The Achieve Podcast - James Pogue (JP Enterprises)

Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, those who are shaking up their industries and having an impact. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and excited today to be joined by James Pogue, the CEO at JP Enterprises. You can find him at jamespogue.com. Now, James, we were just talking off camera, but I'm excited about this. This conversation is going to be good. So first, thank you for joining us.

Oh, I'm glad to be here, man. I'm glad to be here. This is going to be good. We had great energy, great interaction. I, as I said before, I got an opportunity to, to see you interact with some other folks and, uh, thus far there you are not a disappointment. You're that guy.

Well, I appreciate that. And so for those getting to know you a little bit, give us the backstory because you're in a bit of a niche and how you help people. What brought you to this point?

Sure. So what feels like 100 years ago, I guess in my mid-20s, I was trying to figure out why it is that some people graduate from college and some people did not. There had to be a good reason. I mean, I was in college and people way smarter than me didn't come back the next semester. So I wondered, like, what is that about? And so I go to grad school to investigate what this is, and I wanted to find out all about the university, the organizations, and what was helping people to graduate, what wasn't. What about the students themselves? What about the faculty members, etc.? And so, uh, that research led me to to work at universities where I wanted to eventually become a university president. That was the plan. So I go off and get a PhD at the University of Arizona and then subsequently some work, some postdoctoral work at Harvard to identify what are the speed bumps that get in the way? How do we lower the temperature or lower those speed bumps so that more people can graduate? So at the end of the day, organizational psychology. And so we were really, we did really well at Binghamton University. We were the number one for graduation retention, the number one institution in the state, and then moved to becoming the number one institution in the country. Country for graduation retention rates, especially for sort of retention-sensitive people, folks who are coming from the farm, coming from the urban city, people without dollars and cents, people who aren't a natural fit for that university at the time. And so I began to talk a lot to different universities about how they could steal ideas from us. And then I got a call from a hospital and they said, we would like to be the hospital of choice in our community. If you did it for them, can you do it for us? I'm like, well, numbers are numbers, right? So send me the numbers. I run the multiple regressions and send them some data, give them some advice, go down there, and they write me a nice healthy check. And that's when I realized you can buy things with money and that I had clearly taken a vow of poverty in higher education unbeknownst to me. So I took an off-ramp from the university life in terms of full-time work and got into the entrepreneurial work. And we've been doing work to help organizations better understand how to get to success, right? How to lower the temperature or lower the speed bumps of disruption that happen so they can be more productive, more profitable, higher retention of critical staff, right? And be able to work to be a magnet to great talent that is looking for a great place to have their careers. I love that.

There's so much unpacking that. So how big is the team in the organization right now?

So the local team, if you will, is 6 people, maybe 6 and a half. And then we have an— we can expand and grow grow to the size of the organization. So we have 10, 12 consultants, 1099-type consultants that we can expand to. Been really fortunate to be able to work with some large legacy brands, say like the Domino's Pizza, the Chili's of the world, and things like that. And then we moved into finance, some more innocuous names, but in— to the people, large name like State Employees Credit Union in North Carolina. I didn't know anything about it 10, 15 years ago, but it's the second largest credit union in the country with like $50 billion plus assets. And we've done some work with them. And then the credit union or finance space, most of the organizations we are with are like billion-dollar-plus asset size.

Gotcha. And what would you say right now with where things are at, what's driving growth for the organization?

Like the disruption is in full view, right? It's not hidden anymore. It is raw. It is— we're all sensitive to it. We're all talking more about it. And the question becomes, how does that disruption impact your productivity, impact your member services, impact your profitability? And then there's different kinds of disruption. And how good are you, Madam Leader, Mr. Leader, at managing these different kinds of disruptions in such a way that it brings your team together, right? We hear stories often about that leader who can push their team through that merger or acquisition, a very traditional organizational disruption. But afterwards, they have burned the team out. They have ground them to a pulp. And they're like, I'm going to go find another job elsewhere. That means you've lost significant talent, right, in a space where you could have leveraged that disruption to bring people together. And on the other side of it, still have a very sticky team that is quick at decision-making, high in trust, and all the things that a great leader wants. Wow. Wow.

So looking back for you, what turning points have had the greatest impact on how you think about and run organization?

Oof. So I would say it is about the pause moments that are outside of my area of expertise.

Ooh.

Right? Are you being a great CEO? Well, I think so. Well, then what about this? And what about that? Does my team question me actively, uh, with enthusiasm, without fear of reprisal, knowing that the ideas that they are bringing to me, whether I like them or not, I'm at least going to listen intently Right. How am I forcing myself to grow? We talked about this on the pre-call. Am I putting myself in the room where I am the least bright bulb in the right room? Right. Am I willing to inch my way to the board table where I have the least amount to provide or to give? Right. Those kinds of things. And so when I test myself against those measurements and I identify how well am I doing, right, that's one measurement. The second is to take that same story to someone whom I respect, who's further along the path than I am, and say, what do you think? How do you think I'm doing? And request of them to give me what it is I need to hear. And if you have to punch me in the kidneys, I'm not gonna like it, but I just may need to hear it, and I would appreciate that honesty.

Oh, I love that. And that honesty is so valuable, like, to get that true mentorship and friendship.

As I said before, if you're not the kind of person who can give that to me, I'm just not sure what we're doing close to each other.

Mm, that's a good filter right there. So this next part, this next question is kind of a two-part question. When it comes to your outreach, your messaging, your marketing, what's been working well to attract and keep clients and customers?

On the attract side, we have a, a good, uh, uh, visibility on how our, uh, clients have come to us over the past, say, 7 years. And the vast majority have come through me speaking at a conference. So I go to a conference, I do a keynote or I do a workshop. Sometimes I MC events as well. And so what comes out of that is someone saying, I'd like to know more. Right. So they send a note and say, I'd like to get on a call for 30 minutes or something like that and find out what's happening. And when it comes to attracting or keeping, it's really about did we do a good job? Did we do a great job? And if we didn't, are we responsive? Are we responsive? You want a high net promoter score, then you're going to make some errors, right? I remember early on in my career, a client said we were— what was the language that they used? A comment that I gave was unremarkable. We were underwhelmed. That's what they said. We were underwhelmed by A, B, and C that happened. And it gutted me. It gutted me because I'm competitive and I like to win. I'm giving you something, I'm giving you my best, but it wasn't enough. I need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to deliver to the people that are in front of me my best efforts in a way that they can digest, because that was the issue. It wasn't that the data wasn't good or correct, it's that our delivery mechanism was suspect and I was that delivery mechanism. Mm. Wow.

That's a reality check. That's hard to— it's hard to swallow a lot. I mean, it's good leadership to be able to take that and internalize that.

And so most of us, uh, uh, have, have someone or someones who will help us with that. We have to unlock that door and invite that in.

Yeah. So when it comes to your sales and marketing, where do you feel like there's still opportunity or money on the table?

Hmm. I, I, I think some of it is about closing the deal. In my perfect world, I wish everything were free. I'm not certain if that makes me a socialist, but I wish that, you know, if it's good, take it. If it's not good, help me improve it. Then you can take it. Right. And then maybe we can barter and trade because there's something that I need. I mean, I don't know, but that's not the way that the world is set up. So personally, when I've been doing sales, I have a problem making the ask. Right? Because I just, I'm just, I just want to help you get better at the thing. I want to help you deal with this disruption, keep your team together, make more widgets, right? That's what I want to do. So that, that was part of it. The second is making sense out of the skill sets that are necessary. This skill set of managing disruption in such a way that it brings your team together. What is the value of that, James? Right? And then delivering that to the team that were the, to the client saying, It helps you be more productive, more profitable, keep your best talent, be a more trustworthy leader.

Wow. So with all the talk around AI and automation, where have you guys found ways internally to utilize it?

Internally? Oh yes, things happen faster. We can go through multiple iterations of an idea very quickly. And so as one of my professional development groups, I'm part of Vistage and also a Vistage speaker. I heard someone say, you're not going to lose your job to AI, you're going to lose your job to someone who knows how to use it better than you. So on our team, it is not about what does AI do for us, it's how do you use AI to help us to help the client. And often it's about going, it helps to go through multiple iterations of something. And then so you can ask it the question. One question I really love is, what is the intent of my thinking? After we're through with making the widget, what is the intention of this? What do you think the intention of this is? And how does, how does, what's the response we get from that? And then the, there's a sort of a capture-kill mode that we sometimes use, which is if you were competing with us, where are our gaps and where would you attack first? Is it our price point? Is it the talent on our team? Is it that we are not spending enough time in this area or that area? Like, help us understand how we are looking to the outside world and what are some of our flanks, as our flanks unprotected.

Mm, that's really good right there. So James, if you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, that could change the trajectory of the business, what would it be?

Always sales, man. It's always sales. There's, there's good talent out there and refinable talent, but getting the ideas in front of busy executives so that they can know that we even exist, that, that's important. I can only do so many keynotes so that we find another way. So doing podcasts like yours that reach out to different people is great and fantastic. Another is we've been doing more writing, if you will, and changing that writing from just sort of writing a newsletter to, to writing, quote unquote, that is short-form microlearning kinds of things that engage the listener, the potential client, in different ways. And the last one is to partner with the right kinds of people, people who have businesses that are adjacent to ours, sometimes maybe even competing a little bit, but that we can, we can leverage one another. There's more than enough business opportunity out there for people, more than enough for us to share. We don't all have to be at each other's throats. In fact, I don't have to be at your throat at all, because if this is a better opportunity for you than me, I should— James's ethic— I should give it to you. I should move myself out of the way because it's not about me, it's about what the client requires. And I should have faith and ethics and morals that suggest that if I'm, if I'm giving something to you, it's because I think that you're ethical and moral too. In a way that, in a way that we kind of share. And so when the opportunity comes for me, you will give something to me. I believe that. And maybe that is a bit Pollyanna and maybe that's a bit not as capitalistic as I would maybe like to be at times, but that's okay too. Last thing I'll say is I have to have an exit strategy for myself. Right? What's enough? How big is big enough? How much money is enough? What does happy mean? What does content mean? I'm not in search of being the, the most wealthy business owner of a boutique consulting firm out there. I refuse not to be at peace. I refuse. I love working hard, but I am not about to be stressed, man. I'm, I'm double nickel. I'm 55, right? And I am just not that dude that's going to be hyper stressed about some foolishness. I work my butt off, I drink water, I go for a walk every now and again, and I'm living a peaceful life while working very hard at something that I would do for free if the world was set up different.

Mm, that's good. Find what you love, you know how to work day in your life, right?

That's right. Wow.

So looking back at your journey, your wins, your mistakes, what lessons stand out to you? And what lessons do you feel like took longer to learn than they probably should have?

Yeah, so I mentioned to you on the, on the pre-call that I competed in karate for a while, and my instructor is a 9-time world champion. And at the time, I didn't know anything. I was just some athletic kid who thought he knew something. But then I learned, and I went to my first national championships and the world championships after that, and I'm fighting this guy, and the way it's set up with the double elimination and I'd already lost my first fight. So if I lose again, I'm out of the tournament. And so I kind of locked in and said, okay, I gotta do what I gotta do. And I was getting beat up, like my face looked like hamburger. And, but there's no coaching allowed in between the events, in between the round, in between like fight number 1 and fight number 2. So it's, I had like maybe 5 fights, had a 1-minute break. My instructor's walking by and he's kind of a legend there, right? 'Cause he's a 9-time world champion and I'm just a dude. So I said, Sensei, I thought the rules said light face contact was allowed. What's going on? In other words, save me, help me. Right. And he says, are they hitting you in the face lightly? I said, no, sir. He says, well, that must be the definition of light today. You need to figure it out. Right. In other words, you have all of the information And after you have all of the information, it's time to make a decision. So I had to decide, am I going to start to hit people as hard as this new version of Light? Am I ready to play with the big girls and boys or am I not? Is my heart pumping Kool-Aid or is it not? These are all just decisions I get to choose. I get to choose. And so I lock in and I start to do things differently and I start to engage differently. And so that taught me that at each level that you're trying to get to, right, the words on the page may be the same, but the reality of what is happening in that room is not.

For real.

It's not. And the fee that you pay for mistakes at the higher levels, it is massive. It is massive. So as one of my mentors says, you will never know the times your name gets shifted off the table because of a mistake you made previously. You're not at that table. And then I got to some of those tables and I saw people's names get shifted off. Oh, well, you know, Taylor Baker, you know, he just has some issues with timeliness sometimes. You know how he is. And your name just gets slid off the table. That's how the big girls and boys play. And so you better cross every T, you better dot every I. And if you didn't dot one I, Don't complain. I'm not complaining. I better figure out how to dot that I. So that one I learned pretty quickly. You said something that took a little bit longer. Um, how to critique things and people I love the most, ideas that I love the most, uh, concepts that I'm very passionate about, things where I'm really on one side of the line and not on the other side of the line, but I have to critique it hard. Right? Because if I am unwilling to critique that which I love the hardest, I have no business critiquing the other side of the lens. None. None. So I better be— I better be ravenous about looking at myself and my ideas and the things I'm pushing to make sure that they are pristine. And if I can't critique the things and the people that I love the most, I should wrap it up and go home.

Oh man, that is so good. Like to be able to critique the things you love the most, cuz then you learn how to do it with love, compassion, authenticity, and, and just realness. But right, it's, it's not, it's not just tearing it down, it's critiquing it.

Hmm.

So last question for you, James. When you think about the next stages of the business, what are you most excited about?

Well, it's the people that we can help, you know. In, in today's world is just, as I mentioned before, a lot of sensitivities, a lot of open wounds, a lot of open wounds. And a lot of leaders, um, are on their way out. A lot of our, our baby boomer friends, you know, what are they, retiring at 10,000 a day or something like that? And good for them. And I appreciate the work that they did in setting some things up, even setting up the problems that we need to figure out. It's our job now, right? So I'm excited about that. It is hard work. You know, it's like you're looking up a mountain and I've got to do my part. May not get all the way up the mountain, but I'm going to do my part. So I'm excited about the work. I'm excited about the challenges and the gaps and what this— my time as a student and a continuing student have positioned me to be able to give back to the people who can use my services or the little bit of wisdom that I picked up the most. Second piece, I'm excited about what there is yet for me to learn. I'm not done yet, right? I know some things and I'm good at some things, but I'm not done yet. There is something out there that I don't even know exists that I'm going to be very passionate about day after tomorrow. And that, that makes me smile. Traveling the world and trying different food and learning different languages, playing different instruments, as we talked about before. I'm excited about what's next just as much as I'm excited about what I can do.

I love that hopeful vision for the future. That's good. So thank you for joining us and sharing so much, so many takeaways. Any final words for our listeners or others on a similar journey?

I think that, you know, you have to be patient and forgiving with yourself because you're going to blow it and then you're going to blow it again and then you're going to blow it again, you know. But can you get up one more time than you fell down? Right. And do so with grace and gratitude. You know, learn to— I'll share this, this small piece of my own story that I have two daughters. And my two daughters have a total of 6 daughters. So I've got— it's all girls and 6 granddaughters. And my eldest daughter, she died a little over 5 years ago connected to childbirth. So we also lost the baby. And I have learned that we have to find a way to be grateful for the worst things that ever happened to us. We have to find a way to say, I'm grateful my daughter passed away. Because fill in the blank. I am grateful. You have to find it. It is— I'm not saying that it's easy, and it sounds disgusting sometimes for me to say out loud because everybody's experienced loss. I'm not the only one, right? But we— if you can find a way to do it in the worst moments, then your muscles are strong enough for all the others. Oh wow.

That is so good. Wow.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us and sharing so much. And for those who want to learn more, they can go to your website, James, J-A-M-E-S, P-O-G-U-E.com, Pogue. Anywhere on LinkedIn, anywhere else you want to send them.

If you're interested in the podcast that we do, it's called The Right Kind of Uncomfortable. I am not as good as Mr. Taylor here. I'm not as funny, and his smile and his dimples are better than mine. He's a good-looking man. You got to just respect You got to respect the game.

This isn't the money makers. Like, I dress nice to kind of COVID this up.

That's why I wear a beard. I really enjoyed the time. Yeah, we do a podcast called The Right Kind of Uncomfortable, but through LinkedIn or the website jameshogue.com, or if you want to hit me up individually and just have a conversation either about the business or about something that's going on, happy to have a conversation with anybody that's going to teach me something or where I might be able to help. And my email address is my first last name at my first last name dot com. James Pogue at jamespogue.com.

Awesome. Thank you. And again, check out that podcast, The Right Kind of Uncomfortable. And thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed the podcast, share it with a friend, with a colleague. If you have questions, you're not sure, reach out to James and the team. They'll help you out, find out how to overcome those difficult challenges you and the team are facing. And help navigate these learning opportunities that we have.

Right.

So thank you again, and we'll see you all in the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.