IAM1430 – Founder Helps Business Owners Get More Sales and Referrals
Podcast Interview with Winston Hofer
Winston Hofer is a marketing consultant and Founder & CEO of Madroit Marketing. After a failed semi-pro hockey career and several jobs spent working for someone else, Winston decided that he needed more freedom and bootstrapped his company starting from nothing. The lessons and strategies he’s learned along the way are what have helped him grow his business into the success that it is today, along with relationship building and hiring smart. As an entrepreneur and business owner now since 2012, he has realized his passion which is to help small business owners get more sales & referrals and build & market their businesses. He enjoys taking on new challenges (if only to prove to himself that he can) and making himself better every single day by learning something new.
- CEO Story: Winston took many routes that didn’t go as planned. But one thing for sure which makes him proud as well is learning from his failure. People started to ask for advice in marketing, and that was the beginning of his journey.
- Business Service: Marketing company. Helping small business owners.
- Secret Sauce: Steer people in the right direction. Work backward from goals.
- CEO Hack: Habit tracking. Reward yourself. Hire someone else.
- CEO Nugget: Pick your goals, and focus on a few of those things because you can’t do it all at once.
- CEO Defined: Growth in every step for the client and the team.
Website: madroitmarketing.com
LinkedIn: winstonhofer
Free Offer To Listeners – https://madroitmarketing.com/free-analysis
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Transcription
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00:20 – Intro
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 Harkus 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.
00:47 – Gresham Harkless
Hello, Hello, Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the shows today. I have Winston Hofer of Majorit Marketing. Winston, it's great to have you on the show.
00:56 – Winston Hofer
Thanks for having me, Gresh. Appreciate it.
00:58 – Gresham Harkless
Yes. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Winston so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's doing. Winston is a marketing consultant and founder and CEO of Madroid Marketing. After a failed semi-pro hockey career and several jobs spent working for someone else, Winston decided that he needed more freedom and bootstrapped his company starting from nothing. The lessons and strategies he learned along the way are what have helped him to grow his business into the success that it is today, along with relationship building and of course, hiring.
Smart as an entrepreneur and business owner since 2012, has now realized his passion, which is to help small business owners get more sales and referrals and build and market their businesses. He enjoys taking on new challenges if only to prove to himself that he can, and making himself better every single day by learning something new. Winston, I think that's a recipe for success. I'm super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
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01:51 – Winston Hofer
Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, I am.
01:5.14 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.
02:02 – Winston Hofer
Yeah, so I mean, the failed companies that I started before everything and then debating marketing or a different career field, and I just stuck with marketing because you can market any company if you. Your own company, if you can do marketing. So it started there, um, ideas didn't work out. Those led to a lot of learning, and then at some point, people were coming to me for marketing help and like, okay, perfect. And then that was the first company. And it's been going since. Yeah, long journey, but it's been a blast. For sure.
02:34 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And I love, you know, what you said about, you know, they didn't go the way you wanted them to go, but there were learning lessons there. I think so many times we forget that alone. Even though things don't necessarily work out as we want them to go, so to speak, there still is a lot that you can kind of learn from, you know, those things that don't go, you know, the way we planned.
02:53 – Winston Hofer
Absolutely, yeah. People, I think, don't like the word failure, but to me, it's not a bad thing. And if we normalize that, I think everyone's better off. Um, because you learn a lot from your failures, or you hopefully do, and then you get better and better each time after that.
03:07 – Gresham Harkless
Sure, exactly. That's why I love, you know, reading your bio and just kind of, you know, digging down and hearing, you know, more about that because I think so many times we can be in a place where we don't fail, and if we're in a place where we don't fail in kind of the same way, we're not actually trying. We're not going outside our company comfort zone, challenging ourselves. So it's almost like if you are failing, what you are doing is kind of, you know, pushing up against those. Those limits, so to speak.
03:30 – Winston Hofer
Absolutely. Yeah. The comfort zone thing is huge. I mean, I know you've done the same thing. It's like each step, there's a new comfort zone to push through something to learn. Yeah, for sure.
03:40 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. There's always another level, so I definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to now see a little bit more about how you work with and serve clients. Can you take us through a little bit more about what you're doing with your company, and how you're serving your clients?
03:52 – Winston Hofer
Yeah. So we are a marketing company. We do a lot of things. I think the core of it is we attract people, whether that's clients, customers, patients, or employees. Right. So to me, I have two types of clients, and those are the clients we serve and my team. And they need something fulfilling. They need work that's challenging. It's not. It can't be super easy. It's got a challenge that can push them. And for our clients, like, I love helping, and it just feels great that we do. So we help in a lot of ways, but it's from attracting those clients and customers to employees. All said and done.
04:31 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I love that. Two types of clients. Because I think we sometimes forget that especially the people that are on our teams and employees or contract, whatever they are, they're kind of representing the team. They become kind of like an ambassador, for lack of a better term, where they are interacting. They are talking about how great the company is, if they are being challenged, if they're growing, just all those things. And that translates into other clients.
04:54 – Winston Hofer
Absolutely. So, I mean, that's marketing. To me. The whole company is marketing. And if your team's not pulling people into it or pulling clients and customers into it, I mean, those should be your best marketing people. And they are for the right companies. So yeah, it's huge.
05:12. – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. And definitely, if you're doing the right thing. And I love how you kind of even talked about marketing because I still feel the same way. It's kind of like a quote-unquote transferable skill. It's something that is needed in all forms, shapes, or fashion. As we're. As you probably have seen too, marketing seems to be like not just, you know, the things that you're doing, but also how your people on your team are talking about what it is that you're doing and so on and so forth. You start to see it as something that's kind of all-inclusive.
05:38 – Winston Hofer
All of it. Yeah. It's so hard, like the four Ps of marketing, you know, down to money, what you pay the team, and what you charge. Like, there are so many things I could go on for way more than we have time for. But absolutely, marketing is just like the core of a company to me.
05:53 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. I would agree with that. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself personally, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
06:05 – Winston Hofer
I think we steer people in the right direction no matter what. And that often means we don't offer the service that they want the way they want it and say go somewhere else and that's fine. We recommend that if you want just this one service or just this one part of it, like, that's great. We just don't think your company is there yet. We can help get you there. And it's all about growth and leveling up together. So I think that is. It's proven valuable because those people either come back or refer someone else. And we don't take on clients that we just don't think it's going to work. Right.
Because that's not good for anyone. So we steer people in the right direction, and then we just work backward from goals. So it's not like everything we do is a commodity to some degree. Right. Like digital marketing. Marketing. A million companies are doing it. So we just work backward from the goals, create a plan, and then execute on that. And if it doesn't work, we pivot to a new plan and talk about it together. But ultimately the goal is to reach their goals. So I think that, surprisingly, is different than a lot of marketing companies out there, unfortunately.
07:14 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Where a lot of times people are very quick to, in digital marketing or even any industry to say, you want X, Y, and Z, hey, we'll charge you for X, Y, Z. And not actually having that, for lack of a better term, I would say partnership or best interest in mind when you are working with somebody and it kind of sounds like you're putting that first to make sure that you are the right fit and maybe even two at the right time for what you all are providing and make sure that you are able to execute. Because that in and of itself becomes marketing, too, as we've been talking about.
07:47 – Winston Hofer
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
07:50 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. And you talked about kind of like the reverse engineering and seeing like, okay, this is where you want to go and working backward. Do you feel like? And I know that, you know, I've always felt like there's so many synergies between sports and kind of business. Do you feel like that's something that might have kind of come from you in your sports background?
08:09 – Winston Hofer
Yeah. I mean, and I've heard you talk about sports, too, and basketball, and I played hockey as a defenseman and prefer to be behind the play, see the whole thing, and then direct and quarterback it, even though it's hockey, you know, but like, quarterback it was my favorite spot. And I think that's. That's how I see it. And it, to me, works really well. You obviously need the people that will run through a wall and, you know, go get it. And we have those people, too. And at times I've had to do that. But, yeah, ideally, quarterback the play and make sure we're executing how we need to.
08:45 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
08:58 – Winston Hofer
I mean, I think habits in General, are habit tracking. And if you're dreading it and you're not doing something that you should be, it's either time to make it a habit and then reward yourself or there are a lot of ways to help with habits. But so making it a habit or hiring someone else to do it. Because one of the easiest ways to make sure something's done is to pay someone else. And that goes for things I can do perfectly well. But I know that that's why I don't do my own bookkeeping or accounting. Those people are great for it. And if you're dreading it early on, especially your marketing, your employee recruitment, your accounting, all those things, if you're just pushing it off, those are vital keys to the business. So either make it a habit or find someone to help with it.
09:50 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I think one of the funny things about habits is sometimes you hear people say that, oh, you're super disciplined or you're really focused on what it is that you do. But a lot of times those are just habits and we all have habits, even if your habit is to push it off, that in and of itself becomes a habit. So I love, you know, kind of hearing those different scenarios because I think so many times you think that, well, just power through or just create the habits and make that happen.
But I think especially the ability to be able to kind of know where your strengths are and delegate the rest and know where your lane is and delegate that. Like you mentioned accounting and bookkeeping and whatever those things might be for, you know, whatever business is so important because no one becomes successful by doing all of the things even though it sometimes going to feel that way.
10:33 – Winston Hofer
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I just, I couldn't agree more, you know.
10:38 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business.
10:51 – Winston Hofer
I would say pick your goals and then focus on a few of those things. You don't have to do every marketing channel and you don't have to do every event to promote your business and that is your core strategy. But pick those and then track them just like a habit and make sure you're focusing on those while looking towards the future and making sure that it makes sense to do those things. I mean, early on it was, it was tough. Like I definitely, you know, figuring it out and figuring out what I wanted the company to be and if I wanted to turn it into a company, you know, bootstrapping it, what type of company did I want it to be?
And that was tough because I bounced around on it. But after a few years, learn quickly from their mistakes. Like, okay, I spent way too much time on that, and it didn't lead to the things I wanted it to. So let's back up and then, I don't know, refocus on what we're trying, try it again. And if that doesn't work, you know, back to, like, what is the strategy? What is the goal? And then focus on a few of those, because we definitely can't do everything all at once.
11:58 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think one of the things that really kind of resonated with me that you said was tracking goals.
12:05 – Winston Hofer
Oh, so much so. And it's. It's so hard, like, reporting to yourself. Right. If you're the only one, or if you're the CEO and you have people reporting to you, it's like, can you report to them? And I think, yes. Like, it helps everyone, and it definitely helps you become more accountable for those things. Because I know some people have different strengths in being accountable. Some can do it just with a tracker, a notepad, or talking. And I think a variety of those. And having all of them is extremely helpful, to say the least.
You realize what you're dreading when you're, like, afraid to tell someone that you didn't do it. Like, hey, I didn't do any networking, or I didn't write the five blog posts that we were trying to do where I didn't work on the website or recruit. I didn't interview one person, even though I had 10. Like, you get a little sheepish when you tell someone else that and then realize you got to pick it up.
12:59 – Gresham Harkless
Appreciate that. So now I wanted to ask you 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 the show. So, Winston, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:10 – Winston Hofer
Growth. I think that's what personally attracted to me. I'm not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or anything like that. It's probably a little bit different for other people, but to me, growth and, like, helping the team and helping the clients and figuring out how to do all of that and getting out of the way when you know it's tough too, and you think you can do something to help and really like getting out of the way might help. And that's really tough to learn. If you are bootstrapped, it's really tough because you started out having to do so much. But so the growth is just like every step it's just like gonna change how you operate and figure out what you should be focused on. It's tough.
But just growth in general, for sure.Growth. I think that's what personally attracted to me. I'm not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or anything like that. It's probably a little bit different for other people, but to me, growth and, like, helping the team and helping the clients and figuring out how to do all of that and getting out of the way when you know it's tough too, and you think you can do something to help and really like getting out of the way might help.
And that's really tough to learn. If you are bootstrapped, it's really tough because you started out having to do so much. But so the growth is just like every step it's just like gonna change how you operate and figure out what you should be focused on. It's tough. But just growth in general, for sure.Growth. I think that's what personally attracted to me. I'm not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or anything like that. It's probably a little bit different for other people, but to me, growth and, like, helping the team and helping the clients and figuring out how to do all of that and getting out of the way when you know it's tough too, and you think you can do something to help and really like getting out of the way might help. And that's really tough to learn. If you are bootstrapped, it's really tough because you started out having to do so much.
But so the growth is just like every step it's just like gonna change how you operate and figure out what you should be focused on. It's tough. But just growth in general, for sure.Growth. I think that's what personally attracted to me. I'm not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or anything like that. It's probably a little bit different for other people, but to me, growth and, like, helping the team and helping the clients and figuring out how to do all of that and getting out of the way when you know it's tough too, and you think you can do something to help and really like getting out of the way might help. And that's really tough to learn. If you are bootstrapped, it's really tough because you started out having to do so much. But so the growth is just like every step it's just like gonna change how you operate and figure out what you should be focused on. It's tough. But just growth in general, for sure.
13:52 – Gresham Harkless
I love that definition. Cause it to me kind of speaks to the process that you said, you know, as well. Especially like you said, if you are bootstrapping, you start to do a lot of, if not all of the things. And then as you start to grow, you start to realize that, hey, I brought somebody on or I need to bring somebody on, or this is a bottleneck, whatever it might be. But one of the hardest things to do is sometimes to put the person in place, and get the right person into it. Just let them excel, let them execute, do all those things. And as that growth happens within the organization, it also has to happen within ourselves, where you start to have trust, you start to have to delegate, you start to have to make just all those things start to happen. As much as the business is growing, we're growing with it as well.
14:34 – Winston Hofer
Absolutely. Yeah, you said it really well. Really well.
14:37 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, Awesome. Awesome. Well, Winston, truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get a hold of you, find about all the awesome things you and team are working on.
14:53 – Winston Hofer
Oh, well, thank you for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you having me and just being able to share and hopefully it helps someone with whatever part of their business Additional would be if you need any marketing help or employee recruitment, really good at those things and have a lot of ways of going about it again to reach objectives that we set together. You set. So that's really all I have. You can check it, on my website, LinkedIn, or anything else I have the last thing I have is I guess congratulations on your engagement.
15:26 – Gresham Harkless
Thank you. Thank you.
15:26 – Winston Hofer
Yeah, I just listened to the one episode, so congrats. Congrats, man.
15:31 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, I definitely appreciate that. It's been a busy season for me and many people in my family for a lot of reasons. So of course we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But truly appreciate you mentioning that and checking that out. And I think one of the things that really resonates with me and everything that you're doing and we talked about today is that sometimes we can see marketing is just like, how can I get more new clients? How can I get more opportunities? But we sometimes forget about the marketing that happens internally within our organizations and how that is kind of a foundation for everything that we're doing. So I appreciate you obviously doing the work that you do and of course, taking some time out today. And I hope you have a great rest of the day.
16:11. – Winston Hofer
You as well. Thank you so much. Thank you.
16:14 – Outro
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.
00:20 - Intro
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 Harkus 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.
00:47 - Gresham Harkless
Hello, Hello, Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the shows today. I have Winston Hofer of Majorit Marketing. Winston, it's great to have you on the show.
00:56 - Winston Hofer
Thanks for having me, Gresh. Appreciate it.
00:58 - Gresham Harkless
Yes. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Winston so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's doing. Winston is a marketing consultant and founder and CEO of Madroid Marketing. After a failed semi-pro hockey career and several jobs spent working for someone else, Winston decided that he needed more freedom and bootstrapped his company starting from nothing. The lessons and strategies he learned along the way are what have helped him to grow his business into the success that it is today, along with relationship building and of course, hiring.
Smart as an entrepreneur and business owner since 2012, has now realized his passion, which is to help small business owners get more sales and referrals and build and market their businesses. He enjoys taking on new challenges if only to prove to himself that he can, and making himself better every single day by learning something new. Winston, I think that's a recipe for success. I'm super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
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01:51 - Winston Hofer
Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, I am.
01:5.14 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.
02:02 - Winston Hofer
Yeah, so I mean, the failed companies that I started before everything and then debating marketing or a different career field, and I just stuck with marketing because you can market any company if you. Your own company, if you can do marketing. So it started there, um, ideas didn't work out. Those led to a lot of learning, and then at some point, people were coming to me for marketing help and like, okay, perfect. And then that was the first company. And it's been going since. Yeah, long journey, but it's been a blast. For sure.
02:34 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And I love, you know, what you said about, you know, they didn't go the way you wanted them to go, but there were learning lessons there. I think so many times we forget that alone. Even though things don't necessarily work out as we want them to go, so to speak, there still is a lot that you can kind of learn from, you know, those things that don't go, you know, the way we planned.
02:53 - Winston Hofer
Absolutely, yeah. People, I think, don't like the word failure, but to me, it's not a bad thing. And if we normalize that, I think everyone's better off. Um, because you learn a lot from your failures, or you hopefully do, and then you get better and better each time after that.
03:07 - Gresham Harkless
Sure, exactly. That's why I love, you know, reading your bio and just kind of, you know, digging down and hearing, you know, more about that because I think so many times we can be in a place where we don't fail, and if we're in a place where we don't fail in kind of the same way, we're not actually trying. We're not going outside our company comfort zone, challenging ourselves. So it's almost like if you are failing, what you are doing is kind of, you know, pushing up against those. Those limits, so to speak.
03:30 - Winston Hofer
Absolutely. Yeah. The comfort zone thing is huge. I mean, I know you've done the same thing. It's like each step, there's a new comfort zone to push through something to learn. Yeah, for sure.
03:40 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. There's always another level, so I definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to now see a little bit more about how you work with and serve clients. Can you take us through a little bit more about what you're doing with your company, and how you're serving your clients?
03:52 - Winston Hofer
Yeah. So we are a marketing company. We do a lot of things. I think the core of it is we attract people, whether that's clients, customers, patients, or employees. Right. So to me, I have two types of clients, and those are the clients we serve and my team. And they need something fulfilling. They need work that's challenging. It's not. It can't be super easy. It's got a challenge that can push them. And for our clients, like, I love helping, and it just feels great that we do. So we help in a lot of ways, but it's from attracting those clients and customers to employees. All said and done.
04:31 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I love that. Two types of clients. Because I think we sometimes forget that especially the people that are on our teams and employees or contract, whatever they are, they're kind of representing the team. They become kind of like an ambassador, for lack of a better term, where they are interacting. They are talking about how great the company is, if they are being challenged, if they're growing, just all those things. And that translates into other clients.
04:54 - Winston Hofer
Absolutely. So, I mean, that's marketing. To me. The whole company is marketing. And if your team's not pulling people into it or pulling clients and customers into it, I mean, those should be your best marketing people. And they are for the right companies. So yeah, it's huge.
05:12. - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. And definitely, if you're doing the right thing. And I love how you kind of even talked about marketing because I still feel the same way. It's kind of like a quote-unquote transferable skill. It's something that is needed in all forms, shapes, or fashion. As we're. As you probably have seen too, marketing seems to be like not just, you know, the things that you're doing, but also how your people on your team are talking about what it is that you're doing and so on and so forth. You start to see it as something that's kind of all-inclusive.
05:38 - Winston Hofer
All of it. Yeah. It's so hard, like the four Ps of marketing, you know, down to money, what you pay the team, and what you charge. Like, there are so many things I could go on for way more than we have time for. But absolutely, marketing is just like the core of a company to me.
05:53 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. I would agree with that. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself personally, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
06:05 - Winston Hofer
I think we steer people in the right direction no matter what. And that often means we don't offer the service that they want the way they want it and say go somewhere else and that's fine. We recommend that if you want just this one service or just this one part of it, like, that's great. We just don't think your company is there yet. We can help get you there. And it's all about growth and leveling up together. So I think that is. It's proven valuable because those people either come back or refer someone else. And we don't take on clients that we just don't think it's going to work. Right.
Because that's not good for anyone. So we steer people in the right direction, and then we just work backward from goals. So it's not like everything we do is a commodity to some degree. Right. Like digital marketing. Marketing. A million companies are doing it. So we just work backward from the goals, create a plan, and then execute on that. And if it doesn't work, we pivot to a new plan and talk about it together. But ultimately the goal is to reach their goals. So I think that, surprisingly, is different than a lot of marketing companies out there, unfortunately.
07:14 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Where a lot of times people are very quick to, in digital marketing or even any industry to say, you want X, Y, and Z, hey, we'll charge you for X, Y, Z. And not actually having that, for lack of a better term, I would say partnership or best interest in mind when you are working with somebody and it kind of sounds like you're putting that first to make sure that you are the right fit and maybe even two at the right time for what you all are providing and make sure that you are able to execute. Because that in and of itself becomes marketing, too, as we've been talking about.
07:47 - Winston Hofer
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
07:50 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. And you talked about kind of like the reverse engineering and seeing like, okay, this is where you want to go and working backward. Do you feel like? And I know that, you know, I've always felt like there's so many synergies between sports and kind of business. Do you feel like that's something that might have kind of come from you in your sports background?
08:09 - Winston Hofer
Yeah. I mean, and I've heard you talk about sports, too, and basketball, and I played hockey as a defenseman and prefer to be behind the play, see the whole thing, and then direct and quarterback it, even though it's hockey, you know, but like, quarterback it was my favorite spot. And I think that's. That's how I see it. And it, to me, works really well. You obviously need the people that will run through a wall and, you know, go get it. And we have those people, too. And at times I've had to do that. But, yeah, ideally, quarterback the play and make sure we're executing how we need to.
08:45 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
08:58 - Winston Hofer
I mean, I think habits in General, are habit tracking. And if you're dreading it and you're not doing something that you should be, it's either time to make it a habit and then reward yourself or there are a lot of ways to help with habits. But so making it a habit or hiring someone else to do it. Because one of the easiest ways to make sure something's done is to pay someone else. And that goes for things I can do perfectly well. But I know that that's why I don't do my own bookkeeping or accounting. Those people are great for it. And if you're dreading it early on, especially your marketing, your employee recruitment, your accounting, all those things, if you're just pushing it off, those are vital keys to the business. So either make it a habit or find someone to help with it.
09:50 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I think one of the funny things about habits is sometimes you hear people say that, oh, you're super disciplined or you're really focused on what it is that you do. But a lot of times those are just habits and we all have habits, even if your habit is to push it off, that in and of itself becomes a habit. So I love, you know, kind of hearing those different scenarios because I think so many times you think that, well, just power through or just create the habits and make that happen.
But I think especially the ability to be able to kind of know where your strengths are and delegate the rest and know where your lane is and delegate that. Like you mentioned accounting and bookkeeping and whatever those things might be for, you know, whatever business is so important because no one becomes successful by doing all of the things even though it sometimes going to feel that way.
10:33 - Winston Hofer
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I just, I couldn't agree more, you know.
10:38 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business.
10:51 - Winston Hofer
I would say pick your goals and then focus on a few of those things. You don't have to do every marketing channel and you don't have to do every event to promote your business and that is your core strategy. But pick those and then track them just like a habit and make sure you're focusing on those while looking towards the future and making sure that it makes sense to do those things. I mean, early on it was, it was tough. Like I definitely, you know, figuring it out and figuring out what I wanted the company to be and if I wanted to turn it into a company, you know, bootstrapping it, what type of company did I want it to be?
And that was tough because I bounced around on it. But after a few years, learn quickly from their mistakes. Like, okay, I spent way too much time on that, and it didn't lead to the things I wanted it to. So let's back up and then, I don't know, refocus on what we're trying, try it again. And if that doesn't work, you know, back to, like, what is the strategy? What is the goal? And then focus on a few of those, because we definitely can't do everything all at once.
11:58 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think one of the things that really kind of resonated with me that you said was tracking goals.
12:05 - Winston Hofer
Oh, so much so. And it's. It's so hard, like, reporting to yourself. Right. If you're the only one, or if you're the CEO and you have people reporting to you, it's like, can you report to them? And I think, yes. Like, it helps everyone, and it definitely helps you become more accountable for those things. Because I know some people have different strengths in being accountable. Some can do it just with a tracker, a notepad, or talking. And I think a variety of those. And having all of them is extremely helpful, to say the least.
You realize what you're dreading when you're, like, afraid to tell someone that you didn't do it. Like, hey, I didn't do any networking, or I didn't write the five blog posts that we were trying to do where I didn't work on the website or recruit. I didn't interview one person, even though I had 10. Like, you get a little sheepish when you tell someone else that and then realize you got to pick it up.
12:59 - Gresham Harkless
Appreciate that. So now I wanted to ask you 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 the show. So, Winston, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:10 - Winston Hofer
Growth. I think that's what personally attracted to me. I'm not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or anything like that. It's probably a little bit different for other people, but to me, growth and, like, helping the team and helping the clients and figuring out how to do all of that and getting out of the way when you know it's tough too, and you think you can do something to help and really like getting out of the way might help. And that's really tough to learn. If you are bootstrapped, it's really tough because you started out having to do so much. But so the growth is just like every step it's just like gonna change how you operate and figure out what you should be focused on. It's tough. But just growth in general, for sure.
13:52 - Gresham Harkless
I love that definition. Cause it to me kind of speaks to the process that you said, you know, as well. Especially like you said, if you are bootstrapping, you start to do a lot of, if not all of the things. And then as you start to grow, you start to realize that, hey, I brought somebody on or I need to bring somebody on, or this is a bottleneck, whatever it might be. But one of the hardest things to do is sometimes to put the person in place, and get the right person into it. Just let them excel, let them execute, do all those things. And as that growth happens within the organization, it also has to happen within ourselves, where you start to have trust, you start to have to delegate, you start to have to make just all those things start to happen. As much as the business is growing, we're growing with it as well.
14:34 - Winston Hofer
Absolutely. Yeah, you said it really well. Really well.
14:37 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome, Awesome. Awesome. Well, Winston, truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get a hold of you, find about all the awesome things you and team are working on.
14:53 - Winston Hofer
Oh, well, thank you for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you having me and just being able to share and hopefully it helps someone with whatever part of their business Additional would be if you need any marketing help or employee recruitment, really good at those things and have a lot of ways of going about it again to reach objectives that we set together. You set. So that's really all I have. You can check it, on my website, LinkedIn, or anything else I have the last thing I have is I guess congratulations on your engagement.
15:26 - Gresham Harkless
Thank you. Thank you.
15:26 - Winston Hofer
Yeah, I just listened to the one episode, so congrats. Congrats, man.
15:31 - Gresham Harkless
Yes, I definitely appreciate that. It's been a busy season for me and many people in my family for a lot of reasons. So of course we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But truly appreciate you mentioning that and checking that out. And I think one of the things that really resonates with me and everything that you're doing and we talked about today is that sometimes we can see marketing is just like, how can I get more new clients? How can I get more opportunities? But we sometimes forget about the marketing that happens internally within our organizations and how that is kind of a foundation for everything that we're doing. So I appreciate you obviously doing the work that you do and of course, taking some time out today. And I hope you have a great rest of the day.
16:11. - Winston Hofer
You as well. Thank you so much. Thank you.
16:14 - Outro
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.
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