that leadership meeting, which, by the way, I'm new to relatively that group.

Well, the whole group is fairly new.

Right. So. So what I should have done was said, hey, guys. So I talked with both of you about this. I think we need to address that here. That would have been good, like you said, so that you were prepared. So that's my takeaway. And then I think what you said too is to ask permission. I mean, we're the owner, so ultimately you can say no, but then you got to go. But to ask permission to say, hey, we're going to be real here. If you guys want the sugar coated version, this probably isn't the leadership team for you But I tell you what, we're going to go so much farther, so much faster. And as you said, the praise will mean so much more when we're willing to be critical of ourselves and know that we're all here only to improve the company and each other. Nothing that is critical is said in a destructive manner. It's only said in a constructive. We gotta, you know, we gotta call this out and deal with this as a team. That's going to make you a better team. So I have takeaways from it too, on how I could have done it better and, you know, how I will in the future. And I think it'll be fun. I think we'll have a better team as a result of all the things that everybody's doing.

I agree. I agree. Like a couple of immature boys fighting in the schoolyard. Now they're best friends. Hug it out, bitch. No.

Now we can go have that drink.

Exactly. Yeah, we missed that part. All right, I think that's all for this episode. You got anything else you want to add to that? I think I really want to close this. I want to, you know, tie a nice little bow on this and then move on and just go back to making money.

Oh, heck yeah. To me it's. Yeah, it's all closed. But I am from that weird little gatorish kind of world where you can, you know, it's like, it's not personal unless it's personal. It's not personal unless it's personal. I can tell when it's personal, but yeah. So if you guys like this and other stuff like this. Please subscribe to Business Launch. We have lots of fun conversations as we are running all of our various companies to have and share with you guys. And hopefully there's a lot of value you got out of it if you did get a lot of value out of it. Please leave us a five star review. We always appreciate that and it helps other people see that. We got good stuff here too. And we're also very excited to be on a new campaign to get the word out to a whole lot more people. So if you'd like to share what you think about business lunch with other people outside of the formalities of leaving reviews and things like that. Refer a friend. We'd love to have them come. And we are about to have a big event depending on when you hear this traffic and Conversion Summit 2021 will be on the 13th, 14th and 15th of September. We would love to see you there. We anticipate, unless somebody in the government tells us we can't be. We're going to be there and hope to see you there as well. And with that, Brian, I'll let you tie the bow.

Oh, bow tied. Great week everyone. And we'll see you in the next episode.

Awesome. You've been listening to Business Lunch with Rolling for Fraser. If you're enjoying the show, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review. And for more information, go to businesslunchpodcast.com thank you for listening. Ever wondered how some people build real wealth through acquisitions while others just sit on the sidelines? Well, I'm here to tell you it's not about luck, it's about it's about having the right system, the right deals and the right guidance. And that's exactly what we give you in the EPIC Deal Fast Track. If you've been thinking about buying a business, but you keep getting stuck, whether it's finding the right deal, structuring the financing, or negotiating with sellers, you are not alone. Too many people waste months, even years just thinking about acquiring a business while the real opportunities pass them by. The Epic Deal Fast Track is not another course. It's actually an implementation program and it's designed to get you from the idea to the acquisition in just 16 weeks or less. We work with you one on one to help you find, fund and close your first or next deal. And once you do, we're going to plug you into our elite EPIC board community so that you can keep scaling through acquisitions. We install three powerful systems in your business. The first is the Deal Flow Engine so you always have high quality off market deals coming to you. Number two, we give you our offer and funding system so that you can structure offers that get accepted and fund them creatively many times with no money out of your own pocket. And number three are closing and integration systems so that you don't just buy a business, you actually successfully run and scale it once you have acquired it. Plus you'll have direct one on one support from an EPIC Deal Advisor every step of the way. And that's people that have actually come up through this system and done these deals themselves. That's the only way to become an EPIC Deal Advisor. And if you're serious about acquiring a business this year, don't just sit on the sidelines. Just text I'm in to 334-458-9034 and we'll get you in. So text I'm in to 334-458-9034 we'll get you in no fluff, no wasted time. Just real deal making from people that are actually out there doing deals right now.

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