IAM1456 – Coach Provides Fitness in a Holistic and Healthy Way
Podcast Interview with Laman Ben-Trahoret
Laman is a wellness professional based in Arlington, VA. His business, Live Laman has been operating since 2018 and has gotten quite a bit of buzz. Laman works with anyone who is looking to engage or reengage with their fitness in a holistic and healthy way. Laman offers in-person training, online training, and meal prep services to his clients. Laman's entrepreneurial journey has been unique, and he hopes to continue to provide visibility and voice to the causes he cares about all while building a successful and sustainable business the community can be proud of.
- CEO Story: Laman studied in business school and worked in the corporate world. But having the lack of upward mobility, it came to his realization of which route to take. He pursued his passion for fitness and put an end to the corporate ladder. The blend of intersection came to fruition in his innovative self.
- Business Service: During the pandemic, he started his online marketing putting some online information/content. Outdoor session in the community. Prep meals for clients.
- Secret Sauce: Background in online marketing. Identifying clients/groups. Being better with time.
- CEO Hack: Audiobooks. Learning and adapting. You can do other things while listening or rewind and dig deep.
- CEO Nugget: Vision is so important, don’t get stuck on your day-to-day. Focus on the bigger things.
- CEO Defined: Having the vision and being able to communicate that vision effectively across different mediums. Getting people to take that vision mobilize and make it happen.
Website: www.livelaman.com
Instagram: livelaman
LinkedIn: laman-ben-trahoret
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Transcription
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00:28 – 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 it with you Precisely. You're in search of this is the I AM CEO Podcast.
00:55 – Gresham Harkless
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the I Am CEO Podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today, Laman Ben-Trahoret of Live Laman Fitness and Nutrition. Laman, super excited to have you on the show.
01:06 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Thank you for having me.
01:07 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, excited to have you on and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing. And of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Laman so you can hear about some of those awesome things. Laman is a wellness professional based in Arlington, Virginia. His business, Live Laman, has been operating since 2018 and has gotten quite a bit of buzz.
Laman works with anyone who is looking to engage or reengage with their fitness in a holistic and healthy way and Laman offers in-person TR online training and meal prep services for his clients. Laman's entrepreneurial journey has been unique and he hopes to continue to provide visibility and voice to the causes he cares about, all while building a successful and sustainable business that the community can be proud of. Laman, excited again to have you on the show, my friend. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
01:53 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Yes, I am.
01:54 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off. I know I touched on it a little bit like when I read your bio, but I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.
02:04 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Yeah, definitely. So my path towards entrepreneurship started back in 2018 wherein I was originally working in the corporate world. I was working for a legacy company, quasi government agency. So all that being said, a lot of bureaucracy. I was two years out of college. I really hadn't really found my niche when it comes to where I see myself going up the corporate ladder. Throughout college, I went to business school, I went to the University of Maryland, and they kind of instilled this idea that you want to be on the corporate track, you want to start that corporate ladder, you want to start your 401k and you want to go, go, go. But by the time I got to my previous company, also my last company, I wasn't seeing upward mobility towards myself.
So, long story short, my contract wasn't renewed, and I was just like, hey, do I want to go back into the job field and keep trying to search for a place where I belong, or can I take this risk? Can I take the knowledge and experience I have doing business and working at different companies? Before I was in the corporate world, I had multiple other position jobs. And so I said, hey, food and fitness have always been passions of mine. Where can it take me? And I'm here today. Nice.
03:22 – Gresham Harkless
I love that. I love that question that you asked. Can I take this risk? And I think so many times when you start to look at the opportunities that you have, and especially when you quote, unquote, bet on yourself, it ends up becoming less and less of a risk. When you look at, you know, something, you're passionate about the work that you put in. So when you don't see the opportunity to kind of see the fruits of your labor sometimes in positions that we had previously, it ends up being like the only.
The only opportunity that really can kind of, I guess, quench our appetite, quench our thirst, so to speak. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know I touched a little bit on how you serve your clients. Could you take us through a little bit more of your intersection, and how you serve the clients that you work with?
04:00 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Yeah, definitely. So the pandemic was interesting for me because I started my business in 2018, you know, two years into it, and we're in a global pandemic. That shuts down everything. And gyms took a big hit, the established brick-and-mortar gyms did, but also for those of us kind of like in the fitness space who were just starting. So luckily, though, I was able to use my background in online marketing to kind of create online services. I started offering online services where I would document my workouts and kind of just put some of this information out for free and just educate and build a portfolio of content so that people would see me as a resource.
And then when it got warmer outside because I don't do outdoor winter sessions. But when it did get warmer outside, starting maybe in around late March, I started offering outdoor sessions. And it's been really helpful because Arlington has so many parks outside and there's just a lot of. A lot of different avenues to engage in fitness, not only in your residential buildings, if you live in an apartment complex, but just around the community. So offering those services was really helpful just to attract different types of clients who could be more concerned or more at risk during a pandemic.
So I got to push myself. Right. So instead of, you know, saying, oh, well, because I don't have access to space anymore, well, I guess I'm just going to go and find like a remote job or corporate job. I just went head first and kind of pushed myself in these new ways. As a trainer, I had to develop outdoor training. What's the best for an online program?
But I would say, looking in retrospect, the experience just made me a better personal trainer, and a better service provider for anything in the fitness space. Besides that, I do offer prepped meals. So pre-pandemic, I would, like, create meals macro-approved for my clients, and I was able to get some buzz and really kind of just explore the nutrition aspects of it. Right now it's currently on hold, but fingers crossed there'll be some exciting news about bringing it back sometime in the fall or the winter.
06:15 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And that kind of like segues me to the next question. And you might have already touched on this. I might be completely off, but tell me definitely if I am where you had that background in marketing that you mentioned and like during the pandemic that gave you a really big opportunity to show kind of like your authority, maybe without knowing it just in being like an expert in all the things that you were doing. Do you think that kind of is a big part of what I call your secret sauce? The thing that you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique from those other organizations?
06:41 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Yeah, no. I think my backgrounds in marketing and logistics have just allowed me to kind of approach things from a more procedural method and to see what is the return on, you know, creating maybe an advertisement for like a social media platform. But also I think being an entrepreneur and being a CEO and trying to think more of a CEO, understanding that, okay, not everything, the time I spend making an advertisement might not necessarily be the best to gain more clients.
Because that is for working on one platform. Let's Say that platform is LinkedIn Instagram or TikTok. By the end of the day, if I'm working eight-hour days and most times the entrepreneurial work hours, it's not a 9 to 5, it's pretty much continuous. But if I spend my whole day just creating advertisements and being on platforms for the potential to have more brand exposure, Exposure, expose more of myself, yeah, I'm attracting online people that use those platforms.
But, when you look at my clients, my clients are not all on those platforms as consistently. Right. So what are the other types of marketing spend I could have? Well, there is still face-to-face marketing. There are networking events, there are business groups within the community that people can get, get a part of. Yeah, they usually don't have this knowledge or feel like, oh, these are people outside my cohort, why would I engage?
But most of the time those are people who most need the service. Right. So definitely identify those groups and be better with my time. Right. Like instead of focusing on. And initially, especially back in 2018, back when, you know these platforms, they changed their algorithm to rank maybe one thing higher over the other. So you don't have control over it.
You spend all your time maybe creating this great piece of information that a person can share and get insights of, but at the end of the day, they're just scrolling through what is going to be that call to action to make them go and choose you and making sure that those services are created, making sure that the level of service for all those products remain consistent long term.
08:56 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I love that. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit and you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for maybe one of those books. It could be a book, it could be an app, could be a habit that you have. But what do you feel like as a CEO hack that's made you more effective and efficient?
09:11 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Well, I think audiobooks. So I think a lot of the times, you know, I've had me, myself and friends in the past, you know, they said, oh, I need the paper bound book. Because you know, you see people with these lavish library collections have all these books and you go and just like, oh, this person's so smart, this person, you know, has all the time in the world. Then you're just like, why aren't I not doing this?
And I think that's been a very successful hack for me because it matches my learning style. Right. So as a CEO, you have to understand your communication style. You have to understand how your clients want to Be communicated with, but also how you learn, you know, how you adapt. And learning through audio has been great because I can do it. I can do it. I'm better at multitasking with it. And I can pause, I can rewind. I can take the time to kind of like absorb the information as opposed to if I had the book feeling like, okay, I'm separating the time to just do this activity.
So they say keep your eyes and ears open. And there's another part to the saying where I think it goes like you want your ears open more than your eyes most of the time. But yeah, it's been a huge hack. It's allowed me to read multiple books, books a year. So audiobooks or you can find them on any platform. I know Apple has the iBooks or Amazon has the audible. Both of those are great resources.
And there are a lot of business books on there. And I try to read some, not only just purely on business but things that kind of highlight other parts of wellness. Right. Not just my financial wellness, which is like the CEO mornings, how to map that out, but the books that I'm reading on mental health, behavioral health, on emotional intelligence. Those have been key to developing relationships and understanding more about myself and where I am. And how I can take what I'm passionate about and kind of distribute that information to more people who might not have the vocabulary.
11:21 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I heard it all the time, you know, especially when I was a kid. You have two ears of one mouth for a reason because you're supposed to listen twice as much as you.
11:30 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
There we go. That's what it was. I knew it was something.
11:34 – Gresham Harkless
eah. I feel like I've heard it a lot when I was younger, so that makes so much sense. But I love how you kind of, you know, translated that to first of all, like obviously your clients understanding how to communicate with them. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So you might have already touched on this, but this could be something you would tell your favorite client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
11:55 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
I would say, I would say don't get too stuck on the, on the day to day vision is so important when you're a CEO and sometimes you'll have your process and your process might be, well, I want feedback at the end of the day. I want the client to give me a positive review. But remember you're not working for that review on Google or that review, that testimony all the time, you're giving superior service and you're going along your service and that service is exceptional.
And sometimes the review that is not talked about or not shared is the most powerful. Something that, you know, I would tell my younger self or like any other CEO is just like focus on those bigger things instead of just like this person reviewed me or not, or this didn't happen or not. Those are, those will become so minute compared to the bigger vision and the direction of where you're going. And don't, don't believe that.
Oh, because you didn't get testimonial feedback that you know the process wasn't good or the person had ill intent, but it was more so that you completed the task. There were no complaints. And honestly, no review is better than a bad review. So take that.
13:13 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I would echo that as well. 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 the show. So Lamon, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:24 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
For me, being a CEO I think is having a vision and the ability to communicate that vision effectively across multiple mediums and getting people to not only see your vision but mobilize and make it happen. Right? So as a CEO, you're going to wear multiple different hats. You're going to know a lot about many things, but that specific task, might not be the most conducive or efficient for you to do it on yourself.
That's why being able to have your vision and adjust how you deliver your vision so that person who's more in the tech space, in the finance space and accounting, or all these different verticals, can really just understand and see applications to their own passion, right? The CEOs of today and the future. Instead of, you know, just creating these massive companies that have a bunch of user data and sell new products, it's kind of just like how can we help people make more clear decisions, right?
And something that's very important for me, you know, not just being in the physical wellness space, but it's also that emotional wellness and that professional wellness, right? Because they're so intertwined, right? Every CEO needs the ability to communicate their vision and galvanize people behind what they do because that might be a future partner, that might be a future employee, and you will never be able to wear all the hats at the same time. You will be switching One by one by one by one. So that's probably the golden nugget. That was it, right? The nugget of the CEO. Yeah.
15:00 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Laman, truly appreciate that definition and of course, appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is 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 over you find about all the awesome things that you're working on.
15:15 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Yeah. Well, first I just want to say thank you again for having me on this podcast. Like I said, I think you know, as I've continued my entrepreneurial journey, networking with people in the community and allowing yourself to speak and you kind of build these relationships if they're in person or virtually is very important in terms of anyone listening to this, they can find me on Instagram at Live Laman, my website livelaman.com or on LinkedIn at my full name, Laman Ben-Trahoret.
15:46 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. And to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes too, so you can get a hold of Laman Found about all the awesome things that you're working on. But I appreciate that and appreciate all the awesome things you're doing. Of course, sometimes we forget how important connections and opportunities for building relationships are. So I love that last piece too because it's something that's often overlooked. But I love that you know that. Love that we had the opportunity to connect even more and looking forward to that next time after this.
16:09 – Laman Ben-Trahoret
Absolutely. Thank you very much.
16:11 – 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.
00:27 - 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.
00:55 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest back on this show. I have Michelle Seiler Tucker of Siler Tucker Incorporated. Michelle, super excited to have you on the show.
01:04 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
Thank you for having me back. It's been a while.
01:07 - Gresham Harkless
It has been a while. Michelle was an episode on, was a guest on episode number 1086 of our IMCO podcast. So super excited to hear all the awesome things that you've been working on since then and all the awesome things that you have that you can provide of value. So of course, before we do that, I want to jump into the interview to tell you a little bit more about Michelle so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's working on. Michelle is the Founder and CEO of Siler Tucker Incorporated.
She holds the MNAMI title as well as a Certified Managers, Certified Mergers and Acquisition Professionals, and the Certified Senior Business Analyst. Michelle also owns many other businesses in several different industries and as a 20-year veteran in the M and A industry, she's regarded as the leading authority on buying, selling, fixing, and growing businesses. She and her firm have sold over a thousand businesses in almost every vertical and have a remarkable track record of success. Michelle, excited to have you back on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
02:05 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
Of course. You told me I was on 1080. What number are you on now?
02:09 - Gresham Harkless
Past that a little bit. About 1400 or so. So it's been about a year or so. It seems like we've been talking.
02:15 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
You've done about 1400 more episodes than I have.
02:18 - Gresham Harkless
There we go. But I feel like you've Been on the guest of 1400. So you are probably just more experienced if not more experienced than I am. So I wanted to hear more about like what you've been working on, hear a little bit more about your story and everything. But what have you been working on for the past year?
02:34 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
Well, you know, we have still been working on Exit Rich. I think you had me on right before the Exit Rich launch, which was back in, I think it was July 2021. And so we did launch the new Exit Rich audio version. And so if people are done reading or they don't want to read, they can go now and get the audio version wherever they buy your favorite audiobook. So you can go to Amazon, Audible, Apple, etc. It gets still between $2 to $4 because we're still running a promotion on it. So get it why it's inexpensive. So we're working on that. We've also launched a program called Exit the Road to Exit Rich.
The road to Exit Rich is really getting business owners ready and getting them in a good position to sell their company, whether it's a year down, two years, three years, five years, or even 10 years. One of the things that Steve Forbes talks about and Steve Forbes endorsed Exit Rich, he says 80% of businesses on the market will never sell. M and A source says 90% will never sell. So think about that, really let that sink in because that means you have less than a 10 to 20% chance of success when you go to sell your business. And the ones that are selling their business aren't maximizing the value of their company and not exiting, which many of them are exiting for selling for pennies on dollar closer to business rates following bankruptcy.
So we're working on it. Well, I say working on it. We're not working on it really anymore because we've already launched it. But this is a Road to Exit Rich program where clients and prospective clients come in, we really work with them to figure out what are your objectives, what are your goals, and what are you trying to accomplish. We take them through the GPS exit model that I think is in chapter one or chapter two of Exit Rich. This really walks them through to determine what is your destination, what their selling price and then where are starting from. What is your business for today? What is your time frame? Who will your buyers be? What are you? Where do your numbers need to land to get your desired sales price?
If you want to sell your business for 10 million worth a million, you want to do it in, let's say three years. Who are your buyers going to be there are five different types of buyers and then we also walk them through. You know, what does that look like, from a number standpoint? What are your numbers need to be to accomplish this price tag? And then what infrastructure do you need to build on the 6PS? And what proprietary assets do you need to focus on? Because buyers buy EBITDA earnings for interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. But even more than that, they buy synergies that will help catapult them to the next level. So we really take them through this GPS exit model, what we call a seller sanity check.
How many people do you need, and how much do you need per year to live on? What's the most important thing to you when you go to sell your business? Is it the money? Is it what you walk away with? Because it's not always the money, believe it or not. You know, a lot of business owners, like I just, I want my employees to be taken care of or all my clients to be taken care of. So we really take them through the seller sanity check. Then we identify what are the bottlenecks and then we go through a 6P assessment. And this is a year-long program and at the end of it, you know, we also have resources like if they have a big marketing problem, but we need to blow them up, we'll bring in a marketing partner.
If their processes are affordable and nonexistent, they want to bring in our process partner. And at the end of the 12 months we'll see, we'll do another evaluation to see how much we bridge that gap, what their business is worth now. This is a great program because most business owners just don't really realize what buyers are looking for. They don't know what they have to do in their business in order to maximize value or work on that. And then we're working on other stuff I can't tell you about and I'll have to kill you.
06:49 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, we'll have to have you back on so you don't have to kill me or anything. So I appreciate you kind of breaking that down, but I love that seller sanity check that you kind of talked about. And you know what was kind of coming to my mind is the seven habits of highly effective people beginning with the end in mind. And I feel like so many CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, a lot of times don't do those exercises to understand where they even want to end up. And I imagine that's probably what leads to that 80, 90% that you cited that you've seen where most people when they get to the end of, I guess, where they are able to probably work more than anything else. They're not really set up for success.
07:26 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
Yeah, they're not set up for success. And the most important thing is they haven't built a business that buyers want to buy. Most entrepreneurs have built themselves a glorified job that they go to work at every day and call themselves a business owner or an entrepreneur versus really building a business that buyers will step all over and pay more money for and buy those synergies. So it's really important to also build those six P's which are people, products, processes, proprietary patrons, and profits. If you don't have a business that runs on R6, you really don't have a business that's going to be valued by buyers. Will they pay top dollar for me? Probably don't have a sellable business.
08:14 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. And so I wanted to hear I guess a little bit more about any programs. The book, especially the audiobook, which I've always been a fan of. I'm a big Audible person. So excited that you have that launched as well too. But what do you feel kind of even maybe sets you apart and makes you unique? You are the business and the programs that you're doing. Do you feel like there's something that's a part of your secret sauce?
08:36 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
Yes, I think that's part of my secret sauce for many things. First and foremost, I have a lot of. I have very different characteristics than what most M and A advisors, and business brokers have. First and foremost, I've been a business owner. I am a business owner. I've owned multiple companies. I own multiple companies today and I do what's in the client's best interest. I've sat on the other side of the desk. I know how it is to make those hard decisions. I know how difficult it can be to make payroll. I know how, you know, sometimes you can't take a check for a year. I get all that. I've sat on the other side of the desk, but I do what's right for my clients.
And the reason why I said that makes me different is because many business owners, business brokers, M and A advisors, have never ever owned a business before. So how can they possibly be able to relate to the seller, you know? And like I said, I've owned businesses in very different industries. The other thing that makes us very unique is we sell businesses in practically almost every industry you can imagine because we're not industry-specific, we're not industry-focused, we're industry agnostic, and a lot of M and A advisors and brokers, focus in electrical, focus in IT, focus on staffing, or focus in SaaS.
We don't do that. And because of that we have even more buyers because we are so industry agnostic, we have more buyers than I would say most advisors. We have 50, 60, 70,000 buyers. It grows every single day. And then like I said before, because I've owned other businesses, I know what the seller goes through. I really lean towards engaging and committed to doing what's best for the seller, not what's best for my bank account.
10:32 - Gresham Harkless
I absolutely 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 something from your book, but what's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient?
10:45 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
So I believe you know, our biggest, my biggest hack is preparing business owners, educating business owners, getting them to plan their exit. Now because even if you don't sell, guess what you're going to have?
10:59 - Gresham Harkless
Woo hoo.
11:00 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
What did he win? He won a better business, right? You gotta have a business that's sustainable, scalable, and sellable. Woo. You know, and so not only that, but I think our big hack too is getting these businesses to operate on the 6B's because people don't think about this, but there are 30.2 million businesses in the United States employing over half the US workforce. If we lose small businesses, we lose jobs. What happens when we lose jobs? A mommy or daddy can't work, A mommy loses his job, daddy loses his job.
Guess what? We can't go to restaurants, we can't shop like we used to, we don't have as much disposable income, we might have to pull our kid out of daycare, you know, it's a trickle-down effect. So even more businesses start going out of business because of all the businesses that are losing jobs. So small business is the backbone of our economy. So I think our biggest hack is the road to exit rich. But we're getting these business owners to create an actual business that works for them rather than working for it.
11:59 - Gresham Harkless
That's absolutely huge. I was going to ask you for a CEO nugget and I don't know if the six Bs might be that CEO nugget because I usually phrase it as something that might be a word of wisdom, a piece of advice, something you might tell yourself if you were to hop into a time machine. But do you think those six P's as you kind of talked about before, kind of like I see them as legs on the stool? Is that something that is really, I guess, you would give as advice for those CEOs, and entrepreneurs?
12:23 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
I think, you know, I have 325 pages of words of wisdom, but I would say the GPS XML words of wisdom in the 60s, 1000% reservist, because there's so much value packed into those six Ps that most people don't know or forgot about, are just too busy to implement. And if you could just keep your business running on those six cylinders, you're golden. You have a business that can run without you. You have a business that you can scale. You have a business that's highly, highly profitable, and a business that's sellable one day through the desired price tag. So I would say that probably one of the biggest hacks is the GPS exit model and the 6PS. Because if you don't find a GPS exit, the 6PS might not work. You know, you need both of them.
They go hand in hand with each other. Because in the 6ps, you're figuring out what the buyers want. So you're like, oh, these are my buyers. These are my three types of buyers. Oh, they want a large database with data, with content. Oh, they want transferable contracts. Oh, they want some celebrity endorsement. We've got a client that's Oprah's favorite thing. You know, how much money, strategically, to be in front of Oprah? Less than I would pay. But. And so it really, when you really get into the GPS exit model, it helps you build your 6P infrastructure, because now you know what buyers are looking for when they go to buy your company.
14:03 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. So what would you consider to be the answer to my absolutely favorite question? The definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote, unquote CEOs on this show. So, Michelle, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:16 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
To me, a CEO is a great leader. Has to be a great leader. In order to be a great leader, you have to be a great follower. You can't lead without following. So a great CEO has to be a great leader and a great follower. In my opinion, a great CEO is also working on themselves because you can't grow your team beyond what you grow yourself. And a great leader is empathetic. They're empathetic.
And they lead. They are led by policies and procedures and SOPs. They lead by what's already in the employee handbook. They leave what's in the policy and procedure manual. They leave what's already been discussed, trained upon, and in the book. Because when you leave by what's already the written Bible in your company, then you're not making your employees wrong. You're holding them accountable.
15:04 - Gresham Harkless
Michelle truly appreciates that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic again so you can tell us, let us know if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know. And of course how best people can get a hold of you. Get a copy of the book, get a copy of now the audiobook, and all the awesome things you're working on.
15:23 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
Sure. So everyone can find me at STI. That's how Tucker Incorporated STI@360.com my main website Saladoker is there plus all my other websites. If you want to take the 60-quiz, you do it there. If you want to do the quick calculator to see what your business is worth right now, you can do it there. Also, my podcast is there. You can follow my podcast Exit Rich and it shows you where you can buy the book Exit Rich. You can also look at Exit Rich is in 99 different locations at Hudson Bookstore. It's in all the Hudson's. It's in Washington D.C., send me a picture next time you're at an airport. And again, you can connect with me on social media or go to sti360.com Absolutely, absolutely.
16:12 - Gresham Harkless
And to make it even easier, 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 being attainable. Thank you so much again Michelle and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:22 - Michelle Seiler Tucker
Thank you for having me on. Thank you.
16:24 - 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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