64. Growth and Scaling

Intro: Duration: (02:07)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

This Human Capital Podcast is brought to you by GoalSpan, a performance management app that helps you set goals, get real time feedback, run reviews, and align your workforce around what's most important. With Goal Span, you can integrate with all your favorite HR and payroll apps. To learn more, go to goalspan.com.

Hi, I'm Jeff Hunt. Welcome to the Human Capital Podcast. The startup world isn't for the faint of heart, unfortunately. In some ways, it's kind of like the highway of death. According to the Startup Genome Project, the global average startup failure rate within the first four years is around 90%. This means only about 10% of startups are able to scale or survive beyond the initial stages.

If you're working in one of those startups, do you know what's important for you to be aware of and how you can influence these things? If you're a founder or on the executive team of a startup, how can you not only execute winning growth strategies, but also build and preserve a culture that's valuable and human oriented?

Today on the show, I have the pleasure of interviewing Todd Westra. Todd knows a thing or two about startups since he's had several successful exits over his career. He's presently c e o at with Moku and the Captain's Council. Todd also hosts a popular show called The Growth and Scaling Podcast, which you can find streaming on all platforms.

Hey Todd, welcome to the Human Capital Podcast.

Todd Westra:

Thank you. I'm excited to be here. This is gonna be awesome, Jeff.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, I'm just so excited because I had the opportunity to be on your show, which I'm gonna ask you to tell us about. Of course. And it was such a fun conversation, and I'm thinking, okay, I gotta have Todd on my show because you have such an amazing amount of wisdom. And so here you are.

Todd Westra:

No, I appreciate it. And, and I think that it is, not that I have amazing amount, wisdom, I think that we just both like the same thing and so we both think each other are pretty awesome.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you along your career? (02:08)

Jeff Hunt:

Well, you're a, you're a humble guy, so let me tell you, I know your track record and your experience, so we're gonna tap into that today.

But before we do, thank, give us a thumbnail of your career journey and as you share where you've been and where you're at today. Yeah, think about. Who inspired you most along the way? Was there any one or two people or things or totally courses that really inspired you?

Todd Westra:

Totally. I totally will. And, and you know, I always tell people that it all started on my paper out.

I love it. Hey, remember, to be honest, I'm the eighth of nine kids and one of my older brothers and I, we were really jealous of the kids in the new neighborhood down the street and we said, mom, mom, We want this, we want that. She's like, well go find a way to earn some money then. And we did. We got a paper out and I learned how to sell to my neighbors.

I learned how to work with a supplier. I learned how to do the fulfillment of the delivery. I learned how to collect money at the end of the month and pay an invoice. And those five lessons add as an eight year old taught me the fundamentals of how business works. And to be honest, I did it for five years and.

As I got older and got a little more mature, I started finding that those principles applied in every industry that I thought to go in. And so in college I started a business in the golf industry because I loved to golf. I then started a business in the audio video industry cuz I saw my first flat screen TV and thought, oh my gosh, if I could make money doing that all day, who wouldn't wanna do that?

And I literally went from industry to industry with the anticipation of. Hey, I really like stuff in this world. I bet you I can make a business out of it. And I did. So that's a brief snapshot of me. I, I really love, love, love the fact that in our country we are motivated and encouraged to do these things and just go create.

And what an exciting thing in life. You literally can generate revenue, doing almost anything you like to do if you know how to solve a problem. So that's the key thing, just knowing how to solve a problem.

Jeff Hunt:

Absolutely. Especially in the gig economy today, people can be scrappy and there's so many opportunities today to make money in different ways that didn't used to exist.

So you can just literally have a computer and a connection to the internet and you can make money. Totally. The cool thing. Totally. Well, what about inspiration along your career journey? Yeah. Was there anybody who inspired you?

Todd Westra:

A hundred percent definitely that paper out I did with my brother and my brother's name is John and he's since passed away as an adult.

And he always inspired me. He always pushed me to just go do what I thought would be best and go do something that would be fun. And so he truly did motivate me. I'd say another factor would be when I was in my twenties, I had a business in the audio video industry and I had a partner, Russ Wininger. Who truly inspired me.

We both came from very similar family backgrounds. We both hustled, had paper routes when we were kids and when we launched our business together, we were together about 10 years in business. And Russ and I both learned how to take different roles, we're huge advocates of the E-Myth. And that book really inspired us to build our org chart, understand what roles we were each taking, and we quickly.

Ran into a lot of success and that business that we created in 1999 is still in business today. I'm no longer part of it, but it is a still thriving and growing and, and it's so fun to drive past the building and see that it's still there and still moving and I don't have to run it. It's even better. So that's fantastic.

Jeff Hunt:

And for listeners out there, I just wanna remind you, if you haven't read the Emith or the Emith Revisited, Read it. It's an amazing book. And a couple takeaways that I remember, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but one Yeah. Is you learn as a business owner, leader, manager, how to reduce dependency on yourself.

So you literally, there's exactly, there's playbook in there on how to do that. Exactly. And then the other component is how can we as an organization create the franchise business model? So you figure out what works and then you replicate that. To produce revenue and value for your customers and your employees.

Todd Westra:

Right. I mean, you know, you talked about my podcast, it's called the Growth and Scaling Podcast, and right along the lines of what you're doing, it's the entire folks. You know, a business can only grow so big when it's owner dependent and when the founder has their fingers and everything. You really have a hard time growing past that 5 million or 10 million mark in revenue.

Until you learn the principles of E-myth and principles of, you know, there's a lot of people teaching different variations of this, but until you learn how to delegate and empower people with clear instruction of what needs to happen and how they can do it, and then give them flexibility to do it their own way, you're never gonna see the growth that the big companies do.

And so, yeah. That's the exciting thing about what we're talking about, and I think that's why we enjoy our conversations together is just that we both know that a business can only grow so far with an owner. Exactly. Being dependent on the owner. That's right. And so how do you facilitate growth? Hire people that are smarter than you.

Give them some flexibility and say, these are your objectives, and then hold 'em accountable.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. Exactly. For many organizations, the founder, owner, entrepreneur, principal leader has difficulty making that transition. So the difference between 500,000 and 50 million, they may still be going to IKEA and buying the furniture and putting it together.

We don't do that anymore. Yes, yes. I want to talk about how to make that transition for leaders. But one of the core aspects of that is actually culture. So when entrepreneurs start businesses, often the core values are actually representative of the founder, the principle entrepreneur, right? And then it can be preserved as the company grows.

But in your opinion, Todd, what are some kind of crucial strategies to. Be intentional about culture creation and development and sustainment in the midst of rapid growth and change.

Todd Westra:

I love it. Th this is such a key foundation. In fact, I've launched businesses and I've consulted with businesses, and as I was trying to figure out what kind of consultant do I want to be, this became one of the foundational pieces is when a company launches, oftentimes it's just like, Hey, here's a spattering of products I could try and do.

And we'll stick with the ones that work and they go and they have fun and, and usually it's a founder and a few buddies. And those first few employees are critically important in terms of setting the pace of your culture because as you attract people who are driven and motivated to see what you're gonna do and how you solve problems, it's exciting and it's fun and, and no business makes it past launch unless they're solving a problem.

People want to have solved. And so when you talk about culture and setting the culture, how do we solve this problem? Do we do that? Do we do it ethically? Are we doing this in a way that makes people happy? And that's all up to you as the founder to kind of set the tone. But what I've found in my last three launches, I literally, um, I, I, I determine what problem I wanna solve, who I wanna solve it for, and then create a product outta that.

When I productize that, I bring in a team and usually the first people I bring in are people that I say, Hey, I know you've solved this problem before. How do we wanna solve this problem in a way that identifies us as us? And that's been a fun conversation to have because even before we have more than four or five clients, you know, those first two or three clients, it's like, Hey, did it work?

Did this solution fix a problem? And if so, what were the things that you liked about it? What did you not like about your experience with us? And then you sit back and talk to your team and say, okay, first of all, this client was awesome. How do we attract more of this client? Well, this client really likes people who are ethical, who are strong, who maybe they have Christian Judeo values.

It doesn't matter. But if you want to work with a certain type of person, you need to understand what motivates them, what values they adhere to, because if you don't align, you're not gonna attract those types of clients. Or those types of employees. And so if you have a hardworking, accountable environment that you work within your company, guess who you're gonna attract?

People who wanna be held accountable, people who like organization, people who like structure, and they like to feel good about what they do. That's a great type of person to attract. It also attracts clients who are that way and they wanna work with somebody who's accountable and trustworthy and can work hard and, and be above board in everything they do.

That's how you build an organization is those values set the tone for your employee base as well as your client base. It's like magic People see it from a mile away and they are attracted to companies and people that think like they do.

Jeff Hunt:

I love that. And it's, uh, really another way of putting it, and you just said this earlier on, when you're in, in explaining this is.

Your differentiators because you are identifying what's most important, which is, yep. These small set of core values, these things that you hold near and dear, these behavioral attributes or principles that, right, that are critical to your success. So, but then those ultimately become your differentiator because your customers see that, your employees see that.

Your vendors and stakeholders all see it and they're attracted to it, right? Yes.

Todd Westra:

Totally. Yeah. I mean, who doesn't wanna work with someone that makes them better? Both on a business level and a personal level for sure. It's amazing. For sure.

Jeff Hunt:

So, for organizations that are growing and scaling fast, it seems imperative that they learn their leaders, managers, supervisors, and executives learn how to delegate.

Yes. And I'm wondering if you have any tips for. Especially entrepreneurs that have been, that are so used to being hands-on. Yes. How they can effectively delegate responsibilities and empower their teams to grow and scale. Right.

Todd Westra:

I would say it all starts with documenting how you just did what you did. A lot of founders will kind of create their business based off of feel.

And they feel they can anticipate what a potential client wants and then adapt whatever they set out to do to whatever that client wants and good founders they, they can adapt and they can kind of modify even on the fly what they need to do to make a client happy. Founders should never expect an employee to do that as well as they can, and I think that's the key thing to recognize is that.

Generally speaking, you're almost never gonna have someone who will do it the way that you did it. And so if you built a foundation of a company, don't expect anyone to just insightfully understand, oh, all I've gotta do is X, Y, Z, and then we'll have A, B, C, you know? Because they don't see it that way.

That's why they're not founders. So, you know what I mean? As I've done my podcast and, and I've now interviewed I think over 360 founders, I think that's one of the most common challenges I hear about from our guests is that repeatedly the biggest challenge is people and how do people not see what I see and, and how do I help my people to see what I see so that they can do what I did to build the business?

And that's good and is bad. The good is that you want people to see things the way you do, but the bad thing is a lot of these people will do things better than you. Mm-hmm. If you clearly identify what the objective is, if you just said, you know, Jeff, I wanna make sure that every one of our clients gets onboarded.

In a way that makes them feel really good and excited and they'll stick around for two years. That's an objective. If you say, this is exactly how I want them onboarded. I want them to first do this and then do that, and then I want them to do this form and I want them to send us this information.

Sometimes that. Gets in the way of the true objective of I want them to be super happy and stay with us for, for multiple years. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? I do. And so the, the employee gets on this like list of things that you gave them to do and they did a bad job doing that list. And so the clients leave after a month.

You just killed it. You just killed the whole thing by giving it too much instruction.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, if you can, it seems like if you can connect the dots as an organization between your vision, so where you're actually going as a company, right? And why that's inspiring and how you're gonna change the world. And then you add in your core values like you were just describing, Todd, which are these small set of behaviors we hold near and dear, and we hire and fire people over those behaviors.

And then you link there. Role definition, what's their actual role in helping to achieve that vision with those core values? And then you get to those objectives, those goals, then they can connect the dots and it makes sense to them.

Todd Westra:

Right? Totally. The connecting the dots has to be them, not you. Exactly.

Because if you wanna show them where the dots are, so they can say, oh, so you're saying if I do that and then that we're gonna have this outcome. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's that's right. That's when they, that's when they own it.

Jeff Hunt:

For sure. So regarding this whole topic of delegation and yeah, the tendency to micromanage, what about self-awareness by the leader?

So do we need to have, yeah. Leaders doing 360 degree feedback or being evaluated by the board. Uh, CEOs really being shown where they have blind spots. Is that helpful? And what have you seen work well there?

Todd Westra:

Of course, it's helpful. It's hard to do though. It does, and being self-aware is another key indicator that if you don't recognize that you're not good at some things, then again, you're gonna piss people off.

You're gonna tick off your employees, you're gonna tick off the clients too. I worked with the founder about a year and a half ago as a fractional C M O. And I was helping him put together an entire launch sequence for a new product he was offering, and he just kept getting in the way. It's so sad to say it, but like he was spoiled deals that we were putting together just because he couldn't get over him himself and how cool he thought he was.

And I was like, They don't care. They just wanna know how you fix their problem. You know, how do you fix their problem? Most clients really don't care as much about you as you think that they do, but they do care that you're gonna help them fix something they don't know how to fix or don't wanna fix. And so I think being self-aware for a founder is critically important in that you need to get over yourself.

You need to value the people you have to delegate to. If I knew that you were really good at creating this specific widget for my client, I would get outta your way and say, Jeff, this is what I want my client to feel. Can you make that widget, do that thing? And then tips are you'd be able to do it great.

But if I get in the way and say, you know, like we talked about earlier, hey, first do this, then do that, then do that. I limit your ability to get creative and come up with a better solution.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. Tell me a little bit about how the perspective of mistakes comes into the ability for leaders to delegate.

And there's different cultures on, on mistakes within organizations, but what's the difference in a company's opportunity to grow and scale based on these different cultural types of how we treat Yeah. Or mistakes that employees make.

Todd Westra:

Again, I think it's understanding the objective more than understanding the application or the implementation.

I've seen this so many times again, where maybe the company built their first 3 million in revenue doing one thing, but they've been at 3 million in revenue for three years. Maybe you're missing something that's a red flag. Being profitable is cool. But imagine if with the same amount of effort and getting more creative at how you execute it, you could now be at 10 million in revenue with the same number of employees.

Could that happen for you? I think in most cases it can. And I think it comes down to understanding that, you know, in my businesses I've learned that some of the biggest mistakes we made were the opening of the door to saying, oh my gosh, I don't even wanna try and solve that part of our solution. Let me go talk to so-and-so who does this all day long.

Sure. And they can fix that particular part of our solution. You know what I mean? And that's when magic starts happening. Because if I'm really good at one part of our execution, but I tried to add too many little variables, that gets a little bit crazy to manage sometimes. But if I say, Hey, I already know that Jeff's got a solution that he can plug into mine.

I don't have to worry about that part of it. I just know Jeff's gonna do it and I'm gonna pay him and he's gonna be happy. My clients are gonna be happier. And, and that's where it comes into a powerful scale up mode is understanding what parts and pieces you wanna keep in house. What parts do you wanna outsource a little bit or are there ways you can just be an affiliate for some solutions that you don't even wanna solve?

Jeff Hunt:

It's really about leverage, isn't it? So how can we leverage other strategic partners? How can we leverage our value proposition in new ways to make that grow and scale faster? One of the things that's obviously critical in any business is cash and capital and cash flow, and you can have the best idea on the planet that can be transformative worldwide.

But if you don't have right, the cash or the oxygen as we're gonna call it here, right? You're gonna die on the vine. And there's a lot of ways, obviously to raise capital. You can take the standard sort of seed angel VC route. You can bootstrap, you can go friends and family until you've grown enough, or you can just grow based on your own revenue growth organically.

You've just told me you've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of founders Yes. And CEOs. Yeah. What have you learned from all those interviews to kind of share with our audience?

Todd Westra:

A hundred percent. Again, this comes down to like a foundational concept that every operator needs to think about. And we talked already about kind of the, the guidance system is what I call it, your mission, vision, values, but now we're talking about exit strategy.

To what end are you building this business? If it's a lifestyle business and you're okay with it being a lifestyle business, you don't need to think about growth. You just maintain and build and just replace a, a lost customer with a new one. And, yeah. And that's a great thing. I mean, lifestyle businesses, there is nothing wrong with them.

And I think I heard a stat, I think like 93% of all businesses are quote unquote lifestyle businesses. They're not necessarily meant to grow and scale. And so that immediately puts this conversation in the lap of, what are you doing with your business? To what end are you growing this thing? And does it matter?

I had a lifestyle business with, with my partner when we were in our twenties. We didn't know it was a lifestyle business at the time. But it was one. The reason why I say that is it was impossible to grow and scale that business because it needed the founder's touch on every finish. It was a very, very meticulous, customized solution that we were doing, and it needed me or my partner to be involved at the finish of every project.

And so we found that we were. Profitable, and again, this is in the early 2000, this is, you know, 2000 to 2010, we were more profitable at about four or 5 million in revenue than we were at 10 million in revenue. It was the weirdest thing. We couldn't figure it out. Yeah. And we were like, How does this work?

We're doing way more revenue, but we're not as profitable.

Jeff Hunt:

Working harder and making less money, basically.

Todd Westra:

Yeah. Yeah. We were seriously, and it was so stupid, and we were like, well, we just expanded to Las Vegas and we just expanded to Jackson Hole, but apparently the cost of us rolling trucks out more often and the cost of us having to be there and the cost, we were less profitable.

So we just backtracked. We kept the business at about four or 5 million in revenue. And it became a wonderful, wonderful treat for both of us because we weren't as stressed and we didn't have to keep as many people happy and we were making more money. And so you gotta understand what your business is.

Is it, is it even scalable? Know your exit. Does somebody wanna acquire this? Or is this just something I'm gonna leave to my kids? Or is this something that it is just gonna go away at some point when I turn it off? And none of those are the wrong answer. But know what it is so that you don't get your hopes up that, Hey, I've heard that if people launch a business and they're successful in 10 years, someone's gonna buy it, because that doesn't mean that, you know, not at all.

Not at all. So if your goal is to sell it, what do I need to do to this business to make it sellable? If your goal is to be acquired, what do I need to do to my business to make it more acquirable? Make it look better. Put some lipstick on this thing that you, you love, but maybe someone else you know, in the industry is gonna love this thing.

If you did a couple of very quick changes, that's where you gotta start thinking about how to, how to grow and scale it. And those changes.

Jeff Hunt:

If you really do wanna sell, almost always include. Building it as an asset that is self-sustaining. So it goes back to earlier, earlier in our conversation, it's like reduce dependency on the owner and the the ceo, reduce dependency and then it's gonna be a lot more attractive to a buyer, right?

Todd Westra:

Most people don't wanna buy a founder. No, not at all. Not at all. You're not normal as a founder. Let's face it. We are not normal people and nobody wants to buy that problem of shiny object syndrome and all the other things that come with the people like us. Right?

Jeff Hunt:

And permission to speak freely to all owners.

Founders out there. Yeah. I hate to tell you, but your business is probably worth less than you think it is. Probably. It's a classic case because you're emotionally invested and you've spent so much time and money and blood, sweat, tears. And then when you're ready to sell it and somebody comes in and they say, I'm actually only gonna give you four times EBITDA instead of seven, or eight or 10 times ebitda, then you're, yeah, I, it is such a true thing.

Todd Westra:

And those rare use cases where you find somebody getting a, a multiple that's two or three times higher than the industry norm. It's because they were smart founders that knew I have a strategic play for my buyer, not just a convenient play for my buyer. And the three things that I'd tell every founder that I meet at the foundation of everything, you gotta understand what products are making money, which ones aren't, because sometimes we get really passionate about a product that's our least profitable product.

It's an emotional thing. Exactly. It's an emotional tie. Yeah. And so you gotta burn those things out. The second thing is you gotta understand your exit. You absolutely need to know, so what end am I building this business? And then lastly is that guidance system. We talked about mission, vision, values, and, and one thing I wanted to touch upon Jeff that we kinda skipped over is the fact that vision is the broad, long-term goal.

Mission is an objective. I, I use the military analogy on this all the time because it's like if you dropped the SEAL team six behind enemy lines and said, guys, we got a mission. We're gonna let, let's go back to a vision. We're gonna, we're gonna create a democratic society throughout the entire world, right?

And give freedom to the people, and you drop 'em behind the lines, they're gonna be dropped behind lines going, okay, what are we supposed to do? That vision taught me nothing about what I need to do. It's a great feel good statement, but what am I supposed to do behind this line? And so when you talk mission statements, it's about what mission are they on?

Are they gonna go behind that enemy lines, find Osama bin Laden and take 'em out? Or are they going to. Print leaflets and tell people that the world can be a better place if they, you know what I mean? It's like those are very D different, what's the mission? Yeah, yeah. Totally different. Totally different thing.

And so when you think about your business and you think about mission and getting the team around a mission, be very, very specific and make sure that the mission is something that changes every few months. Because right now I'm launching a community, the Captain's Council, my mission. For 2023 is by the end of the year, I wanna have 300 active, uh, members of our council.

And that is my mission statement. The vision is I want founders and business operators to feel like they have a community that understands them, that they can learn and grow from. That's the vision. The mission is, I wanna have 300 members by this date because it will help them drive success and growth.

And I can figure out my model so I know where I'm priced right and can grow. Like that's a very specific mission that I'm on. And it will only last till the end of the year. And then I'm gonna create another mission that, that I want my team to help us follow through with.

Jeff Hunt:

So before we shift into some lightning round questions, Yeah.

Let's talk briefly about the stats. If you look at the statistics for new companies and their ability to make it, they don't fare well like year one to year 3, 5, 10. The ability for a company to stay in existence, the odds are completely against you, and a lot of them don't make it. So if you unpack. Those that don't make it and derail while they're trying to grow and scale.

What are some of the main things that you've seen over your career?

Todd Westra:

Yeah, easy. Again, and this is gonna sound like I'm on repeat here. Solve a problem. Yeah, solve a problem. People want you to solve for them and know who you wanna work with. I think those two things are absolutely key. I talk to people all the time that are like, my solution solves the problem for everybody.

That's when you know they've got a problem. Absolutely. They don't know what their problem is. I've found that, that the people who have been most successful in their launch and in their growth and scaling journey are the people that really do know and understand that I solve this. I don't solve that.

And when you can say, I don't do that with a smile on your face and feel good that you don't solve that problem, that's when you know you're onto something because. If I were hiring a business coach, for example, I wouldn't want a business coach that just said, oh, I help every business leader figure out how to be successful.

That would make me think, okay, you're just being stupid. But if someone came to me and said, I work with founders of businesses who grow and scale to. To it's amount of revenue, 30 million in revenue. And they find themselves having a hard time organizing their teams and they do this. And I'd be like, okay, yeah, that's exactly what I, that's exactly where I'm at.

I need that. And if I'm talking to a group of 10 people and I only resonate with two of them, I'm okay with that. You know what I mean? And I think it's when you try to be the everything to everybody, that's when people know you're fake because you really can't be everything to everybody.

Jeff Hunt:

You can't. You definitely can't. Okay. Let's shift into some lightning round questions. My first question, Todd, is what are you most grateful for?

Todd Westra:

My family. I got seven kids. They, they're amazing. That's awesome. And my wife still hangs out with me, and that's awesome too.

Topic.Lighting round questions

Jeff Hunt:

What is the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Todd Westra:

That I don't know Everything. I'm happier when I have people around me that do things better than me.

Jeff Hunt:

Sometimes that's a tough lesson to learn, isn't it?

Todd Westra:

It's so hard, and my wife has helped me learn that. Absolutely. Trust. Trust so-and-so. They're way better at that thing than you are, right?

Jeff Hunt:

Okay. A lot of leadership lessons there, I'm telling you.

Todd Westra:

Huge, that you could unpack that a lot. No doubt.

Jeff Hunt:

Who is one person you could interview if you could living or not?

Todd Westra:

Love to interview Donald Miller. He is a hero of mine. He, he is a marketing genius and I, I love Don. I'm, I will get him on my show at some point. Nice.

Jeff Hunt:

Don, if you're listening to this, pick up the phone and call Todd. Love Donald Miller. He is a great story. Brand Master. Do you have a top book recommendation? Have you read any books recently you could recommend to our listeners?

Todd Westra:

Yeah, I mean, I, I, two things that I, I go back to quite a bit is, um, I go back a lot to the E-myth that that's just one that I keep, I always go back to High Performance Habits by Brenon Burchard.

I never get sick of, I, I'll re-listen to that book every year just because I, it keeps me, he is a motivational guy, but he's, he's a lot smarter than he seems from the outside guy. Great reference.

Jeff Hunt:

What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Todd Westra:

I feel like people are always giving me good advice. I feel like the best advice I've ever received is to absolutely trust people until they break it. I've learned that delegating is so much easier if you start by trusting them, and then if they don't follow through or don't execute, then you can make some judgements about whether or not you wanna work with them.

But, Given the benefit of the doubt until they break it, and then you'll find that people work better when they feel trusted. They'll perform way better when you trust them and you show them that they trust them.

Jeff Hunt:

No question. No question. And as Patrick Lencioni so beautifully coined, Yeah, it's vulnerability based trust, right?

It's not that, oh yeah, you've shown up to work at 8:00 AM for the past two years, so I know you're gonna show up at 8:00 AM tomorrow. It's that right? If I am vulnerable and I tell you something that could make you a better leader, that might be hard to hear. You're not gonna use that against me. So, Todd, as we wrap up, what is the one or two most important takeaways to leave our listeners with?

And then I'm gonna ask you how people can find you.

Todd Westra:

I would say the biggest takeaways are understand your own limitations and strategically align yourself in a way to overcome them. We talk a lot about your employees and how they can relieve burden from you by just being better at something than you, which is, I think step one.

Step two, surround yourself with other people doing what you're doing. You and I have talked about this, th this captain's council thing, I've got up in the corner of my screen here. I firmly believe that when founders are, are surrounding themselves with other business operators who are trying to grow and scale at the same time they are.

There's a synergy, there's an energy there that just builds momentum to lead into the next question. That's where you can find me. I am putting my energy right now into building this community. Because I'm so passionate about founders and operators, finding resources that actually help instead of dumping money into things that just are a dump.

And so find that place where you find comradery and you find people that aren't gonna judge you and they have no dependency on you. I think that's another key thing. If they're depending on you for payroll, they're gonna tell you what you want to hear. But if they have no dependency on you, if they're not a vendor or a client or an employee, they're gonna be a truthful, they'll tell you exactly what they think. Right.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. That's right. For sure. So that's great. So

Todd Westra:

Captains council. Yeah. Captains council.com. I know you've got a group that you run that's, that's doing the same, you solve the same problem. I do. Exactly. And, and I think that that's why we, we love this so much.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, and actually my group is a little different because yours is virtual.

I've run a group in the San Francisco Bay area. We are recruiting two more CEOs, so this is, yeah, do it in person group. That's, that's monthly. If you happen to be listening and you're CEO in the San Francisco Bay Area and you're interested in joining a group of peers, you can reach out to me and I can tell you a little bit about our group.

It's called the Forum, but I will say, Todd, that as a executive, a business leader, uh, especially a C E O, it can be lonely at the top. Oh, gotcha. So the ability to actually share openly and honestly with a group of peers can be transformational, uh, for you as a leader.

Todd Westra:

So massive, I think massively transformational.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. What you're doing is adding a lot of value and I think there's a huge opportunity for people to join something like this and transform the way they are doing business, and they're leading their, their teams. Todd, I just want to thank you so much for. Your podcast and what you're doing and the value you're bringing to your, to, to leaders, not not just leaders, but all employees and anyone who's in business.

And I also just wanna thank you for bringing all this great wisdom to the Human Capital Podcast today.

Todd Westra:

Thank you. It's my honor. Honestly, you got a great show going on here, and it's all those listening. Keep on listening and, uh, and make sure you're doing what you can do to, to build and grow. In a positive way.

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Outro (37:53)

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Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to Human Capital, if you like this show please tell your friends and also take the time to go rate and review us. Human Capital is a production of GoalSpan, your integrated source for performance management. Now go out and be the inspiration to other humans, and thank you for being human kind.