IAM586- CEO Helps Companies Maximize Their Real Potential

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Rick Cottrell of BizResults.com. Rick, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Rick Cottrell 0:39

Oh, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to it.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

Yeah, definitely looking forward to it too. So what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about Rick so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Rick is the CEO and owner of bizresults.com. He has been voted a top business advisor in the area of business growth and scalability. This company has developed a process that can help any company regardless of industry, grow and achieve levels of success they never imagined. Rick brings 35 years of entrepreneurial experience to the table, including ownership and numerous businesses. He developed the original salesforce.com He spoke internationally and has been highlighted in the Wall Street Journal CEO magazine and Harvard Business Review. as passionate as net is now to help small to midsize companies maximize the real potential of their businesses. Rick, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Rick Cottrell 1:25

Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 1:26

Awesome. Let's do it. So I wanted to kick everything off. I know you have loads and loads of experience, and I wanted to hear how everything started. Can you tell us a little bit more of your CEO story? Where did you get started your business?

Rick Cottrell 1:36

Yeah, so I'm in my late 20s, I realized that I was unemployable, meaning I had a hard time working for people, I knew I needed to go out on my own. And I was fortunate enough to hook up with some investment folks, that helped me start my first business. And then from there, you know, once you do at one time, you can keep doing it. And so I just kept starting companies and selling them and moving on. And so over that 35 years, I've learned a lot of stuff made a lot of mistakes, and put together what I think are a group of tools that can help small midsize companies get to the next level break through through the ceiling and become scalable. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. So my passion now is to help businesses, typically between 10 and 250 employees, grow their companies. And we've got some really cool science that we're implementing with this, to get these companies there. And we've seen some great results.

Gresham Harkless 2:37

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And I always say I don't know, if you say feel exact same way that a lot of times you obviously learn stuff from your successes, but sometimes it's those kind of times he hit your head against the wall that actually teaches you the best thing. So getting to tap into that expertise and hear exactly how somebody was able to do it and get around it. Or of course, were able to be successful. Sounds like it's a really good plan you haven't played?

Rick Cottrell 3:01

Yeah, yeah.

Gresham Harkless 3:03

Yeah, that definitely works. So can you take us through a lot more about what we can find on bizresults.com Can you take us through like exactly what we can find on the site, how it works, and some of the experiences we have there?

Rick Cottrell 3:14

Yeah. So basically, it's all revolving around something called the scalable growth architecture, which is something I kind of developed based on finding proven systems and tools and resources that are either out there or have been developed by folks. And by putting all that stuff together. And walking into a business, it can really get the business owner and their leadership team on board and in a predictable fashion, grow their businesses. So you know, the parts of that are, number one is having one operating system to run your business, right. And so most companies don't have one of these. It's not a technology driven thing. It's really holistic, right. And so the Entrepreneurial Operating System Gresh, I don't know if you're familiar with that was developed by Gino Wickman. So that is a really good system, I've put it into my companies. And now I'm promoting that to businesses, because it's, you know, you're able to understand it at all levels of the organization. So that's pretty cool. And then within that development of the leadership, and this is a pet peeve of mine, it's, you know, I'm going and working with companies, but the leadership of the company, including the managers are not prepared to take the company to the next level. And so what we've tried to do is acquire the intellectual property from a couple of different training programs to kind of get people moved along and developed because you know, you can put an operating system all day long, but if you can't execute because the leadership doesn't have the capacity to do it, then you've got problems right. And so the leadership has to be set up and very specific in that particular thing. In fact, I'm meeting with somebody this afternoon about this is that you got to know your why, you know, you've got to know why you're doing what you're doing. Right, you know, and a lot of technicians start a company. And then all of a sudden, people start buying their product or service, they add a bunch of people and, you know, they don't think about themselves. And then they create, I have a term for that it's called Becoming an entrepreneurial martyr. I mean, everything comes before them, right instead of the other way around. And the way I couch this is something that a gentleman by the name of Alan Fishman put together, he owns the alternative board tab, basically, you know, you got to think of it as a bicycle where the rear tire where the you're pedaling, that's your business, that's your engine to propel you in the direction of where you're steering, which is your personal vision, right, where you want to take yourself. And so that's a big area of weakness that I'm finding in entrepreneurs, they don't think through that they undervalue themselves, and then they, you know, get through life and it becomes time to maybe sell their company, they're going, why, you know, why did I do this? What have I got to show for it, and in many cases, there's nothing right. And so, you know, that whole leadership thing, I think business intelligence, we're really kind of on the bleeding edge of BI platforming, predictable analytics, hard numbers and growth. I'm excited about that. That's, that's what really excites me. And so having a scorecard that's driven by hard numbers, having the right people in the right seats and having some analytic tools to help people do that. And then the final thing is really franchising your business. And I call it kind of putting it in a box. A lot of these companies are, don't know how to put their business in a box and be able to offer consistency and how they're going to grow. And you need to have your processes developed. Anyway, that's kind of a lot of words, but those are the things that I strongly believe need to be in place in order to scale your business up and get maximum potential out of it.

Gresham Harkless 7:14

Yeah, it makes so much sense. And I appreciate you for breaking down each of those aspects. Because I think just as you said, kind of in the very beginning, you know, you can use the the EOS system are ELS and then you can not have I don't know if I want to say the word mindset, but you a lot of times have to be prepared for for that growth, and be prepared for what that looks like and even want to do that and kind of tapping into your why and understanding that if you have a strong enough, why you start to understand and leadership understands and then you know every it trickles on down. But when you don't necessarily maybe have that why then all of a sudden, maybe you don't have that kind of leadership that is ready for growth, because they're not even sure where they're gonna go. And then it's really hard to kind of implement all those systems and get that type of success. So it kind of it's their separate things, but I definitely see how it all is holistically combined, and you kind of have to look at each of those aspects if you want to be successful.

Rick Cottrell 8:06

Right, and, and tying together the holistic aspects of it with good heart information, I think is is the critical part to that and showing a true ROI, which you know, as a business owner, myself, having people come in to me and trying to trying to sell me on these concepts. You know, I had to see some level of ROI. And the minute I asked, okay, are you willing to put your reputation on the line here that I'm gonna get an ROI delivered out of it, and they ran out of my office? You know, and so that's, that was a pet peeve of mine. And that's why now that after we sold our last company, I want to do this is what I want to tie it to payback, I want to tie it to a return on investment. So it makes it easier for the entrepreneurial leader, business owner and team to make a decision, right?

Gresham Harkless 8:52

Yeah.

Rick Cottrell 8:53

Off stuff, you know.

Gresham Harkless 8:54

Exactly. And especially in this day and age with all this technology, it kind of seems like we have all of this kind of accessible to us. So it's just a matter of us, I guess, I guess, maturing with the technology and also understanding that it's out there so that we can use it and leverage it.

Rick Cottrell 9:08

Right. And so if you think about social digital marketing, for example, that's like a big, unknown, right? And everybody pretends like they know all about it. But it's really hard to put your finger on it, right? It's hard to and this is the same problem, right? You you you know, you can get better maximum potential or better potential lot of your company, but you don't know how to go about it no different than you know how to, you know, dabble in digital marketing, right? Because it's so complicated now. Right. And so that's, that's, I think that's holding people back and keeping people from really taking the next step with their companies.

Gresham Harkless 9:48

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know you touched on kind of like that data aspect and just being able to kind of tie into that I wanted to ask you for what I call like your secret sauce, and it could be for you personally or the business but do you feel is it is that bringing in that data to be able to kind of understand, like, what that ROI is, is what you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Rick Cottrell 10:06

Yeah, I think the the ability to be able to tie down, first of all, where a company is competitively benchmarked, as well, internally benchmarked, and then understanding the gaps to them getting to the next level, and then defining those gaps, plugging them into a level of data analytics that we can look forward and predict. And the machine learning areas so fascinating. And so you can predict and push out and determine, you know, when you're going to see the lifts in the different things you're doing with your company, there's so much information out there, and even in companies that, you know, are in industries where there may not be big data out there, I mean, they still have a bunch of information internally that can be utilized to do this stuff. But, you know, it's something as simple as, you know, if I'm projecting to grow my business and sell it in 10 years, for example, if we do if we go on a model, and we look that we can probably pull that back two years, and maybe you do it in eight years. Right. And so, you know, we plan and develop a strategy for that, right? And I'm always I'm a big advocate of it's, you know, never if, you know, it's always how, right, you know, the how right, you can always find a solution. So that's what's exciting about this whole new world of, you know, developing business intelligence with, you know, if you want to call it AI, but machine learning platforms and kind of moving from there, it's, that's, that's really in its infancy right now.

Gresham Harkless 11:45

Yeah, definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book or habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Rick Cottrell 12:00

Okay, so I call it a clarity break. All right. And that is where you, basically completely disassociate yourself from everything. And where I live, it's a walk in the woods, just completely, you know, you're not listening to an audio book, nothing. I mean, you're just kind of, you know, getting your head clear. Because there's so much stuff in it at the end of the week, right. And so you pick a time to do it, you, you do it on the same time, every day, every week, whatever you decide to do. But with me, it's just getting out into the woods around where I live and walking, and just listening to nature and just clearing my head.

Gresham Harkless 12:45

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around scalability, but what's a word of wisdom or piece of advice you might give to even yourself or maybe even a newer client that you're just talking to?

Rick Cottrell 13:00

So and I'll give you that answer in a story. So typically, when I go to speak in front of business owners, I'll ask them in the last 14 days, what have they done to develop themselves professionally? Okay. And one hand typically goes up and you know, it's maybe they read an article or something like that, you know, I get more specific, and I ask how many of you have read a book about business, anything that will help you develop yourself as a leader, a manager, or you know how to be more effective in your in what you do? Very few hands go up. And it's, it's forcing yourself to constantly develop, right. And so it's tough sometimes when you're busy, but I typically will listen to two books on audible a week, I'll put it to 1.25. Because, you know, I don't want to spend a lot of time but I can burn through a book in a couple hours, maybe I'll look for those. But those are really the that is really what I'm missing. And and wherever I go. I asked that question, and very few hands go up. And that's a shame. You know, that's a shame that people aren't working on their craft and sharpening their saw.

Gresham Harkless 14:16

Nice. Nice, nice. So now, I wanted to ask you for what I call my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on this show. So Rick, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Rick Cottrell 14:29

Being a great leader of people. That's what it means to me.

Gresham Harkless 14:33

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I truly appreciate you know, all the awesome things you're doing and in the developing leaders as well too, in business minds. So what I want to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get ahold of you find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Rick Cottrell 14:51

Got it. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's about confidence, and it's easy for me to say and I've been through it a gazillion times. So you know, successes and failures. And it's really about having confidence in yourself and wanting to take to get to the next step. So being open and honest, vulnerable, and you have to be willing to change, right. And so, if you're not willing to change, then you're basically building a job for yourself, if you're willing to change, you can really turn it into something fantastic. And, you know, along those lines, you know, I, I'm here to help people can contact me, I love to listen to people, I have very little whitespace but I'm more than happy to talk to an entrepreneur and if they have a question or what have you, and all they have to do is go to, you know, my website or our website, bizresults.com. And just go to the contact section and just let us know that they they want to talk and I'll be more than happy to book something with them for 15 minutes and, and listen, it was the nurse

Gresham Harkless 15:57

Well, I truly appreciate that we all were on these more listeners for sure. And you've been able to build and do so many, you know phenomenal things. So I appreciate you providing that ear to both those ears to the community as well. So what we will do is we will have the links information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you as well. But again, I appreciate your time obviously today. Appreciate everything you're doing. And I just hope you have a phenomenal rest today.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co, I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE And leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai