How Leading with Core Values and Vision Fuels SAAS Growth and Best Selling Books

And that goes back to again, you know, our whole mindset of creating raving fans and just a different way to approach business. And I think it's pretty uncommon to really say, yeah, we're going to scale from zero to a multimillion dollar company without the whole notion of a salesforce.

Dr. Marty Stockman, Nick Coniglio, authors of Lead It Like Lasso.

That's us.

And co founders of Life Cycle Insights, which is now a scale pad company. Really excited to have you guys here and really excited to talk about the book Leadership, Leadership is Life and all kinds of other great number one. That's it. Yeah, there's all kinds of other great witticism's there. But to start, can you guys give, give us and our listeners just a little bit of background on your story because I love it. The fact that I'm gonna go ahead and set it up.

Okay.

Because I always tell people, imagine your favorite high school teacher went and started a company and became a kick ass CEO with the co founders. And they went and scaled. That's my friend Marnie or co founder Nick and their co founder. So yeah, tell us about that journey.

I guess I'll start since I was the high school teacher. Yeah, I started out as a high school math teacher which typically when we're in business settings I then say means I sold Pre calculus to 16 year olds. So we probably know something about selling and customer success. And in my education progression I landed working, I was at the board office in charge of math and all data and I was working with a data platform, an assessment platform for students. And one day I was in training for that platform and something happened on the back end and the trainer said hold on, let me see if I can get this taken care of. And I saw my first ever dm. I'd never seen a direct message before on the screen and a DM pops back up and it says give me a sec. And the name in front is Nick Coniglio. So before I had ever even known of this human I thought, oh, what? Who is this magic Nick Kniglio?

I never heard that part of the story.

I know that's, I thought I'd share today. So he, and he solved it literally in the second that it took. So my first impression of Nick Gigniglia was all shock and awe from the beginning and he's been doing that ever since. So I ended up working for that company because they decided I would make a better customer success manager than noisy client. And together we, Nick ran all kinds of things on the engineering side, including support. And I ran customer success. And I'm going to stop there so Nick can catch up to that point and then tell how we then together landed here.

Yeah, I haven't heard that story in a while, so that makes me feel good. Thanks, Marnie. But I mean, before I pick back up on that story, so I, you know I'm a technologist, Right. I've got a computer science degree. I was a computer programmer for a while, shifted into consulting, learned how to do the translation between business and technology. And I had a knack for joining small companies, zero to 10 people and just growing with that company. And that happened to me three or four times. Where we started 0 to 10 people. We scaled to 50 to 100 to 150 people and kept on exiting. And I had never, although I had equity in some of those companies, I'd never been part of the ownership group. And fast forward to the story Marnie was just talking about with the ed tech company. That's where we first started working together. I started that company as employee 7 or 8. And at that point when Marnie joined, we were probably 40, 50 people.

Yeah, I think I was 57, I think, yeah.

And we had experienced some really good success as a company. And we got acquired and then we got acquired again. And we got acquired again. Ultimately, what is now a billion dollar company ended up acquiring us. And Marnie was really in charge of customer success. And I, part of my responsibility was customer support. We were kept being told by leadership that, okay, our mission, our core value is raving fans and Marty and I manage the whole customer experience process. But they kept on investing in sales and outselling our ability to support the product and reducing our resources. Right. So it was, we often say it was like we felt like we were being managed by the Rupert Mannings of the world, tie it back to Ted Lasso. But we had to develop some sort of framework to meet the challenge at hand. And we did that. We did that with success. But it really was a disconnect between what the stated vision and core value of the company was versus what we were living. And we had made a decision at some point. I'll never forget Mariam Frank, her husband, they were taking a trip to Florida, I live in Atlanta. And they stopped by on the way down and we told our respective spouses that, hey, we think we know how to, how to really launch a business and start a business with everything that we've learned and what our beliefs and our philosophy was. And that's what we did we? We ended up starting Lifecycle Insights. There's more to that story, but that's.

How we got there.

Starting Lifecycle Insights. We had no idea about the MSP space at all. We went in with a philosophy, a framework, not knowing anything about the industry at all. And we're here now.

I didn't realize you guys went in with zero knowledge of the MSP space because you guys have been, as much as anybody, my reintroduction into the space. But I've come to think of you guys as like the folks that were everywhere, because that was one of your goals, was just to be everywhere.

It was, yeah. I thought MSP stood for Maryland State Police because I'm a Marylander and one of our other co founders was an msp. But honestly, I only knew him to be an IT person, so he had to explain to us. He basically Shark Tank pitched us the idea and the space. Nick and I were drinking through the fire hose. Rmm, psa, isp. Any three letters strung together suddenly meant something new in our world overnight. So we had a lot of learning to do for sure.

I remember we did a webinar together and you were setting up your goals in result maps with something like be everywhere in the MSP world.

Yeah, yeah.

And suddenly you were.

We really did. We. We started on Halloween 2019 at a conference. So our full investment in the company was us, you know, getting a booth and a conference. And we said we were going to be at conferences. And then Covid hit and so being everywhere had to look different. And if it was on social media, we were here, there, and Roy Kent, every effin where. And one of my favorite, I always ask people, where did you hear about us? And many times prospects would say, like, where didn't I hear about you? You're on LinkedIn, you're on Instagram, you're on Facebook, you're everywhere. My favorite, however, was when I asked someone, how did you decide you wanted to come chat with us today? And he said, nobody likes anybody on Reddit and they love you guys. So I had to come figure out what the hype was all about. So, yeah, be everywhere, absolutely. Part of what we need to do. Meet your customers where they are, and they were everywhere.

So you guys really part of your go to market was aligning with those core values that brought you together in the first place is one thing I hear there, which is super interesting.

And that was our whole strategy. Scott, when before we even met Alex, the other co founder, one of the other co founders of Lifecycle Insights Our go to market was okay, we are going to build a business around these core values, right? They were raving fans, growth, transparency, get stuff done right people, right seats. And then the whole idea of being everywhere, education through engagement and entertainment, community having fun. And we realized once, once we were confident in those core values and those were values that were very important to us, we're going to build a business around this. We're going to set our vision, make sure that we hold ourselves accountable to that vision through the goal setting and all sorts of things. But we talk a lot about it in the book. And I know you, you are a big believer in this as well. But to us, the whole our operating system started with our core values. And I think when I think about times in my career where we haven't been successful, it's we bypassed and skipped that step of identify who we really were and what we really wanted to be. And that's one of the messages that we absolutely tried to have come through in the book. Leader, like passive.

I love that. And one thing that comes out and I'm wondering if you guys actually had it stated as a core value and if you didn't, maybe you had it implied. But it was the Rising Tide raises all ships. There was very much that jumped right out from day one. Like you like, hey guys, let's go, let's all elevate, grow. We'll figure out a way to do this together. Was that intentional?

I think that was probably part of the growth piece. We do not have degrees in running businesses. There are no MBAs sitting around in our living rooms that we didn't know about. So we had a lot of learning to do. But I do think one of our other core values would be around the education is our own self education. So I think that, that we, we really supported each other in terms of learning what needed to happen in order to make it work. So absolutely. A Rising Tide lifts all ships, not just internally, but for our clients as well. Because we spent a lot of time educating the market. Rebecca Welton says in Ted Lasso, every disadvantage has its advantage. And we came from a very different world of education into the IT space and driving a company based on customer success because we didn't have any salespeople. Right. We were just focused on creating raving fans is a very different approach from the IT industry who focuses on tech solutions, not always the customer outcome. So we really included in the Rising Tide lifting all ships was including our partners in that as well.

And you use partner. We talked about this Yesterday, you use partner a little differently. You're not talking about referral partners or affiliates. You're talking about everyone who was on your platform.

Yes. All right, so clients, customers, whatever anyone else would call them. Both of those seemed a little too third party removed or clinical maybe. We really felt like we partnered with them. We had weekly calls with them. Nick would present the roadmap to the partners and we get partner feedback on what the roadmap should be. So we really did feel that was not a word we use lightly. And a lot of folks do just throw it out there. We are not kidding. We're all partnering in this together.

And shoot. They, they, like Marty said, we did not have a salesforce. We did not have a sales team. So they were truly our partners in that they helped advocate for the Lifecycle insights way. And that goes back to again, you know, our whole mindset of creating raving fans and just a different way to approach business. And I think it's pretty uncommon to really say, yeah, we're going to scale from zero to a multimillion dollar company without the whole notion of a salesforce. And for us, that was fun. Right? Because people truly got value out of our product and if they didn't, we would not have been successful. And to us, at the end of the day, we feel very good about that.

I've never. Go ahead, Marnie.

I just love to tell this little story as an example because people might think, what does that look like, right? That they're selling for you or supporting you. An easy one is people would come and join us at the booth at shows. We would give them a T shirt, but there was no other perk for doing so. But they would stand and chat with us. But even in terms of the support that we could give them, we had a Slack channel where all of our partners could jump in and get other partners or ourselves to answer questions. And I remember one Saturday afternoon I was taking a walk and somebody put in the Slack channel that they had a question about onboarding. And as I was going to respond, one of our partners said, I'll jump on a call with you and walk you through it. So I couldn't even get back to a computer faster than one of our partners agreed to help onboard one of our other partners. So like Nick said, that's cool. Yeah, it was cool. I was like.

Yeah, very cool. Then the other thing that comes to mind, it's a common trait among the founders I talk to that have been able to create some interesting growth is this idea of Building in public. And I've never actually heard you use that word, but it strikes me that's essentially what you did with all of the webinars. And being out there and talking to people, it was like your whole. Your leadership team was just embedded in the market. You guys were out there, you're talking to people, you're making the changes with that same approach that first connected you guys, where it's like, hey, here's an issue. Okay, here's a solution. Immediately, that really jumps out, because I talked with Heidi. Desponde of simplified. They grew very similarly. We try to grow very similarly. I. I love that approach because it's very much a teaming approach. The other thing that jumped out as you guys were telling that story. I'm just curious, in writing the book, did you go, like, get scripts or memorize? You're, like, quoting Rebecca Welton off the top of your head. We can all quote Roy Kent.

You know, that's easy. Four letters, good to go.

So did you guys dive deep? Clearly, you did. You're in lasso. You're down the lasso rabbit hole. But, yeah, tell me a little bit about that process.

I think that was the best part of the project, which was we had to watch Ted Lasso over and over and over again.

We're still doing it.

Yeah, we are still doing it. And I think the brilliance of that show is that there are so many little Easter eggs hidden in that you don't recognize it the first or the second time. And then I think you just pick it up along the way. That, oh, yeah, I can quote Higgins or Ted Lasso or Rebecca or Nate or what have you almost in any type of situation, because the stories and the arc of the characters are so relatable to people that watch the show and relatable to real life experiences. And that's, quite honestly, what's been, in my mind, really successful with our book is the relatability of everything that the characters went through. Because it's really a story about redemption and personal development. It's not about soccer. Right. It's about all these different things that people go through in their everyday lives. And one of our goals with presenting leadership in a different way was really to make it relatable. And I think Ted Lasso is. Is really the. The perfect vehicle to do it. And it's a lot of fun. Gosh, I love watching that show.

So it's a lot of fun. The book was a lot of fun as well. It's such a. It's like another leadership Book I've got people send me leadership books all the time. And I'm like, yeah, I know, let's. You can never read too much on the one hand, but this is a very, it's a different take. And, and it's not just, hey, go be like this character. It's here's a principle. We just, in a book club, we just. I, for me, reread Deliberate Discomfort. But you guys used, even before, I guess you're probably familiar with it, you used a similar format, which is here's a story. Deliberate Discomfort would be like a story from the battlefield. You guys were. And then break down. Here's this principle and what it is. Here's how you use it. Here's additional reading. Just a great approach. What made you guys want to write a book on leadership?

After we sold the company, a few things. First, we were getting a lot of questions around how we were successful and when we thought about was how we were successful, not just in the company, but how we'd been successful our whole lives, right? Every bit of our own success came from a lot of the same principles, core values and framework. So that was the first step of, well, we could answer all of these questions in a book.

And I think one of the things we, we took the approach with the book, we very much focus it on personal leadership, right? Where we make the premise that everybody's a leader, leader. It doesn't matter if you're in the classroom, the locker room, the boardroom, the dining room. You can be a mom, you can be a dad, you can be a honest sports team, you can be a clerk within a convenience store. Everybody needs to learn how to lead themselves. And we both have children who are in those very early years of starting their careers, right. Or in college. And to me, I think it was Adam Grant. I've said this before, right? Hidden Potential, where he says, we're in the midst of a character revolution, right? With AI all over this place, all over the place. Technology skills, technical skills, everybody has access to them. So how are you going to stand out? You're going to stand out based on character. And part of the reason one of my motivations for writing this book was for my 20 year old son, right, to find a different way to communicate with him. How important emotional intelligence, personal leadership, character type skills actually are. We didn't know Marty's written a book before. It's very specific to the MSP space, but we didn't know if we were going to get 5 people or 100 people to buy this Book.

Right.

We had no idea. But it was, again, speaking from my personal perspective. It was yet another way to. For me to try to communicate what I think is important to not only my son, but I have the opportunity and privilege to mentor other people around his age. And I think it's just a really neat way of communicating the value, the importance of personal leadership.

That energy certainly comes through in the book and, and in the sales when you guys reflect on your journey. And I love that you're not just talking about, oh, I started my first business when I was 19. And from there I have had success after success. But it's no, we went through.

We.

We were at other startups. We went through a corporate path. There is no more bureaucratic path than the. Was it public school mar y so public education system. So you guys have really seen the workplace from a 360 degree angle. What do you feel like holds leaders back?

If.

Could you pick one thing that maybe your top thing that you find holds leaders back?

I've got a top thing. All right.

You can do top three.

I'd like to at least say two. So one, they read leadership books and then don't do anything about it. So if you're not going to take action, what are you doing? But I would say typically it comes around core values knowing themselves and then poor communication of that across the company. They might. And it's probably poor communication, period. Maybe they have a vision, they have a mission and haven't shared it well in the company or they haven't communicated their core values so that everyone understands the why. I don't want to say all the things. So I'll stop there before I say whatever Nick's going to say.

You can say as many of those as you want because we'll cut that up and that'll be a little snippet. Yeah, Sorry. Continue, please, you guys.

Yeah. I think the biggest challenges that I've seen and I've lived through. Right. Is two things, really. One is making things too complex. Right. Not simplifying things. We. I've been in situations where we would have, you know, different systems, whether it's an Excel spreadsheet or some platform or tool. 18 different things to manage our. Our goals and objectives. And everybody did it a different way. And everybody was trying to really have their own version of an operating framework to move forward with. And when things get overly complex, I think they just go out to pasture to die. Right. So every time I've been in a position where we've gotten stuck trying to grow the business. It's because we have too many different systems in place trying to achieve our ultimate goal. Along those lines, I think the most important thing that anybody trying to start and grow their business is really a commitment to a framework and a process. Even if it's not perfect, try to find that best framework and process. Gosh, Scott, if you would have saw what we tried to do in the early days of getting LCI started to manage our objectives and hold ourselves accountable to it, prior to understanding that there's platform like result maps out there, you would laugh at us. Having a commitment to a framework and a process that is consistent across your entire organization to me, is absolutely critical. And it's. When I haven't had that at my disposal, in my experience, that's when we failed.

In the past, you just gave me a little PTSD thinking about some of the Google Drive diving. That's how you go find where.

That's so common, though. That's so common.

Yeah.

Oh, we'll just. We'll put in a spreadsheet and we'll link to our documents and.

And it.

Yeah, it explodes.

Yeah.

I'm literally so many files. I'm literally picturing days of searching of. What was that in our Q1 meeting or Q2 meeting where we said we were going to do these objectives so that we could follow up on them. Oh, thank you for that reminder.

What are you guys doing next? Where does it go from Lead it like Lasso. The book is selling beautifully. It's so fun to watch just hustling on this like you guys did as well. When I say hustle, though, there's a hustle where it's hustle and grind. And you picture, like the basketball player coming off the court sweating and just utterly hating life. They're working hard. You guys make it seem fun. Like you're. Yeah, go ahead.

Now, I was just gonna say, what are we doing next? I. I was gonna answer that question, which is. The first priority that we have is to enjoy what we do. And. And that's to have fun doing it. And we've had the ball bounce our way, you know, in a very good. In a very good manner. Right. We're very fortunate to be in a position that we're in, so our focus is to have fun. But we realized over the past four, five, six years that we are most successful when we're having fun. So we're out promoting and we're fortunate to be in a position where we feel like what gives us the most satisfaction is providing people with tips and tricks and strategies to become the best versions of themselves. And that's what we're trying to do. So it's what's next for us is continue promoting the book because we feel like that's a good strategy to do that and tool to do that. But we've also got a master class coming out in the next couple months. Next month, Marty, are we shooting for.

Yeah, it's May 1st today, so. Yes.

Yeah, this month. Gosh, that's scary. But yeah, it's really about trying to provide people who are like minded to us, who like to have fun, who have similar core values with hopefully some motivation and some experiences that makes them believe that they can do it as well. That's what we're up to.

Very nice. We can find the book on Amazon.

Yep.

And Masterclass coming out. We can get a link.

Barnes and Noble stores.

Oh, and exciting, right? And Masterclass will put a link in the comments or the show notes and where the other places you guys got any upcoming speaking, anything like that you're doing where people look out for you?

Yeah, we do have some interesting speaking opportunities, although they're not public events. So it is curious who has reached out to us. There are a lot of Ted Delasso fans out in the world. If people love Ted Lasso, check out our episode on Peanut Butter and Biscuits podcast. We had a lot of fun with them and we've got our own podcast lens of leadership. So if you want to rewatch Ted Lasso and learn the leadership lessons as you go, chase us down there, because that is a ton of fun for us. But some folks have us speaking where we're doing a superintendent and board conference where all the superintendents and their board members come together and we're doing a presentation there. We've got some large companies that have 200 new leaders that want to help their leaders lead it like Lasso. So we're really lucky in terms of getting to present to folks who were really inspired by Ted Lasso and want to make a change themselves and learn to lead. And one thing I say, you don't have to be Ted Lasso, even though we say lead it like Lasso. Part of his magic was that he knew how to build a team that really was everybody's. All of his diamond dogs, right? The folks that really completed him. And so everybody gets to be the best version of themselves. They don't have to try to be Ted Lasso.

It's just fascinating to see how this has evolved. You guys really appreciate you coming on and sharing these lessons. Really appreciate the work you're doing. I know there's more to talk about, but I also know you guys are going to be out there. People can reach out. Is there.

There's a website, lead it like lasso.com and all the socials are lead it like lasso. So you can find us here, there. And like I said, every effing we.