IAM1467 – Hard-hitting Serial Entrepreneur Leads the Charge in Helping Small to Mid-size Businesses Catapult in Growth Value

Judge is a hard-hitting, action-oriented serial entrepreneur with a successful track record of growing companies with little to no revenue and selling them for multi- and hundreds of millions of dollars. Judge started www.JudgeGraham.com to lead the charge in helping small to mid-size businesses catapult in growth value to create strong legacies or prosperous liquidity events. Judge served as the Chief Marketing & New Business Officer of Ansira, the second-largest independently owned CRM and digital marketing agency in the USA. Judge was part of the core deal team and instrumental in selling Ansira to Advent International in 2016. Prior to joining Ansira, Judge was the former Co-Owner and President of Sq1, which he sold to Ansira in 2015. He was also the former Co-Owner and President of Rassai Interactive. Judge has helped hundreds of small and Fortune 500 companies focus on growth and the ability to identify and capitalize on opportunities to improve revenue and corner markets through the integration of cutting-edge positioning, culture, technology, and sales.

• CEO Story: Judge was born to be a CEO. Started in Grade 2 when he used to sell beautifully decorated pencils made by his mom and sell them to his classmates. From pencils to watches, beepers, selling door to doors knives, or security systems. And finally started his company during college, grew it, and never looked back.
• Business Service: Wrote a book – Scale with Speed (about transformational growth) meant to break the noise for the entrepreneurs.
• Secret Sauce: Speed, move so fast. Making decisions fast. Operating in urgency and speed.
• CEO Hack: The money she, a tool in my book
• CEO Nugget: Continue to chase your path or dream
• CEO Defined: High levels of responsibility

Website: https://www.judgegraham.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/judgegraham/
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1Z_gpSfRln-oRdb1Xe3AkQ/videos
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/judgegrahambusiness 
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/judgegraham/ 
Podcast – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/scale-with-speed-king/id1371679780?mt=2

Episode Link: https://iamceo.co/2018/11/20/iam-111-hard-hitting-serial-entrepreneur-leads-the-charge-in-helping-small-to-mid-size-businesses-catapult-in-growth-value/

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Transcription

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00:00 – 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 Harkness 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.

01:28 -Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast formerly the CEO Chat podcast. So doing something a little bit different as we ease into the fall from the summer and you know, everybody's traveling a lot more. You know, Life is obviously a lot different than it has been in the last 4 years, definitely since I started this, let alone the last 2 years or so. But I had a podcast called the CEO Chat Podcast, which is a lot more of a long-form podcast. I didn't really reach the 1,400-plus episodes that we did with the I AM CEO podcast.

So there's a lot more long-flowing, a lot more conversational, but might be dusting off the the CEO chat podcast and bringing that back out. So with that being said, while considering that, what I wanted to do is go through some of the interviews that I had that were some of my favorites and share those. It's not going to obviously be the entire interview. We're going to have links in the show notes so that you can listen to the full interview. But I wanted to do some snippets that you can get. You're going to hear, of course, the visibility, either the resources or the connections in each of these different snippets.

So it's going to be one of those things that are really going to help you to hopefully learn more about the guests that are on the show, what they do, how they do it, why they do it, but also get that opportunity to really learn about some resources that can make you more effective and efficient. So sit back and enjoy this special throwback CEO chat episode. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and have a very special guest on the show today. I have Judge Graham of JudgeGraham.com. Judge, it's awesome to have you on the show.

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02:02 – Judge Graham

Thanks for having me, man. Super excited to be here.

02:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I'm super excited to have you. And what I wanted to do is read a little bit more about Judge so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And he's definitely rocking and rolling it. Judge is a hard-hitting, action-oriented serial entrepreneur with a successful track record of growing companies with little or no revenue and selling them for multi and hundreds of millions of dollars. Judge started JudgeGraham.com to lead the charge in helping small to mid-sized businesses catapult in growth value to create strong legacies or prosperous liquidity events. Judge served as a chief marketing and new business officer at Ansara.

The Ansara is the second largest independent-owned CRM and digital marketing agency in the United States. Judge was a part of the core deal team in instrumental and selling in sera to Advent International in 2016. Prior to joining Sera judge was the former co-owner and president of Square 1, which he sold to Sera in 2015. He was also the former co-owner and president of Rossi International. Yep. Judge has helped hundreds of small and unfortunate 500 companies focus on growth and the ability to identify and capitalize on opportunities to improve revenue and corner markets through the integration of cutting-edge positions, culture, technology, and sales. Judge, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

03:28 – Judge Graham

Yeah. What an intro.

03:30 – Gresham Harkless

Thank you so much.

03:30 – Judge Graham

No problem.

03:30 – Gresham Harkless

Definitely a tongue twister, but I wanted to actually hear a little bit more about your CEO story what led you to start your business, and all these different opportunities you've been working on.

03:39 – Judge Graham

Yeah, so I know I've been a serial entrepreneur my whole life. So ever since I was a little kid man, second or third grade, my mom was an art teacher, and she would get these really cool pencils. I don't even use pencils anymore. Do you remember the cool pencils that were decorated and they were thicker? Well, she'd bring a box of those home and I'm in second, or third grade. And she said, here, I'm going to give these to you. And at that moment, I realized that I was in sales. I said, well, wow, I've got 30 Pencils.

And what am I going to do with all these pencils? And I would sell them for a dollar to $2 at school. And so that automatically, just when I was a little kid, It went from pencils to watches to beepers to selling knives door to door to home security systems. So I've always had this entrepreneurial bug. Right. And my first company, I started in college and literally grew that company and almost didn't graduate and have really never looked back.

04:34 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. And yeah, for me, it was potato chips for you as pencils. So I appreciate that entrepreneurial story. It's awesome to hear kind of how that light just switches. Once you get that opportunity, you just kind of do whatever is natural to you.

04:46 – Judge Graham

Yeah, totally. 100%.

04:47 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper here, about what you have going on on your website. I know you're doing a lot of things to help out a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners. So could you drill a little bit deeper and tell us how you serve the clients you work with?

04:57 – Judge Graham

Yeah. So I just wrote a book called Scale with Speed. And in that book is meant to help entrepreneurs, and business owners, really cut through the bullshut. All right. There's so much noise in books and there's so much theory. And you'll listen, I'm a real guy, right? I've made huge mistakes. I've had huge failures. I've been at the lowest lows and I've been at the highest highs. And I know what it's like to chase the mailman for a check. I know what it feels like not to make payroll. I know what it feels like to take huge risks, to have to manage your family and get support to go through that kind of thing. So after I reached this level of success that I've reached, I wanted to go on a mission to help, right? I believe that the backbone of America is small businesses, right?

And entrepreneurs and we're in such an exciting time more than ever that there's so many entrepreneurs and technology has allowed us to move so fast and have so many opportunities that I want to be kind of a Sherpa or a shepherd along this path to help individuals go from, you know, 0 to 10 people to 20 people to a thousand people. And I want to use the real practitioner experience I have to help them address those things. Because, you know, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that stay up late at night, they can't sleep, right? And they have friends or they have family that's supportive, but they don't get it, right? I want to be able to talk to say, Hey, listen, I know exactly where you are. And this is the mistake I made. And this is how you should look at it and I want to help them grow in scale. So that's that's what I'm doing

06:35 – Gresham Harkless

Nice and I definitely appreciate that it definitely for somebody to you know Reach the level of success and be able to kind of say I want to help pay it forward I want to try to help other people out and you know you writing that book and you know we're definitely gonna feature that on our CEO bookshelf. So definitely looking forward to hearing a little bit more about how exactly you're doing and some of those hacks that you have for us. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce and this could be kind of like something that you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization. So do you have a secret sauce for us?

07:01 – Judge Graham

Yeah, I think the secret sauce for me is speed. I mean, what my book is about, I mean, I move so freaking fast. You know, I tell a lot of people the time I've got a really good EQ versus an IQ, right? I'm not the smartest guy, but I make decisions fast. So as I look at doing something, my level of execution in decision-making, I'll make 15 decisions before the normal person may make 1 or 2. And even if I make half of them wrong, I'm still going to be so much further ahead because of how I'm operating with urgency and speed.

07:34 – Gresham Harkless

I love that. And it's funny, I used to play Madden all the time and anytime somebody would burn somebody like a wide receiver, he would always say speed kills and it does because you can get so much more done in a short amount of time that somebody else might take, you know, 10 times as much time to do.

07:49 – Judge Graham

Yeah, totally, 100%.

07:51 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely, so now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be an app, a book, your own book, or a habit that you have, something that would make people more effective and efficient as business owners.

08:02 – Judge Graham

Totally. And this is in my book and it's a free tool that you can get on my website. It's called the Money Sheet. I've got a bunch of hats and different things. And I've created this and I made it silly. I made it kind of in your face. I've got another hat that's a huge dollar sign, but it's called the money sheet. What it does is it allows you, it focus to spend 75% of your day on the top 6 to 8 priorities that you have to do that day to get you closer to your monthly revenue target. People spend so much time on non-revenue generating activities, whether they're looking at social or they're doing what I would call busy work or, hey, let's call a meeting to have a meeting.

People need to focus on revenue. Right. And so my hack is, I don't care if you're selling freaking popsicles, phone cases, consulting, whatever it is, you need to get your revenue right. You need to get yourself and everyone in your organization spending 75% of their time on it. And so I created it. You can download it. It's a digital version. It's a physical version, and it's a mental, tangible reminder every day to get your money

09:11 – Gresham Harkless

Right. There you go. And it's a quick kind of reminder that you forget that you're in business usually to buy or to make sales essentially. So you want to make sure that you get really focused on those certain things that definitely appreciate you for creating that so that people can kind of remind themselves of that and even the hat so that they know it and can wear it on their head. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, or you can jump into a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

09:36 – Judge Graham

I would tell my younger business self and even my older, right, is continue to chase your path, your dream, right? I mean, I know everybody says that, but what I mean by that is, when I was younger, I cared so much what other people thought. And you start to surround yourself with who you become. So advice would be, if you're seeking advice, make sure you're seeking it, right? Because people love to give it without seeking it, right? And make sure you're getting advice from someone who has either done or exceeded what you're wanting, right?

And anything else besides that is noise and you got to push it away, you know? And I think that's even for the younger audience out there, that's so hard because of social media. Haters to me are a sign of success, and I've got a lot of them. And it's tough reading some of those comments and seeing people say certain things and advice or trying to give advice, but you gotta push through that. You gotta believe in what you're doing and you've gotta seek out advice and listen to people that have done what you have or more.

10:43 – Gresham Harkless:

Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. You know, you gotta make sure that you put blinders on so that you're so laser-focused on your goal that, you know, nothing else, whether it be the haters on social media or whoever is going to get in your way as far as reaching your past. So I think that's a phenomenal CEO nugget.

10:56 – Judge Graham

Yeah, it's so important. I mean, so many people seek advice, right? When they should be seeking counsel, right? Big difference. Council with somebody that knows it and can help and advise, anybody can give it to you.

11:09 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Like again, you know, walking in the path of somebody that's done it. So if you want to be like this person, you're going to read their book, you're going to listen to their videos, you're going to listen to their podcast, do all these things so that you can continue to kind of go down the path of what you're trying to do.

11:22 – Judge Graham

Yeah, and I believe mentorship is so important, whether it's following a guy like me or there are thousands of people, right? I think to find somebody that you can just, even if you can't pay them and they're giving out free videos as I do, listen to those nuggets, take them, and implement them. It's really important.

11:39 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So Judge, now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show, but I wanted to ask you specifically, what being a CEO means to you.

11:53 – Judge Graham

It means a heightened level of responsibility. And what that means for me is, you know, I believe You're not a real company until you have a team, right? You can be a sole entrepreneur, and you can make a lot of money, but when you become a real CEO, you have this responsibility of customers, team members, and fiduciary, And somebody like me, I take that with a lot of gravity. And I think it's really important, when people say, hey, sometimes it's lonely at the top, it can be, right? But you have a responsibility to grow and do right for your customers. You have a responsibility to grow and do right for your people.

So I think to me, it's a heightened responsibility that you have to take seriously. And it's so much fun, right? If you're passionate about what you want, you do, and you love it. And you love building people and you love building a product or a service that is actually doing something great. It's an amazing journey.

12:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. It's like kind of when the stars align and everything just kind of goes specifically right. You're following a path that you wanna go around, you're doing something that you love and then you have a team in place that's kind of rocking and rolling as well. It's definitely like a special moment.

13:02 – Judge Graham

Very much so.

13:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Judge, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know how they can get in touch with you, get a copy of your book, and all that great information you have.

13:16 – Judge Graham

Yeah, great. Thank you again for having me on. The best place to go is judgegram.com and you can find all my social handles are pretty much at Judge Graham. Also, my new book, Scale with Speed is at scalewithspeed.com or judgegram.com. And listen, the book is a game changer. It's 206 pages. I literally wrote it to be a practitioner's guide. I have 8 to 10 supplemental downloads that come with the book, like the money sheet and a bunch of other things that literally, as you read a chapter, you can dive in and start taking action, right? The whole book is a formula. It's called speed, right, which is starting with your end game, picking your niche, executing with speed, energizing your culture, and dominating your top priorities. If you follow this formula, put it into practice, and create a habit, you'll be successful. So get the book, and check it out. It's an easy read. You can read it on a coast-to-coast flight, or I created speed reads. You can read it like on a Dallas to Houston 45-minute flight.

14:13 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Awesome. And I have a copy as well too, not a hat, but I definitely have my copy. So make sure you go and pick it up. So again, I appreciate your judgment. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

14:23 – Judge Graham

You too, man. Have a great weekend. Thank you for having me on.

15:01 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and the CEO Chat podcast. I hope you enjoyed this special episode. Gave us an opportunity to take some of the snippets from some of the longer-form podcasts that we have and repurpose them here. We might be dusting off the CEO Chat podcast and talking a little bit more about some of those longer form episodes and hopefully some of the people that have been on the IMCO podcast on the longer form episodes. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you enjoyed this little snapshot. Of course, you can go to www.ceochat.co and have the opportunity to listen to the full complete version of the episode. But also you can maybe see that it's very important to create content but also to be able to listen to and take in the hacks, the nuggets, the stories, just all the things that make these interviews so unique and so special. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and be sure to follow up with the guests, follow up with the CEO Chat podcast, and hear about all the awesome things we're working on.

16:03 – 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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