Gordon Parkman 00:03:52 I don’t do project work. I’m looking for long term relationships, so all my clients and I guess 2015, 2018 and it’s all about growing the business. I actually really never stopped growing the business as we’re working through the growth process. We’re also building value into the business, making sure all the processes are in place, all the systems are in place, and somebody’s going to go buy a business, and I’m going to buy the owner of the business. They’re going to buy the business. The expectation is it runs very well without that owner. That’s the focus that I have and working with my clients to get them to the point where managing the business and managing the growth of the business and not working on the business.
Freddy D 00:04:34 So with that of being able to, like you just said, managing the business, not working in the business, how important is it for them to have a good team and them taking care of that team, their employees? And because that team is really the front line to prospective existing customers, complementary businesses, Suppliers, distributors, if they have those.
Freddy D 00:05:01 how important is that culture in that company?
Gordon Parkman 00:05:05 I think that’s absolutely critical, because, yeah, business has to realize that the individual contacting the customer is the point of connection. And as that goes, the perception of the company goes, we really have to have individuals. Everybody has to play a position in their team and everybody has to help out and grow. So it’s really all about picking the right people to do the right job and again, providing them opportunity to grow within the business. And I’ve seen this within a number of my clients that works with them. They’ll bring it to visuals on it, maybe an entry level and next thing you know, they’re number two or number three within the business they’re committed to, as well as the owner of the business committed to the growth of the business. And I think what happens oftentimes individuals just go hire somebody. And they number one. They have no idea what they want them to do. They don’t know what skills they should provide, bring to the party and so forth.
Gordon Parkman 00:06:04 But it’s really all about positioning the business and getting the people in the business that will be the contributors, the key players in growing that business and my clients really, I encourage them really to make sure that they’re taking care of their employees in a fashion. And obviously, depending on where the business is or whatever, sometimes they can’t initially offer benefits or whatever. But as the business grows, provide opportunities for that.
Freddy D 00:06:34 Because in my experience, you really want to transform those employees into what I would call superfans of that business, where they’re excited about the fact that they work at this company. They tell all their family and friends about the company, and that energy transcends when they’re talking to a prospective customer or an existing customers earlier. They’re the front line. And so if they feel unappreciated, don’t get the recognition that they deserve. There isn’t any gratitude in the company. That’s going to change and sour the culture. And now that business has turnover, and that turnover is costing the business money in a big way, because people don’t realize that it is multifaceted, because just because a person leaves, okay, there’s a cost to that.
Freddy D 00:07:28 Now you’ve got to onboard a new person. So you got the cost of onboarding, finding and onboarding a new person. And now you’ve got the cost of two people because you’ve got the new person and somebody training that new person. And when they’re training that new person, they cannot be productive to do good training. I’m sure you’ve seen that and some of the companies that you’ve stepped into and help transform that whole culture.
Gordon Parkman 00:07:52 I think that’s really key. And to me, when I’m working with my clients and typically in a lot of cases, I’m also in addition to working with the owner of the business, I’m working with their team members as well, and it’s really all about helping and helping them feel like it there, that there is as much of the business as anyone else. And I was the attitude say, okay, if this was your business, what would you do? How would you act if this was your business? Because in essence, it is your business because to the outside world you are X, y, z business.
Gordon Parkman 00:08:26 And so essence. If you’re not committed and passionate about what you’re doing and where you’re working, it’s a complete reflection on that individual. And more importantly than or in a worst case, reflection on the company.
Freddy D 00:08:40 Yeah, you look at sports teams as an example, and they’ve got a player that seems to be mediocre. And so they trade them to another team. And then all of a sudden that mediocre player is a superstar. And it was like what changed? The player didn’t change. It’s the environment and the culture. Businesses need to really. You can have the right people. As you said, it’s important to bring on the right people. But if the culture is toxic, that person isn’t going to perform at the level that they can perform.
Gordon Parkman 00:09:15 Another point, you mentioned culture, and I think that key part of the fact is that you’re in your employees within a company or what determine the culture of the company, what you want it to be and what it’s going to be. We’re not going to be the same thing because the key piece is the culture is an evolution of the people according to your team, how they are, and they’ve gone home and ready to do whatever they have to do and provide you all the assistance in the world and territories and the respect of you as the leader.
Gordon Parkman 00:09:48 And more importantly, you’re respecting them as a team member and as you say, and the other part, too, is the fact that when you’re bringing in new people into the scene, having team members interview them as well. You know, I’m here to provide you the resources and the guidance and where we wanted to go, but you’re not going to want to work with so-and-so, then it’s not going to help either party. Yeah. One of the things.
Freddy D 00:10:13 I learned about leadership in my years in the corporate world and beyond is a good leader, empowers their team, and their job is to make their team successful. If they make their team successful, they don’t have to worry about their success or the company’s success because the team will take care of that automatically.
Gordon Parkman 00:10:37 Another key element of being a good leader is being a good listener, listening to what’s coming. I know that in the businesses that I ran, they’re all manufacturing businesses, and one of the things that I made sure every single morning I went around and said, good morning to every single that works for me.
Gordon Parkman 00:10:53 And I think what happens is it provided a level of interaction and a respect for one another that if they had something bothering them, they would say, hey, you got a couple minutes, right? I’ll take that couple of minutes. I remember them many years ago, but I was going around in the morning and one of the lady said, you didn’t come around yesterday morning. How come? And I said I had and actually the president and my boss, the CEO of the well, had come out. We had an offsite meeting early in the morning, and by the time the day came, he was there and I just didn’t have a chat. But it was like I said, thank you. And she said, let me thank you. I said, thank you for reminding me of what I need to do every morning. That’s when you develop the respect and they’re feeling part of the group that doesn’t say I used to do was I would have monthly company meetings and I’d tell them how we were doing and I was happy.
Gordon Parkman 00:11:53 Remember, I was in Washington state and I was having dinner with a gentleman I had met up there. He was another he was in another business and we having dinner, and he said, how is he doing? So that my company made it my quarterly company meeting. So what do you tell him? I said, I tell him how things are going. He said, what do you tell him? I said, the only way that I can improve on where we are is that the people who are part of my group understand where we are, where we need to focus our attention. If something needs a little bit more focus, they’re the ones that are going to do it. It’s the quality problem. I’m not going to be the one that get our production back to the amount we need to get out per day. Those are the people are going to do it.
Freddy D 00:12:34 When I was running the interpreting translation company for a little while, what we did is when I took over the company, we set up Monday morning meetings at 10 a.m. it was 30 minutes.
Freddy D 00:12:46 Each department reported what was the previous week, what was their goals and thoughts for the upcoming week. But we knew the mark that we were shooting for. And then when we had the accountant in the meeting as well and says, okay, where are we at to our goal. And okay, we’ve hit this much. And so I said I’d be cheering and say, hey man, congratulations. We hit another milestone and we grew that company close to $1 million in a year’s time because of that, because everybody knew what the goal was. And just like you said, everybody was part of that process. They weren’t left behind. They knew where we were financially. We didn’t place secrets. We shared where to profit. Margin is where we’re at. All that stuff because they were like, you just said, you and I couldn’t do it by ourselves. We need them to help do it. And more importantly, they were working with independent contractors that were our interpreters. One of the things I talk about in my book, Creating Business Superfans, is the importance of recognizing everybody in the whole ecosystem, because there’s speakers that talk about employee experience and customer experience, but nobody talks about subcontractors, nobody talks about suppliers, nobody talks about distributors, nobody talks about complementary businesses.
Freddy D 00:14:12 And the reality is all that comes into play. And what we did is we started a newsletter and for the interpreters, and we edified an interpreter once a month that went above and beyond stuff, and that started to change. We started sending birthday cards out to the interpreters, and these are independent contractors. But the reality was they were the front line that would go to a particular hospital and do interpreting or go to a court and do interpreting for an individual. They were representing the company. So it was important to have them as a superfan that says, man, this is a great company because then that customer says, all right, we picked the right company, especially if it’s a new customer. We ended up getting more business out of that.
Gordon Parkman 00:14:59 I think those are the kind of things that are really critical I talk about. I think really what you’re looking to do is going back to earlier, is the fact that developing a team of superfans and radiates throughout the community and out in the community, they’re out talking to other business people, or I’m talking to family people.
Gordon Parkman 00:15:20 I mean, they’re talking about, hey, this is really what was going on. Hey, this is really cool. Things that go on these kind of things, what happens is it develops a, a network, which really ultimately strengthens the business because the community is hearing from people who are part of the business, the people who are making things happen in reality. Hey, this is a really cool place to work. And I going back, which you talked about, turnover is incredibly expensive. And I think what happens oftentimes is experience is business. They just have no concept of that and how much it really cost you. I think he went through the scenario of what’s involved in it, and you become incredibly inefficient because you’re starting out all new people. You’re taking somebody that is, you need to do a job. These are some of the things that I’m working with my clients. And in a couple of cases, I only worked with the owner of the business, but I worked with their team members and helping them in developing themselves as individuals and how they can be more efficient, more effective for themselves, which in turn has become more effective and efficient for the business from assembling and providing them guidance that helps.
Gordon Parkman 00:16:42 Ultimately, the end of the day helps the overall business because these people are more efficient, which in turn makes the overall business more efficient. These people are committed and realizing the fact that their boss is spending money on me to help them so that their appreciation of the fact, hey, this really feels I’m really important because they’re providing Gordon as a resource to help me and become a better employee, become a better performer within the business and those kind of things.
Freddy D 00:17:11 Yeah, one of the things that I implemented and was taught years ago was where I would have the team member write down how they would describe them being successful in their position. So they wrote it all down. They wrote out what the goals would be, what the measurements would be. They did it all. I provided them with the guidelines and some questions, but they put it together. So now they owned the position because they created the job description of their position. So it’s their job and it’s their goals. So my job became easy because now my job was a trance.
Freddy D 00:17:54 Hey, Gordon, this is what you described as being your objectives for this year. And we’re doing pretty good on these, but we’re coming up short. How can I help you hit goal number four on your list? It’s a completely different mindset because they’ve own it now.
Gordon Parkman 00:18:12 I think that’s as you described, the kind of the way I work with my clients. I and I was when I’m talking to them, I’ll say, okay, what does success look like for you in December of 2027? This is one of usually what I’m talking with. Some of this is almost an entry level question. I asked them because I want to get an idea where they see themselves. And I always use what is success look like for you? Because in essence, that’s really what it’s all about, is them being successful and in.
Freddy D 00:18:41 Doing their job.
Gordon Parkman 00:18:42 Okay. Now what do you need to do to reach that level? What are the goals that you need to look at? This is where you want to if this is what success looks like you in 2027, what do you look like in December of 2025?
Freddy D 00:18:56 What resources can I provide to help you achieve your goal as my team member? I think those.
Gordon Parkman 00:19:02 Are the kind of things that I really encourage all the business leaders I work with and be talking with the people, because it’s the same thing as a standpoint of you need to look at it from a standpoint. For me to be successful, this is what I have to do when I reach this. I’m making this contribution to the company, ensuring the company is providing me these resources to help me do these kind of things. And I think when we talk about the whole team thing, the team in reality goes beyond just direct employees. The team is individuals that you interact with on the outside world. Okay. Who is your business attorney? Who is your business accountant? Who is your CPA? These people, you need to have the connections as a business owner. These are all part of your team.
Freddy D 00:19:50 It’s all of the contributing.
Freddy D 00:19:51 Factors.
Gordon Parkman 00:19:52 You need to be successful. You need to have these. Who’s your business banker? Who are you going to go to if you need a lot of credit? These are the kind of things that, in my mind, are incredibly important for business owners to realize that there’s a wealth of resources in the community to help them become more successful, and the ability to grow their business because they’re going to have a question.
Gordon Parkman 00:20:18 Let’s say you have a legal question or whatever. That’s not the time to go and go looking up on Google and finding a business attorney or whatever. It’s a situation when I always talk to my clients, if I may, give them a couple of different people that very strong business relationships, I may say, hey, these people get to know you because when you do have a problem or you have a situation, you don’t have to go to tell me all about it. They already know about you. They know about your business. They’re dealing with directly the problem that you have or the help you need. So you need to have that. Resources out there that know them. They’ve got to.
Freddy D 00:20:55 Be what I would call a superfan of you because of the fact how you treat them. So as you mentioned, the CPA, external lawyer and all that stuff, you need to recognize them, give them a birthday card. You need to appreciate them so that all of a sudden you get in a pinch and life happens.
Freddy D 00:21:14 You need to have those people that have your back, because the last thing you want to do is search for a solution online, because you got a deadline of tomorrow to get this thing handled, and you don’t have any of the resources because you didn’t take the time to build those resources and maintain those relationships with those resources. It’s one thing to also have a resource, but if you don’t have a ongoing relationship with them, but you call the red phone, it may not get picked up because, oh, that guy. I haven’t heard from him in a year.
Gordon Parkman 00:21:52 He must want something. Yeah, as opposed to. Oh, my God, we had coffee last week. To me, when we talk about the developing relationships, yeah, internally and externally, it’s really all about the continuing dialogue with these kind of always make them. As you as you said, you’re and players have to be superfans within your business because they’re going to interact with people outside the building.
Freddy D 00:22:18 And you’ve got to and you got to have superfans of all the external components.
Freddy D 00:22:22 If you got suppliers that are providing you your manufacturer or whatever, you got products that come in or you’re in construction, you’ve got still got to get material. If you don’t have a good relationship with that supplier, who’s a superfan of yours that says, oh yeah, my buddy Gordon calling me here, he needs this shipment of these things. Yeah, let’s prioritize that and get that to him, because he’s a good guy. He takes care of us versus somebody else that comes along and reaches out to him once a year when they need it, and then they start yelling because they can’t get the product delivered in time. It’s going to get slow boated.
Gordon Parkman 00:23:01 One of the things we talk about the I think in my mind, if we talk about the superfans and that type of a mode of discussion, it’s really all about business owners and being a proactive and not reactive and being proactive. They’re establishing the kind of things that they need to have in place that the resources that they need for the business.
Gordon Parkman 00:23:28 It’s also the standpoint of when I’m talking with my clients, we talk about, okay, what are your goals, what your action items that complete those goals. And oh, by the way, we’re the potential obstacles that we’re going to run into because we want to be in a situation should one of those come up. We already know we’re going to do okay. This comes up and we we already talked about it. This is what we’re going to do. And that’s how you become a continue to be incredibly efficient and effective because, you know, wasting time in a reactionary mode. You are a functioning and proactive. And I think that really the whole environment of the business community is really to have that kind of resources available to you have that mentality. Think ahead. You have to always be thinking ahead. Yeah, no worry about 11:00 this morning, but less worry about what do I what do we need to have it in place by the end of this year. So when we hit January 1st, 2025, we’re going to be blasting off and dealing with that.
Gordon Parkman 00:24:27 And we’ve cleaned up all of the stuff we need to have in place. So whatever it is, we’re not spending time well and really effectively pushing and growing the business, cleaning up a bunch of stuff that we should have already dealt with a long time ago.
Freddy D 00:24:44 Absolutely correct. And the other thing, too, is that if you don’t have those things in place, you don’t have standard operating procedures in place and things like that. The business can’t scale. It’s going to plateau. It’s going to hit a certain level. And if you’re working in your business, you’re going to reach a plateau. You’re going to have some success, but you’re going to hit that ceiling and you’re going to keep hitting your head against that ceiling. You’re not going to pass beyond that ceiling, because you can only do so much working in the business versus getting the team and releasing yourself to where you’re saying, okay, that person’s going to take over this responsibility and empower that person with decision making capabilities so they can make the decisions.
Freddy D 00:25:30 If they make a wrong decision, don’t chastise them. It’s a learning experience because they’ll feel bad enough about it. You don’t need to make it worse because then they’re going to be. Now if you chastise that person now becomes apprehensive of making any decisions. And so you just went backwards.
Gordon Parkman 00:25:51 And even in my corporate life, and even when I’m working with my clients, I always talk about is let’s not worry about who caused the problem. What are we doing moving forward? It’s things happen. Let’s worry about what do we have to do to move forward? That, to me, is the most important thing. It’s people make mistakes. Again, those are literally opportunities. That’s how I look at it.
Freddy D 00:26:12 So learning opportunity and most people, if you empower them, will acknowledge the mistake. Come to you and say, hey, I made a bad call here. I’m sorry, this is how I’m going to fix it. And then I’ll ask you, is this okay if I handle that? Typically, I’ve always said your call.
Freddy D 00:26:31 You’re in charge. Don’t come to me. You’re in charge. If you can’t handle it, then we have to have a different conversation. Usually they’ve come up with the a better solution than you and I would have thought up, because they’re into it. They’re in the game.
Gordon Parkman 00:26:46 Yeah, I think that’s one of the key part of it. About two is the fact that it’s really all about developing a solid attitude within the company so that people understand that, hey, I’m looking to do the best I possibly can and things are going to happen. So let’s move on behind. And what do we learn from it? That’s one of the things I always talk about in the first meeting of every month, as I was telling three questions, I asked my client what went well, what? What could have gone better, and what, if anything, he’s going to change moving forward. Because for things to get better, it’s awesome. Nothing more of more complicated than some kind of positive behavioral change makes us move forward.
Gordon Parkman 00:27:30 We have to look at it from that standpoint, capitalize on the great things. But if we had done this instead of that, this might have go okay in the future. This is what we’ll do. Everything’s a learning experience every day in business, as you’re learning something, you’re going to encounter things today that you did not anticipate. Some good, some bad. So what do you need to do to digest all that? What do we need to do moving forward? What’s what are we going to do differently?
Freddy D 00:27:56 The other thing, too, that I think needs to be incorporated is edifying. Team members that have done some great things in front of the rest of the team, because to me, that’s empowerment of that individual. Now, that also creates fuel for the rest of the team, because now, as the leader or the owner of the company and I turn around to take a moment to recognize Michelle in front of everybody. Michelle kicked it this last month. She helped us grow. We had the situation with this company.
Freddy D 00:28:33 She handled it. She solved the problem. The company’s happy and they’ve actually ended up doing more business with us now. Michelle becomes a superfan of me as a leader and more importantly, the team become super fans because they go, man, I want to be that person, so they step up their game. Those are some management skills that I think a lot of businesses, especially small businesses that are working in the business, not on the business, should be doing that stuff so that they can transform themselves from working in the business to working on the business.
Gordon Parkman 00:29:10 I think you’re really doing the kind of things you just talked about. It’s really going to have these other people when they’re part of the team, or may go up to the leader and say, hey, okay, is there anything I can do? Maybe I can do something different, or maybe I can help out so and forth. I’m really interested in moving ahead and strengthening myself. What can I do to possibly help you and the business to again, we’re back to the whole attitude is everything, and that’s a key element if you have employees with the right attitude and they are the superfans.
Gordon Parkman 00:29:43 I think it’s really all about giving them the opportunity to contribute and grow. Those are the people you want. You want the people who are going to step up. Yep. One of my clients. It was a situation where things did not go well. At a particular job I was talking, but the owner of the company and I said, okay, and how was it handled? Said the person who went out. The team leader stepped up. They went and they talked to the person. They got it all squared away. They talked to the team, let them know, scolded or anything else, or it was the fact I said, what do we do? It was amazing because that particular individual wrote an incredible review for the company, based on the actions of that employee to deal with the problem they’ve said and get it spent away.
Freddy D 00:30:30 So it just created a super fan right there.
Gordon Parkman 00:30:32 And this was a superfan who has a client who just wrote a review to let the whole world, hey, this is a company you got to work with.
Gordon Parkman 00:30:39 Things happen. Did people deal with it? And they fixed it.
Freddy D 00:30:41 And and that’s the secret. And right there, you can’t buy that kind of PR. That’s a monster testimonial that now they can turn around, says, hey, this is who we are as a company. Life happens, but we step up to the plate and we get it taken care of.
Gordon Parkman 00:31:00 Oh yeah, for sure. Or telling other people about what’s been going on in the business. And those are the greatest, the greatest things you can do, because those people, in essence, are have taken the role on, hey, this is my business. I’m the one. I’m telling people how great XYZ company is of the company. I work. Well, this is how they treat us. This is what we’re doing, by the way. And I think what happens is you want people to be in a situation where you’re seen as a location for people to want to go to work, for it to be attracting the right people from the beginning because they say, hey, I want to be part of this team attraction.
Freddy D 00:31:38 One of the terms I utilizes, attraction marketing, is one of the things that I really specialize in myself, and that’s part of it, is you create that attraction for that company. So now you’ve got people that want to work for their you’ve got the word gets out. Customers are saying, we gotta take a look at these guys. We’re hearing through the buzz that this is a great company. We need to really look at that and you start attracting more business. And that’s how I talk about the fact that having a team of superfans collectively is what helps propel a business, and it doesn’t cost them money.
Gordon Parkman 00:32:19 All the kind of things that we’ve just talked about. And no man is shape or form between anybody. Yeah.
Freddy D 00:32:25 It doesn’t cost any money. And that business is going to skyrocket because the employees are going to take care of it. Their customers are going to take care of them. They’re external partners. As we talked about CPAs, myself going to refer them, their suppliers or distributors, if they have that, they’re going to be talking about that business.
Freddy D 00:32:45 So you’ve got a whole team of people promoting that business. And so that’s how that word of mouth starts to take off. And once it goes, it’s a machine.
Gordon Parkman 00:32:58 Yeah. That’s it. Because then that says your company is positioned in the marketplace as the company to do business with. Bingo.
Freddy D 00:33:06 That’s it right.
Gordon Parkman 00:33:06 There. One of you has to do business with. If you’re not a major player in your marketplace, then you’re not. Being good is unacceptable. You need to be great. You need to be the mayor of a major player in your market. And for you to do that, you have to have the right team. You have to have the right resources available to you. And again, the the word, the word on the street is that you are a solid company because of this and this. And oftentimes it’s the fact of and part of that is how you treat your employees.
Freddy D 00:33:41 It all starts there. It really all starts there. And that’s what people don’t understand, is it starts with the internal team.
Freddy D 00:33:48 You have to have a growth mindset, and that’s the first thing you have to transform your mindset to being a growth mindset, because then that’s when everything starts to come into play.
Gordon Parkman 00:33:59 To me, that’s where I decided to focus my attention with my clients is I’m really growing the business and people always say, what’s a good client for you? Everybody is committed and passionate about growing their business. I don’t care what they do. It doesn’t really matter how a business is, business.
Freddy D 00:34:14 Fundamentals or fundamentals.
Gordon Parkman 00:34:16 So I actually control is marketing, sales, operation, administration doesn’t matter what you do or what service you perform, what product you build, whether you’re an attorney or a doctor or dentist, a manufacturing company, whatever it is, it doesn’t really matter. Businesses or business, the most important things is are the same and you need to know them. Business owners really have that clear, a clear Go on to say what the business needs. It’s not all about them. It’s what the business needs. What do you need to do for your business? And again, we spent a good deal of our time talking about people in my mind.
Gordon Parkman 00:34:53 And I really felt this very strongly that people are a business’s most important asset. And you have to invest in that asset just like you invest in any of the other assets. I always take a look at the standpoint of things get tough. Things are really getting tough. We’ve got to cut costs. I always encourage people, let’s not stop looking at people. Let’s look at other ways to cost because we’re going back to the conversation. We had to replace these people. It’s going to be very expensive when things swing to maintain a level that we keep these people so that when things sway around, we’re not.
Freddy D 00:35:25 Team is still there.
Gordon Parkman 00:35:26 Starting over theory.
Freddy D 00:35:27 Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Gordon Parkman 00:35:28 You forget where you are because you gotta get people trained. I’m standing on what you do, how things work within the business.
Freddy D 00:35:36 So as we come to the end here, Gordon, it’s been a great conversation. Do you have an offer that you want to present any of their listeners?
Gordon Parkman 00:35:45 Sure, yeah. I would like to provide anyone discovery meeting, which is really a consultation about their business.
Gordon Parkman 00:35:52 I provide that to be confidentially and confidential. And again, it’s really all about helping me understand your story and your business. That’s on the table for anybody who’d be interested in taking advantage of that.
Freddy D 00:36:07 How can people find you, Gordon?
Gordon Parkman 00:36:09 Have a good, solid presence on LinkedIn. That would be a great place if people want to understand me. I have a website that she results, consulting.com. My email is G Parkman at Achieve Results consulting.com. Those are the best ways to get in touch with me. I do have a phone, but typically what happens? My phone rings and name doesn’t show up. I don’t answer the phone. All right.
Freddy D 00:36:32 Gordon, it’s been a pleasure to you on the show. Great conversation and we look forward to having you on the show down the road.
Gordon Parkman 00:36:40 Thank you very much.
