Business Growth Secrets with Cliff Locks: Technology, Team Building, and Exits

Cliff Locks is the founder and senior partner of MillionaireLife Services.

We'll explore Cliff's entrepreneurial journey, his early start in the printing industry, and his impressive career achievements, including building and selling multiple companies. Cliff delves into the strategies that have driven his success, emphasizing the importance of slightly overpaying employees to build loyalty and a culture of excellence. He also highlights the role of technology and AI in gaining competitive advantages and streamlining operations.

Drawing from his extensive experience with companies like Amazon and Walmart, he underscores the importance of recognizing employee milestones and integrating emotional intelligence assessments while hiring. Additionally, he discusses the nuances of selling a business, the significance of clean data, and the future potential of AI and business operations.

We'll also hear about his creative approach with car dealers and how his executive Ascend Blueprint program has helped clients achieve multimillionaire status. As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe. And now, here's my conversation with Cliff Locks. Enjoy. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment Podcast.

I'm your host, Dave Goulis, and this week my guest is the founder and senior partner of the Millionaire Life Services, Cliff Locks. Welcome, Cliff. Thank you, Dave. And I just want to compliment you, the Beyond Fulfillment podcast team. You know, it's truly a privilege because if you think about the wonderful work you're doing and the impact that you're making on the entrepreneurial community, you have a lot to be proud of. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that.

If you could, for everyone, can you tell us how you became an entrepreneur? That's a good question. The family was entrepreneurial and I think that was very in a really wonderful inflection point in my life. You know, actually visiting where my dad was working and spending quality time and over the dinner table talking about business and being included in these conversations.

And I think that's one of the foundational takeaways for today also is if we involve our children, meaning the next generation, in our conversations about business. They're really bright.

In other words, they're like a, you know, their brains are like sponges and they absorb a lot of material that's positive to see how we're treating people kind of conversations, some of the decision making that we need to make and it's collaborative and some of our young people come up with some really brilliant ways for, you know, participating in those conversations. So, you know, I think that's really important.

You know, you'll find during our conversation, the next generation is sort of a legacy. You know, how do we sort of Take responsibility, the fiduciary responsibility to the next generation, our children. Give them opportunities so they can flourish. Okay. All right, so it sounds like very early on, right. Your parents were entrepreneurial and you were involved in those conversations from early on. So what was your first venture into business on your own? Let's see.

It was really wonderful to participate. You know, I came out of early on in my career in the printing industry where, you know, you have multi million dollar pieces of equipment and they had a co op program. So that definitely helped influence me to be able to participate in industry and actually produce things, you know, and get paid at the same time.

So, you know, one of the takeaways there is, yes, we need to provide opportunities for our young people, have co op programs, summer jobs, internships. I think it really helps people really feel confident that they will be successful when they go out and they're interacting with the adults in the community. So, you know, when we're looking at the ability to be proactive to create those opportunities, I think it's wonderful.

I, you know, was a recipient of somebody that was benevolent, you know, was more than once. And I still can remember those interactions and what it looked like inside that facility and, you know, the positive and the learning and the mentoring that took place. Yeah. And you might be dating yourself a little bit, talking about the printing industry. Right. Given where we are in this digital age. Digital, right.

So it sounds like you said like a co op or, you know, we think of internships as like a great way to give a young kid or someone that's ambitious just starting out an opportunity to really work within a business and learn some of the fundamentals of business and entrepreneurship. So it sounds like that's what really was the catalyst for your, your journey. Yeah, I agree with you completely. You know, so, you know, as you mentioned, I had built and sold three companies and one was in promotions.

You know, I had a professional sports marketing company. We're working with some of the NHL teams, MLB teams, which be baseball and hockey. And you get to see really the, the communications between, let's say a sponsor or an advertiser and the fans and trying to create an ambiance where we're bouncing traffic from a particular professional sports team into a client, meaning they bought, they bought a flight of TV or radio ads.

And we're actually looking for a promotion that will generate excitement inside that stadium or the arena and those fans will come out and patronize that individual that bought time. So, you know, when you're looking at how life moves Forward and the, you know, how you stack up wins and the influential periods of time in one's life, you know, and you start to, you know, get into your later career, you reflect back on, you know, how the wins came about.

You know, so when you're looking at, you know, your own kids, you know, how do you stack the wins in their favor where they feel comfortable and confident to go out there and just be good citizens and build great lives for themselves and flourish, you know, it's not an accident. You know, as parents, we're in a position to shape that. You know, it's really their decision per se.

But, you know, looking for those opportunities and asking for favors for, you know, some of our colleagues or it could be friends and family to, you know, sort of put time and quality time and actually into our young people, I think is, you know, a magical way as we build these, you know, businesses. So, you know, building a business is not easy. So, you know, when I, you know, we speak to out, you know, to the listeners at this point, there's a lot of respect.

I salute you, you know, that you're an entrepreneur. It takes a very special individual to be an entrepreneur. Our spouses are very special individuals, you know, that have married a. Or, you know, are dating an entrepreneur. But it is the fabric of what America is made of. It's entrepreneurial.

So, you know, if you think about the amount of jobs that are out there, most individuals are working for an entrepreneurial type of company, a smaller company, you know, the amount of enterprise companies, you know, there's limited amount of them. So, you know, what you're addressing is very, very important. Yeah, so true. And you highlighted some of the other things that you don't always think about is the impact that it has, number one, how challenging it can.

The impact that it has on not only the entrepreneur themselves, but the family and the spouse who is oftentimes, you know, enduring the same pain, so to speak, you know, throughout the journey. And, you know, so like you said, you built and sold three companies, which is an incredible accomplishment. I mean, getting into some of the, like, the nitty gritty of that, because I'm sure there's. There's parallels there.

Like, so many of the things that people have to do day to day in terms of building a team and scaling and getting people to row together in the same direction. And then obviously the founder leader is oftentimes very heavily involved in sales and even if at a high level. So, I mean, can you just talk about your own experiences there and how You. You kind of figured all that out along the way and created those. Those successful wins with the exits. Yeah, I'd be happy to.

So we're really talking about my journey. You know, it's been one of learning. I continue to learn, you know, building, you know, so, you know, founding those companies really helped me to learn to scale successfully and understand how we have to focus on helping others achieve similar success within our teams. You know, so I'll share some insights on it, you know, the key strategies and scaling the business that I have found. You know, a lot of it is about transforming your mindset.

You know, why having a strong, cohesive team and truly be your business greatest asset. You know, one of my major jobs, you know, I've had, you know, I've been the VP of sales and marketing for some companies after I sold those three companies, and it was a privilege to work with some bright teams. One of the companies we had 2 million square feet. You know, it's a little hard to understand what does 2 million square feet look like?

But you need a golf cart, okay, to be able to go through, you know, these facilities. You know, there's over 250 employees, and you learn about teams, you learn about line leaders, you learn about, you know, what motivates somebody, how they. You create an atmosphere where people can do their best work and bring their best self to work.

So as a senior leader, our job, you know, I'll speak for myself, is really to remove obstacles for our team members so we have the authority to be able to make decisions that will help move things forward. You know, so, you know, when you're really looking at, you know, diving into foundational decisions you can make within your organization, just remember that, you know, others may not have your back, you know, your back story.

You know, everybody's at a different level per se, on their thought process and what's going on in their homes and, you know, what they're bringing into the work environment. But if we can create this culture of cohesiveness, we're all in it together. We're working for a common goal, you know, as a CEO or, you know, our responsibilities, really setting that vision of success, sharing that, you know, that culture piece, you know, that, you know, that we really do care about our co workers.

You know, over the years, you know, I've come to realize there are some, you know, commonalities among successful entrepreneurs and leaders. You know, when you really look at the qualities and the mindset that fuels growth and resilience, you know, growing up, you know, I Grew up in Long island, you know, and we mentioned earlier, you know, my family instilled some strong work ethics in me early on. I've shared that with my children.

I see, you know, how they're flourishing in their own lives and being independent. You know, it's not an accident. In other words, it was planned and it was executed. You know, one of my mentors, you know, and it's an opportunity for our listeners to look at. There's a gentleman out there by the name of Brian Tracy. And it's crazy, but only 3% of the world has their goals written down on paper. Just think about only 3%.

So as we're making decisions day in and day out, the goal setting is such a strong tool. It could take you 15, 20 minutes. You can use generative AI, it's not a problem to help banner back and forth and get some ideas. The subconscious mind, meaning when we're not really thinking, is moving us towards what we said was important that we wrote down as our goals.

So the decisions we're making during the day, yes, do this, no, don't do this, is actually going to help us move towards fulfilling what that vision to success is, which is your goals. So hopefully our listeners take that away. They take the 15, 20 minutes, they write their goals down. I did this with my children, you know, when they were, you know, in middle school.

And I see how it really had a very positive influence on them building wonderful careers for themselves, you know, so, you know, success is not an accident. It's a plan and execution. It's about value and solving problems for others. And, you know, within the organization, you know, I realize the importance of having a clear vision for success and, you know, sort of working backwards from there, you know, setting those achievable strategic goals along the way.

You know, so it's not a surprise, you know, when an individual is successful, you know, there was planning and execution. You know, some people make it look easy but realize the work was pre planned. It happened earlier, you know, so you asked me about one of my companies. I was very, very thoughtful actually, you know, I'll talk about my wife, think about, you know, what is an entrepreneurial spouse look like. Her and I, our first date was at a boat show.

Okay. She asked me, while we're walking through the boat show and this is on Long island at the Nassau Coliseum, if they had a car show there. And I found, you know, we went into the executive offices, we spoke to somebody there, they did not. And six months later I ran an auto show sitting Inside that building, a new car show. From there I ended up building five of them in four states. And then I was taken out, meaning KKR bought me out, which is a large private equity firm for 11 times EBITDA.

So how do we get a multiple larger when we choose to sell the company? And we can talk deeper if you'd like, on that is it's the storytelling on the go forward for the organization to allow the acquiring company that purchased us to be able to realize the cash flow, meaning the positive sales and profitability of the company going forward. So that's what they're really buying when somebody acquires you.

So when you start to look at we need to work on the company versus working in the company, we're looking at things at a very, very high level. So I will build a company to sell the company. So that's a thoughtful process. Just think about that. I build to sell. So. And then I'm always interested in the acquiring company, the integration piece, making sure I could make it easier for the acquiring company to be able to close the deal and also recognize the value that they have.

And then once the sale is closed, I really, I'll stay for 18 months. And I want them to be able to be in a good place where they can get their financial payback so they can do well. So it's, you know, they're going to give you millions of dollars. Just think about it. You know, we sort of have a responsibility to make sure that they're going to be able to get that money plus an upside. You know, it's not an accident at this point. So sure. So now that's an interesting perspective.

So each time did every, with each of these three exits, did you go in with the intent to sell? Like that was the goal from the beginning? That's from the beginning, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was part of the goals. You know, you mentioned because so often the founder and the CEO is, is visionary and you know, responsible for telling the story. But you bring up a great point in terms of the storytelling is, is so important to the acquiring company. Right.

As far as building the vision with them of what they're buying and the potential upside. So I mean, how like, can you just delve more into that in terms of some strategies that you use there?

Well, I think really one of the takeaways today is the concept of being intentional with the steps and what we're doing within our organization. In other words, the relentless focus on creating value. So some folks will call it the value creation. So I'm always interested in what value we bringing our customers. And then when you think about that, I'm really more concerned times our customer's customer, what kind of value that we can sort of provide that customer's customer.

So if we're looking after our customer and we're very interested in making sure that our customer is going to be profitable with their customers, you'll find that it's a very warm relationship with that relation, you know, with that customer that you have. So I'll give you an example. During the auto show, and I can give you a few examples, we were handing out certificates, you know, just a piece of paper that looked like a little certificate.

And we asked people, you know, when they were exiting the shows to mail in the bill of sale or a lease agreement. So somebody went to an auto show, they received one of these certificates. On the way out, they made a Xerox copy of their bill of sale or lease agreement. When they acquired a car, stapled on, you know, let's say, or included in the certificate, and mailed it back to us, well, we sent them a $25 gift pack of Armor Roll products so they could keep their car better.

But we also xeroxed the bill of sale and that certificate and sent it back to the car dealers and also to, you know, the dealer association, which sort of coordinates multiple dealers of the same brand in an area that market and advertise to share to thank them for their participation, but also prove the tens of millions of dollars worth of cars were being sold out of the show.

Because here we had a lease or a bill of sale that showed that somebody bought a car from them, and it happened right after the show, within two weeks. So you're starting to see I prove the why to the customer that they were getting a financial return. So again, you got to be a little creative. But think about how do we prove that we're really a value creator for our clients, you know, and then they'll continue to pay you for your fine services. Wow. So that, I mean, that's very creative too.

And like you said, doesn't take much, just a little bit of ingenuity. You know, you send out the gift card, and then you're sending that bill of sale and the certificate back to the car dealers. I mean, and then you talk about getting an 11x EBITDA. I mean, how. How critical do you think that step was to really laying the foundation for. For such a successful exit? Well, in the industry, it was unique that we could actually prove. You know, sometimes others Will do surveys.

And here in this case, you know, I had, you know, it's like a five foot pile of these bill of sales and lease agreements. And it's something we would photograph and send off to the car dealers. Well, actually to the manufacturers, the individuals that are actually, you know, coordinating or making the dollars available and the displays available. And at times they would send in, you know, prototypes in which we call concept cars.

So, you know, it had a whole, you know, you were creating an ecosystem to allow them to operate efficiently and to know, providing them the evidence that they did have that return. Does it take a little of ingenuity? Yeah, but it's not hard. And we got brilliant listeners here. It's just stepping away and working, you know, not in the company, working on the company to figure out how do I prove to my clients they're getting a return on investment.

So, you know, I work with individual clients, they're all over the world. It's a privilege to, you know, partner with individuals. You know, I've written seven books, you know, this is part of my legacy to give back, you know, how to achieve success fast.

The Executive Ascend blueprint, you know, you know, when I look at how to achieve success fast and you know, it's designed really to help participants set powerful goals and develop that mental discipline that's needed to reach deep into, you know, our subconscious and just work collaboratively to, you know, focus on, you know, the tactics that translate into a vision into action. You know, harnessing the power of the mindset, consistency in calculated moves.

We all have it in us is really what I'm gently saying to you. You know, the Executive Ascend program, you know, it's really a blueprint, you know, it's a program that takes more structured phase approach to success. You know, I break it down into five stages. Ignite, unleash, you know, catapult, empower people and scale. You know, this blueprint is ideal, you know, for those aiming to make career advancements. You know, so it depends where you are at this point, you know, within your life.

You know, my track record, I have a 92% track record of making multimillionaires out of my clients. So just think about that, making somebody into a multimillionaire, they do the work. I'm just looking at it reflectively to figure out, you know, what are they really, really good at? What do they love to do? It's got high margins, means it's profitable and they get paid. So they're really good at it.

They love to do it, it's super profitable and they get paid, and we build a business around that, or we, you know, you sort of look at pivoting a little bit to things that really help somebody, you know, achieve what's important to them. You know, and sometimes I'm working with corporate executives, you know, and I'm looking at helping them go into, you know, top executive roles. You know, we talk about sometimes stock options.

So if the company was to be sold, there would be a payoff or the ability, you know, to buy stock at a predetermined price before and then the company was sold for more. And that spread between what you purchased the stock on because you had a stock option, meaning you exercised buying that stock, and that would be a profit, you know, and a lot of times that can make you a multimillionaire also, depending on the size of the organization and the transaction.

So, you know, each stage I work with people, it's really mapping out clear milestones, you know, making that journey more actionable and more importantly, achievable. You know, so, you know, your listeners can reach out. I'm always here for everybody, you know, to listen.

You could, you know, I'm on LinkedIn, you know, my name is Cliff Locksillo, CKS, the website that I, you know, maintain with some thoughtful content in there, and my books are on there and courses is Millionaire Life Dot Services. You know, when we really look at the practical applications of lessons learned, it's not hard, it's kind of fun. You know, it's the game of life and you get to be an active participant. You know, I've written books, other books that are mastering anger.

There's a lot of people running around that are, you know, angry. You know, that's not a very helpful characteristic, you know, but yeah, then I've written programs where, you know, the emerging leader program, you know, really about setting goals, you know, and sort of that critical piece, the puzzle, you know, to help individuals, you know, anywhere from mastering their anger. Because we all get sort of an aura before we get angry.

So one of the takeaways I'll share with our listeners and hopefully you can integrate this into your lives, is when someone's coming to you and you feel you're going to get a little angry, you could defuse it if you'd like, using the words, I feel you're trying to hurt me. I feel you're trying to get me angry. I feel hurt. See, the word I feel, it disarms the other individual and it's not really attacking anybody. It's just telling you how you feel and your feelings are not right or wrong.

They're your feelings and you're able to articulate how you feel and it can diffuse things. So hopefully that's a tool that you know, others can bring into their lives and find it to be meaningful.

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And it sounds like you've got, you know, wide perspective of different, you know, aspects within a business.

Let me just ask you about something that seems to be a common topic for the people I talk to and whatnot is dealing with adversity because many people get, you know, gung ho and they have a vision, they set their goals and they go out there and things don't go as planned and then sometimes they can go terribly wrong where the entrepreneur is faced with something they didn't expect and they have to pivot, adjust or deal with getting blindsided.

So I mean surely you've, you've probably had some of those experiences in your own career. But what's some advice that you would give for people when they're, when they're in the, in the trenches and things are not going as planned? Right.

Well, part of it is the takeaway, you know, we had mentioned earlier, is the idea when you're working in the business, you're involved in the day to day minutia of what's taking place and I try to work with individuals to help them systematize the workflow that's going within their organization.

Okay. Which frees you up as one of the senior leaders, you know, you may own, be one of the founders to be able to work on the company at higher levels so you can start to look at things where it's not about pointing fingers, it's trying to figure out what is the workflow. So whatever that particular challenge that came up can actually be dealt with, in other words. And actually whatever you implement to fix that problem is a long term solution.

So you know, one of the companies I, you know, I was the VP of sales and marketing, I opened up Walmart, I opened up Amazon, okay. Most people, you know, I don't want to say they can't but it's difficult to really understand the velocity of products that are flowing through the distribution center for Walmart and Amazon. Okay. And in this case this was in the reverse logistics. So it's part of the supply chain.

But when somebody brings something back to the store, there's a cascading, you know, sort of process that needs to be in place to be able to take those products back. Okay. And that was the place where I had 2 million square feet and 250 employees. Yeah, but understanding, you know, how it sizes up, I'll give you, you know, a little humor for our listeners. Someone may bring back a ceiling fan with the blade still on the ceiling fan.

So when it was shipped nice, neatly in a box, the fan blades were neatly stacked up, probably shrink wrapped and then the individual homeowner, you know, attached the blades. In this case, there are times where people will actually not take the blades off and bring the whole fan back to say Walmart.

So you're starting to see, you know, the forward logistics of something going in, you know, as boxes, nicely neat, you know, shrink wrapped on a pallet and they get, you know, it goes through a distribution. But the reverse logistics, it's mix. You know, boxes have been open, things have been missing. The instruction bino accessories are missing. So it's not as easy of a business is something when you're building something new. So again, both can be profitable forward and reverse.

But the reverse is a little bit more complicated. Okay. And really behind that is trying to keep things out of the landfill. And so I taught Walmart and Amazon had to get 80 cents on the dollar. They used to liquidate, meaning sell the used products or just the returns at 10 cents on the dollar.

But it meant that somebody had to go through those products and be able to make sure that they were good, functioning products, weren't cosmetically damaged and they had all the accessories in an instruction manual. And that's what our company did. So when you're starting to look at, you know, how, what kind of problems come up? Well, what happens? Will two units make one unit Meaning you have to get the right accessories back into the box. Is the box damaged? Just think about it.

So let's go back to your idea of how do we help our entrepreneurs that are have adversity within their organization? We have team members that are there, that may be important, but creating chaos in our organizations. So you know, when you're starting to look at the resources or the mentoring that's available to help individuals to sort of get that emotional intelligence and the resilience in place, my suggestion is to reach out. You don't have to do this by yourself.

There are some brilliant individuals like myself and others that are in the industry that really, really care about the entreprene and have seen a lot through their career. And by bantering back and forth, you know, through, let's say a zoom call, a lot of times, we can work things out and give you a sort of a flow, a workflow to fix what it may be. And if you need to pivot, you need to pivot. In other words, at the end of the day, sales. Let me rephrase that.

Profitable sales fixes a lot of things. So if you're running into things where you know, your customers are not paying you on time, meaning you're a bank, all right, Businesses are not supposed to be a bank. The client should go out and get a bank loan. If they need a bank loan, they shouldn't be using you and you know, extending these payables, which is your receivables for an extended period of time. All right, you're not a bank.

You know, so sometimes we have to step back, you know, with your mentor like myself, and we'll actually fire some of the customers. So what does it take financially to service a particular customer between materials, labor, aggravation, okay. And how much profit does it really deliver?

So when you start to see, you know, that some of the clients are actually costing you money to serve them, you have a choice of either correcting that sort of, you know, that business relationship or you need to fire them. It's okay, all right, Let somebody else have that headache. I mean, you're not making a large amount of money or you're not making money on that client.

So what are you really doing at this point, you know, so you know, when you look at sometimes the fast paced and the unpredictableness of the world in business, you know, you have to step back a little bit and assess, you know, what are the inputs going into a particular client and the outputs. All right, so you know, what are you putting into it? And what are you receiving in compensation and is it sustainable at this point?

So let's go back to scaling and selling a business. So there's probably entrepreneurs that are sort of like, if I could sell the company and I could grab a couple of million dollars, maybe that's what I should do. So I've been fortunate to be able to do it. Build, scale, and ultimately sell the company. What I really want to make sure that individuals realize that it's not really that hard to sell a business. We have to package the business to sell it.

So, you know, when you're looking at an individual that's putting out fires within their company, those type of items have to get fixed because the acquiring company is looking for a smooth, you know, like a symphony where everything is running seamlessly. All right?

And the founder of the company who is going to has, you know, the highest amount of equity in the organization, is going to take the lion's share of the sales proceeds, needs to make sure the team is strong enough so that company continue to thrive and grow. And we need to be able to articulate that during that transaction. So is it hard? The answer is no. Is it thoughtful? The answer is yes. But we really have a responsibility to make the business attractive to buyers. So. Okay, yeah.

And another. Another point, and you brought it up there with the team and making sure the team is strong. Another common issue that comes up, and I hear a lot of entrepreneurs talk about, is just hiring the right people and more so like how, you know, strategies in terms of finding the right people. Can you share some of your insights there? One of the things I did very, very early in my career is the emotional intelligence.

Okay. There's software out there that we can run, prospective team members, employees or to be employees, prospects, let's say, through, to be able to figure out are they a good fit for the position that we're actually looking for them to fulfill. Okay. With that new knowledge, and you'd be able to map it against one candidate versus another candidate or a pool of candidates. You can actually look at the scientific aspects. If. How they fit into the culture, will it be disruptive or positive?

You know, how do they treat other individuals at this point? You know, what does their social media look like? You know, if they're angry, that may be, you know, that's a red flag. Right. If they're cohesive and they care about others, a lot of times we can teach them the position. All right, so, you know, there are toxic people out there. There's individuals out there that take Pride on getting others angry. That's a problem. So what did I do in my career?

I always hired brilliant individuals and I overpaid them. So here's one of the takeaways. I'm not saying everyone needs to do this, it's just a thought that worked well for me and my team. Some of the companies I gave away 50% of the profits to my teams, I'd give them 15, I'd give them 15% towards their retirement program. So the goal was to overpay them a little bit so they stay, they play, they build a safety net.

And we're really looking at removing obstacles for each other and really letting the company thrive. So you're hiring brilliant individuals and you're overpaying them a little bit. You really have figured out the magic. So the hiring is correct, the motivation piece, the compensation piece. And then I think we also have to look at the strength of our bench, meaning who can replace certain individuals.

So, you know, one of the magical takeaways for today is I think we need to do reviews for our team members on a monthly basis. We need to give people an opportunity for corrective action and also compliment them on hyper specific at things they've done or accomplished much more sooner than an annual review. An annual review is too late.

But if you're sitting down with your team members monthly and you're bantering back and forth and you sort of can create what we call KPIs key performing indicators, and you know, you sort of have a document there that both of you have agreed on, the things that the individual is going to achieve and you're measuring against that, it makes it a lot easier for the team member to understand how they're going to get measured.

And that allows them to flourish because they understand how they're going to get measured. So, you know, when you step back and you start to look at, you know, we all want to feel good, we all want to, you know, sort of the carrot and using a stick on somebody is not positive. So the idea is, you know, if we hire correctly on the front end and we figure out what motivates somebody and then we give them the feedback on a regular basis and the corrective action can happen more sooner.

You know, you really have this thriving organization that's really thoughtful on how it works through a multitude of business cases, challenges that may be in place. All right, you know, the idea of emphasizing overpaying employees slightly to build loyalty and a culture of excellence, I think it's important. You know, me, I like to recognize milestones, you know, you know, whether it's through a bonus or other rewards, enforcement commitments.

And, you know, when I catch people that are highly motivated, motivated, I'm, I'm happy, you know, I'm the founder of the company, you know, so that's my fiduciary responsibility to the team members. You know, let's pivot a little bit if it's okay.

Dave. We've got a lot of technology that's coming in play at this point. You know, if you think about the artificial intelligence, you know, I'm a big advocate for using technology as an advantage.

And I always have, you know, when I work with Amazon or, you know, Walmart, you know, there was a lot of data that was available to us, you know, so, you know, like an Amazon, I had all the net pricing for Amazon in my, you know, my purview, but a lot of respect for the data and really could help them. You know, how much could you actually put into something into a secondary market? So how much sort of input could you put into a product to get it to be resellable?

So the idea is that data was sitting there and we were able to come up with a business case for Amazon on their contribution, meaning they need to write a check so they can be able to turn around and resell something. It made it easier. So we were using AI very, very early on. Sort of the analytics, you know, you know, leveraging the vendor portals that are sitting there.

Walmart's got a vendor portal, meaning when somebody checks out, meaning somebody's using the scanner when they scan the UPC on your product, that information is sitting in a vendor portal. That information could be forwarded to the vendor, who could forward it to the box manufacturer, who could forward it to say we're injection molding something, you know, make believe it's a hairdryer. So the outside plastic is injection molded.

It could go out to the individual that's actually providing sort of that plastic beads, okay, that are going to go to the injection molder. So everybody's starting to understand early where the minimum order is going to take place so they can plan more efficiently within their organization. Because the data was available to them sometimes months in advance, but it was current as the day it was being pulled down, let's say automatedly, on a daily basis.

So it was always live data, it's clean data. So just give that some thought. One of the takeaways I'll share with our listeners, there's a program out there called Tableau. Tableau was A privilege to work, you know, be one of the earliest users of Tableau where it's the ability to create dashboards with the data that's meaningful. Could be the marketing team member, it could be the VP of sales, it could be the product people, it could be the engineering team.

So everybody needs data a little bit different. But Tableau is a wonderful program that allows you to drag and drop the data and turn dashboards into it so you don't have to be a large company for it. It's subscription based, it's SaaS platform, meaning it's online in the cloud. But you can't break it. It never changes the data that's sitting in the database.

So the idea is the data needs to be clean, that you're putting in the inputs and then you get to build sort of by dragging and dropping your dashboards. What's meaningful for you? Are you going to measure from month to month, year to year? You know, just thinking through, we've got inflation at this point, you know, that's playing a role. So you can play the what if scenario. So this goes up, this input goes up. What's the effect on pricing?

You know, again working on the company at a high level versus the day to day minutia. So build these tools and it's more efficient, it boosts profitability, it makes the business much more attractive, let's say for you to run it and then for the potential buyers because you really know your numbers.

You know, I wrote another book, you know, on this, the AI empower your leadership. It's tactical strategies for executive, excuse me, for executive success in an AI era. So the idea of, you know, empowering your leadership, because I believe we're in a new era of executive potential, especially with the rise of AI. The book explores these actionable strategies for leaders who want to harness AI without feeling like they're losing the human element in their leadership.

Microsoft did a very nice job. They used the word copilot. So an AI as an intelligent copilot, sort of a generative AI agent, can serve as an intelligent co pilot in your business. It's not about replacing team members, it's about empowering them. For instance, in marketing, AI can help analyze a vast amount of data or allowing your teams to focus on crafting strategies.

Instead of getting bogged down by the numbers, imagine having a copilot that anticipates the market trends or customer preferences and helps them streamline tasks in the future of business. It's already here, leadership. You really can embrace AI as an Assistant rather than a replacement. We'll see greater returns in productivity and team satisfaction. You know, does it work? The answer is holy comole. It works really, really, really well.

But you gotta think about what are the use cases that I want to use the AI in? And then you build sort of an engineer model, meaning you're telling AI, you know, generative AI, what you're looking to accomplish. Or you can use something like a platform like Tableau, where you're dragging and dropping and the work is getting, getting done behind it. And you don't need to come up with the formulas. Realize that's what Tableau built into the program.

So, you know, these are just thoughtful, you know, tools that are very effective to use. So build it once, keep an eye on it. But again, you know, the stressing is the data set that's coming into it needs to be clean. Okay. It needs data headers, it needs to be structured data. Now ChatGPT will do unstructured data. Okay. But you just have to think through how are we going to use the data. You know, say we have meetings, we're doing it on Zoom.

You know, there are plugins that will go in like, I use Phantom. Holy Kamole. It's amazing how strong Fathom is as a plugin to get the action and next steps from the conversation. Very powerful, you know? Yeah. You know, where is AI going? It's going to take the action in the next steps and it's going to actually do that work. That's where it's coming and it's going to happen really, really soon.

Some of it is coming now, but a lot of those action steps, things that need to get done, it'll automatically prepare either the reports, the data set, the Excel sheet, whatever you're happy to work in, and present it to the individual that was assigned the recipient of doing that task. So it's just a thoughtful, you know, path forward. Do you want to talk about, you know, some of the emotional aspects if somebody wants to sell the business? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to say.

Yeah, I love that. I love that perspective, too, in terms of really viewing AI not as a replacement, but more as something to, you know, basically a tool that's going to help you get things done faster and not. And really an asset. The business that can really, you know, help, help, help streamline, you know, tedious tasks and like you said, the reporting and all that type of stuff, you know, like, for instance, what Fathom does. So. Yeah. And that.

Yeah. Last question before we wrap up, too, because that's something too. We hear a lot about terms of, you know, I guess someone selling the business, right. In terms of overvaluing it because of an emotional attachment. Right. We see that.

And then of course, you have a great perspective in terms of really selling the buyer on why they should buy the business and really telling that story and presenting the upside and getting them to understand it and making sure there's real value there that you can feel good about selling. So that's because clearly, right, there's, there's a lot of deals that don't come together and fall apart in, in that whole M A type world.

So I mean, just, just talk about, you know, some insights on how to really create a successful win win transaction.

You know, Dave, you're brilliant. You know, selling that business is. It's an emotional journey, you know, you know, as it is, you know, a practical one, you know, you know, advise the entrepreneurs, you know, to work with an external advisor. It helps to de. Emotionalize the transaction. You know, somebody's got to put their self into the shoes of the buyer and they need to be objective on their perspective. Help manage. It is a complex sort of dynamic.

Sometimes the buyer wants to do an earn out. So in other words, they want you as the founder to stay with the company for a period of time. You think the company is worth $5 million, okay. And the buyer says, no, it's worth $4 million and you want to be able to earn that additional 1 million. And they'll say, look, let's do an earn out. So you have to continue to grow the company and meet some metrics that you're agreeing on.

It'll be in the sales contract, and then you'll get paid out the $1 million or some sort of a sliding potential based on what you've agreed to. I mean, the other piece is you got a cultural integration. You know, who's acquiring you. You know, I got, I got acquired by a Fortune 500 company in the last company I sold. You know, that was a very different environment versus an entrepreneurial company. It was a privilege to work with the team.

The individual I was working with that I was reporting to is an Army Ranger, which is like a Navy seal, but really for the army, was a West Point graduate. So he's operating at a very, very high level. I'm not a successful entrepreneur, all right? But I had to figure out, you know, how to work with an individual that was really an amazing individual. But he could get two or three hundred emails a day and he could handle that.

Okay. One of my secrets were, and I share this with our listeners, I had an administrative assistant that I had in power that handled all my emails. I would receive emails that needed my attention. So a lot of the peripheral work that she was more than capable of doing and it was privileged to work, you know, with her fine effort, you know, expertise. She was handling a lot of the day to day minutia where I could work, work at a much higher level of the company.

So when I stepped out and realized I had this individual trained at a very, very high level to run the company, okay, and the company continued to flourish. So just get some ideas. You know, it's amazing. Some of the folks that are in our organization with proper mentorship and education, they could step into the roles that we were doing because they were shadowing us. So, you know, what is the company worth? It's worth what somebody else is willing to pay for it.

That's what the company is worth. You know, we can get into, you know, conversations at a later date, you know, if you want to get a hold of me. On recasting the numbers, meaning we can remove some of the expenses to the company. You may have a car, you know, certain you may have family members in your company or things of that nature that the acquiring company would not need. And at that point you would pull those costs out and the profitability of the company would come up.

And that's called recasting your numbers. You know, you have to build a data room. So the tax returns need to be in there, some of the, the projections need to be in there, or your contracts need to be in there. You know, a data room could be, you know, Dropbox, it could be a Google Drive. So, you know, don't think it's something sophisticated.

It's just organized with headings and folders where the buyer can go in and do the due diligence and they will do, you know, the due diligence on the financial numbers. So the goal is to make it easier for them that, you know, all cash is sitting, you know, was reported on the company. So I give that a little bit. You know, if you want to get paid on a multiple, your cash needs to be recorded, forwarded in your company if you want to get paid on that. You know, we, it just makes sense.

All right, so, you know, so all my, the cash that came into us because we were selling tickets was going into the company, you know, and was booked in there. Hopefully I've answered all the questions you have. You know, let's wrap up you know, Dave, I, you know, I just want to compliment you again. You know, the Beyond Fulfillment, you know, podcast guest team again.

And it's just amazing what you're bringing forth and the vibrantness of the community and those that are actually, you know, out there, you know, being the guest, you know, that are really entrepreneurial, they really care about our community. You know, it's a pleasure sharing, you know, my experiences and insights, you know, with all your listeners.

You know, if anything we've discussed today resonates, you know, with your listeners yourself, you know, I'm ready to take your business to the next level. You know, please reach out. You know, Millionaire Life Services, we offer courses and mastermind groups and one on one coaching. You know, they're all designed to help entrepreneurs and executives, you know, thank you again, Dave. You know, I really appreciate it. You know, it's a privilege to be here.

I truly admire the wonderful work you're doing for the entrepreneurial community. You know, when you really think about the strength of the Beyond Fulfillment, it's such a wonderful ecosystem where we can, you know, we're all in it together. An entrepreneur is a very special individual. You know, sometimes we feel beat down, you know, how do you sort of step away from the company for a little bit, take a walk in nature and figure out what's working well.

And if you got toxic people in your organization, you know, that maybe you should have done something six months ago, eight months ago, a year ago, you probably need to, you know, figure out how deep the bench is, who can step into those roles. You know, chaos is something that does not need to be in organizations. It's something that can actually, you know, sort of the flow of information can be mapped out and to figure out what decisions need to be made.

The generative AI and SMART contracts will be another name where the automation will take place, you know, with something, you know, some sort of a decision that needs to be made within certain levels of expenditures. You know, someone may have the authority to spend, you know, up to a thousand dollars. Well, that can be built into it. It doesn't need to get approval from the individual they report to.

So you're giving people the tools to be able to manage the business, you know, and give them the authority that they need to be able to operate on your behalf as the owner of the company.

So just think about, you know, how do we go in and reduce these things, sort of the how these decisions keep moving up to our senior leaders where we could actually, let's empower the individuals in middle management and those that are actually on the work, you know, on the floor, that are working to give them the tools that they need to be able to be successful. So love that. Love that. And, yeah, listen, you made my job easy. You gave your contact info and everything, so.

MillionaireLife Services. And we'll post that in the show notes along with your LinkedIn. And, Cliff, thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's a privilege. Really appreciate your perspective. Thank you, my friend. Okay. All right. Thank you. Be well.