IAM280- Business Consultant Focuses on Leading Companies in Incorporating Sustainability

Kevin Wilhelm is the one of the world’s preeminent business consultants in the field of sustainability and climate change. He is the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, a Seattle-based consulting firm focused on demonstrating the bottom-line business benefits of sustainability and then leading companies through successful implementation.

Kevin brings two decades of experience working with businesses ranging from Fortune 500 multinationals to medium-sized businesses. His clients include Nordstrom, REI, The North Face, Alaska Airlines, Redbox, Expeditors, Drugstore.com, Puget Sound Energy and more than 75 others.

• CEO Hack: 1) Book-  7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (2) Organising and prioritization principle of three things that need to done
• CEO Nugget: You'll have to put in a lot more work and hours when you start a business
• CEO Defined: Offer inspiration and direction on where the organisation is going

Website: https://sustainablebizconsulting.com/

SOCIAL MEDIA
@KevinWilhelmSBC
Kevin-Wilhelm.com

Twitter: @SBC_Consulting 
Facebook: facebook.com/SustainableBizConsulting/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sustainable-business-consulting-llc

BOOKS
Sustainability Jobs: http://ow.ly/5hca30ohtp1
Making Sustainability Stick: http://ow.ly/K01n30ohtof
Return on Sustainability: http://ow.ly/EsWI30ohtng

Transcription

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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 and I have a very special guest on the show today, Kevin Wilhelm of Sustainable Biz Consulting. Kevin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Kevin Wilhelm 0:41

Thanks for having me, Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

No problem super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Kevin so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Kevin is one of the world’s preeminent business consultants in the field of sustainability and climate change. He is the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, a Seattle-based consulting firm focused on demonstrating the bottom-line business benefits of sustainability and then leading companies through successful implementation. Kevin brings two decades of experience working with businesses ranging from Fortune 500 multinationals to medium-sized businesses. His clients include Nordstrom, REI, The North Face, Alaska Airlines, Redbox, Expeditors, Drugstore.com, Puget Sound Energy, and more than 75 others. Kevin, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Kevin Wilhelm 1:32

Sure, I am.

Gresham Harkless 1:33

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Kevin Wilhelm 1:41

Yeah, well, I would say I would call myself a reluctant entrepreneur, I didn't set out on this career path or the opening my own shop, and when I came out to Seattle and was wanting to do business consulting around sustainability, I kept coming across firms and asking who's making the business case for what you're doing. And no one said we're not really doing that. And I went around and talked to about 45 or 50 different consulting firms in the Seattle area and said, Who's going to be working with businesses on helping solve climate change and showing them that there's a business imperative way they can do better and make more money by addressing this challenge. And people just kept saying, Yeah, someone's got to do that. And I was like, All right, I guess I've got to open up a firm and that's how I got started.

Gresham Harkless 2:35

Nice. It's always funny to hear that especially in true entrepreneurial form, like everybody says, Oh, that's a great idea. And you're the one that actually takes the man on and decides to actually build that since you came up and kind of saw that kind of, I guess, the gap in the industry.

Kevin Wilhelm 2:50

Yeah. And it was one of those things where, quite honestly, I had been working as a kind of an independent consultant, having my own shop working like a lot of people do out of their own house, and was really content and it was my life and what I was doing, but just felt like there was this call to action that was needed, and someone needed to step into the space. And when no one was willing to do it, I just looked myself in the mirror and say, Alright, I'm gonna step up and do it. And, 11 years later, here we are and working with now about 150 different companies across 37 different industries. So we're doing pretty well.

Gresham Harkless 3:30

Yeah, absolutely. And it's something that's definitely needed. So definitely appreciate you for taking the mantle and taking the rain said to be able to do that. So could you break down a little bit more about what sustainability and climate change are, why it's important to businesses, and what you're doing to support these clients?

Kevin Wilhelm 3:47

Yeah, for the most part, I think most businesses realize that there are greater social and environmental impacts that are happening on our planet, and they need to, they need to engage. Our stories have really been about providing them services that can help them engage but also help advance their businesses.

So whether it's helping an organization, baseline, their environmental impacts or what they're doing in terms of social justice or diversity, equity inclusion, to really helping them develop a strategy were taking more proactive actions on this whether it's, energy, efficiency, waste reduction, being smarter about your business traveling in logistics in a way that will bring money to the bottom line, but also enhance their brand value and make their employees happier that they're actually taking action on some of these greater challenges that face our society.

Gresham Harkless 4:48

Yeah, absolutely. And correct me if I'm wrong, but do you find that a lot of businesses and organizations definitely want to do good they definitely want to have an impact, but they don't necessarily know I guess how to do it or where to start and begin.

Kevin Wilhelm 5:01

Yeah, it's not only that, but there's also a pretty common held belief that doing the right thing doesn't pay for itself or organizations, and we hear this almost every time, we want to do the right thing, but we got to get shareholders we gotta meet, we got to meet the bottom line. And so we flipped that on its head and said, let's start from that standpoint, assume everybody's a skeptic, and assume everybody needs to worry about the bottom line first. And let's show them the things to do, is also to do good and that's really been essential to our success.

So we really help organizations start from that perspective, someone wants to do the right thing, they want to do the right thing, but they'll always come up against that skepticism or that financial pain point. So if we can address that, first, we can really set them up for successful long term.

Gresham Harkless 5:57

Makes perfect sense. I absolutely love that and love that perspective and the approach that you guys have, because a lot of times you want to know your client, obviously, just to understand that this is something that might come up. But to be able to inform people because a lot of times people don't know about other opportunities, but you being an expert in somebody who's able to speak to different things they can do to create Win-Win situations, that definitely helps out a ton.

Kevin Wilhelm 6:21

Yeah, and for the most part, it's also about translating, sustainability into layperson's terms, helping the accountant or the finance person or the HR person, or even legal operations, logistics, help them understand how it relates to their day-to-day job. And what we find is that oftentimes, they are already doing something, whether it's accounting or finance, where they move from paper to electronic data storage, or a different way of doing commerce electronically, that it's not only doing it because it's smart business, and just the way things are done, but it also has an environmental benefit and a business benefit.

And then it saves them money. And so once you kind of turn that lights on for them, and they go like when I did this or that, then they realize it. And they feel more empowered, but for the most part, people think they have a way of doing their work. And sustainability is something new, and it's kind of put a chain around their leg when the reality is it's an idea that can we bring from a sustainable business consulting mindset that can spark innovation and employee engagement, which will lead to both doing better, but also doing better for the planet.

Gresham Harkless 7:33

Yeah, that makes sense. I absolutely love that too. Because a lot of times, they might already be incorporating some of those things, like you mentioned, instead of printing out paper, having something digital or digital version of it, that they're already doing it to some degree, it's just a matter of how can you incorporate a little bit more, and it's not as much of a stretch as sometimes we think it might be.

Kevin Wilhelm 7:51

Correct.

Gresham Harkless 7:52

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for you or your organization, but this is what you feel kind of sets you apart, it makes you unique.

Kevin Wilhelm 8:02

Well, it's interesting, because I think a lot of times, what our secret sauce is, is really just that, I would say two things. One, it's having a broad enough understanding of how business and sustainability come together. But through always kind of putting sustainability in the mindset of the business person and what's in it for them. I think so many environmentalists or even other environmental consultancies come with it, hey, the polar bears are drowning, the Arctic ice caps are melting, and you need to take action.

And we tend to not come from that point of view, our secret sauce is to really like get in the head of our clients and in the individuals and really think about, what they care about most. And how does this align with them, not only in what they're trying to accomplish within the role but within their business? I think the second element of our secret sauce is, it's no key, we're just trustworthy, we are trusted advisors to the clients we work with, and in a lot of ways, we feel like we're an extension of their team.

And, so we don't come in with hate, it's our way or the highway kind of consulting approach. It's much more of a customized listening to their exact needs and helping them deliver what they need for success. But what I'm always shocked with is that we brought in a sustainability-related project. And before we've earned their trust, and it really is just pure business consulting, or when we get into the executive suite level, that's where we really start talking about stuff, whether it's about sustainability or not. And so it's really about developing that level of trust right up front. That becomes our secret sauce.

Gresham Harkless 9:52

Yeah, and I think that definitely inherent, in how you guys approach things. It definitely makes sense. I can definitely see how you can have that partner to shape so to speak because you are actually listening and you're not trying to force feed somebody as a specific solution, but you actually listen to what they do, how their business flow goes, and how they do certain things and how to incorporate that into their regular activities.

Kevin Wilhelm 10:16

Yeah, and even we go so far as pretty typically as an organization will come to us and say we need this, we want you to help us do A, B, and C, and we'll listen to what their needs are and what they're doing. And oftentimes, we'll say, B and C aren't what you need, right? Now, what you need are, you know, A, D, F, and we can come back to B and C and phase two, but that's not going to really provide you a whole lot of value right now, or you might be biting off too big of a chunk of work upfront.

And so sometimes, you know, we're advising him, you know, graphing and oftentimes in our own economic disinterest, where we couldn't take more money upfront. But we just don't think that's the right thing to do. We want to deliver and work for them for the long term, and give them the value they need and not the stuff they don't

Gresham Harkless 11:08

Makes perfect sense. And that's actually what starts to build that trust. So I can definitely see how that manifests itself from there. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Kevin Wilhelm 11:23

I think it goes back to my CEO hack is really I apply a lot of, this is really old school, but Seven Habits of Highly Successful People that Stephen Covey uses and really my CEO hack is I look at a quarter ahead, I look at a month ahead, and I look out the whole week, and they say, okay, what are the three things we need to get done this quarter? What are the three things that absolutely need to get done this month? What are three things to get done this week? And that's helpful for the whole organization and the whole organizing principle of not only what I need to make sure I get done, but what the team needs to get done.

And using that we have a way within our society of answering emails and responding to texts and getting back to people all the time. And taking that pull back and looking and saying what is most important that we need to get done, and really focusing on that first.

Gresham Harkless 12:23

Nice, nice, nice. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Kevin Wilhelm 12:32

Well, the hilarious thing that I would tell my younger business self and I talk to a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, and a lot of people are aspiring to get into the sustainability or corporate social responsibility space is that if you want to do this work, even if you want to have your own business, prepared to work twice as hard as what you think you will. I mean, everyone thinks it's so wonderful to have your own business and to be the boss. But the reality is, that means you are working, you don't shut off at five o'clock, you're always thinking about the next thing you're thinking about your employees, you're thinking about your customers.

And a lot of ways you might be putting in 10-12 hour days, it's just not on the clock, but because your mind is always spinning. And so I think that one of the nuggets, I would tell people who are aspiring to be entrepreneurs and business owners is a be ready, if you're not willing to outwork somebody, this might not be the right thing, you're gonna have to put in a lot more hours and a lot more sweat and equity than then people tell you

Gresham Harkless 13:39

Nice, nice, nice. And now I want 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, Kevin, I want to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Kevin Wilhelm 13:51

Gresh, That's an awesome question. And you're the only person who's ever asked me that, and probably the 50 podcasts I've done and maybe 600 speaking engagements, no one's ever asked me that question. I think a CEO means multiple things, I think it means that your job is to provide inspiration and directions to where the organization's going. But you're also the protector of the culture of the organization. And so you can't always be out in front of the organization, you have to have a pulse as to how the employees are doing, what the morale is of the company. And I think that I feel like, as a CEO, I'm doing my job best. When I know that my team is happy, my customers are happy.

And the fires that are burning are being addressed? And I think so, a lot of times people think being a CEO is, Wow, it's so amazing. You get to fly all around and meet all these amazing people and speak it all these days. For an event, which is true, and it's wonderful. But if you're not taking care to make sure that you're preserving the culture of your company at the same time, you're not doing it the way it needs to be done. And so I would say I probably spend an equal amount of time thinking about my employees, what their needs are, what their keys to success are, and what their desires outside of work are. And when I'm making sure that they're taken care of, then the business is being taken care of.

Gresham Harkless 15:33

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, I definitely appreciate it, bro. We appreciate you dedicating your time and your energy and your business to this. We'll have all those links in the show notes as well but I hope you have a phenomenal day.

Kevin Wilhelm 15:43

Thanks so much, Gresh. Take care.

Outro 15:46

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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