IAM2466 – Business Consultant Focuses on Leading Companies in Incorporating Sustainability

Kevin Wilhelm

00:00 - 00:27

to really helping them develop a strategy where taking more proactive actions on this, whether it's energy efficiency, waste reduction, being smarter about your business travel and your 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 their society.

Intro

00:28 - 00:55

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless

00:55 - 01:05

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Kevin Wilhelm of Sustainable Business Consulting. Kevin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Kevin Wilhelm

01:06 - 01:07

Thanks for having me, Gresh.

Gresham Harkless

01:08 - 01:53

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's 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, The Pungent Sound Energy, and more than 75 others.

Gresham Harkless

01:53 - 01:55

Kevin, are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?

Kevin Wilhelm

01:56 - 01:57

I sure am.

Gresham Harkless

01:57 - 02:04

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

02:05 - 02:50

Yeah, well, um, you know, I I would say that uh, you know, I I've called myself a reluctant entrepreneur. Um, you know, I didn't uh set out in this career path with opening my own shop in mind I basically You know 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 you know 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 you know helping solve climate change and showing them that there's a there's a business imperative, a way they can do better and make more money by addressing this challenge.

Kevin Wilhelm

02:50 - 02:57

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

02:58 - 03:12

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

Kevin Wilhelm

03:13 - 03:43

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 with my life and what I was doing. You know, but just felt like there was this call to action that was needed and someone needed to step into the space. And with that, when no one willing to do it, I just looked myself in the mirror and said, all right, I got to step up and do it.

Kevin Wilhelm

03:43 - 03:52

And, um, you know, 11 years later, here we are and. You know, I've worked with now about 150 different companies across 37 different industries. So we're doing pretty well.

Gresham Harkless

03:53 - 04:09

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

Kevin Wilhelm

04:10 - 05:09

Yeah, you know, for the most part, I think Most most businesses realize that you know, there's there's there's greater social and environmental Impacts that are happening on our planet and they need to they need to engage Our story has 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 you know their environmental impacts or what they're doing in terms of social justice or diversity equity inclusion and to really helping them develop a strategy where taking more proactive actions on this, whether it's energy efficiency, waste reduction, being smarter about your business traveling, your 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 their society.

Gresham Harkless

05:10 - 05:23

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

Kevin Wilhelm

05:23 - 05:57

Yeah, it's not only that, but there's also, uh, you know, a pretty common held belief that, you know, um, doing the right thing doesn't, doesn't pay for itself, you know, organizations. And we hear this almost every time, you know, we want to do the right thing, but, you know, we gotta, We have shareholders we've got to meet, we've 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 that do that, that also do good.

Kevin Wilhelm

05:58 - 06:17

And, that's really been essential to our success. So, we really help organizations start from that perspective of, if 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 success over the long term.

Gresham Harkless

06:19 - 06:41

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 to understand that this is something that might come up but to be able to I think kind of just inform people because a lot of times people don't know you know about other opportunities but you know you being the expert and somebody who's able to kind of speak to different things they can do to create like win-win-win situations that definitely helps out a ton.

Kevin Wilhelm

06:42 - 07:22

Yeah and for the most part it's also about translating you know, sustainability into lay person's terms, you know, helping the accountant or the finance person or the HR person, or even, you know, 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 say it's accounting in our finance, where they've moved from paper to electronic data storage, or, you know, a different way of, you know, you know, 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.

Kevin Wilhelm

07:23 - 07:54

And so once you kind of turn that light on for them and they go, oh, kind of 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 going to put a you know, kind of a chain around their leg when the reality is it's an idea that can, you know, we bring from sustainable business consulting the mindset that it can spark innovation and employee engagement. that will lead to both doing better, but also doing better for the planet.

Gresham Harkless

07:54 - 08:20

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. Correct. 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 and makes you unique.

Kevin Wilhelm

08:21 - 08:56

Well, it's interesting because, you know, I think a lot of times, uh, what our secret sauce is, is really just that, um, I would say two things. One, it's having a broad enough understanding of how, um, you know, business and sustainability come together. But we're 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 this, hey, we, you know, the polar bears are drowning or the Arctic ice caps are melting and you need to take action.

Kevin Wilhelm

08:57 - 09:28

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, you know, what do they care about most and how does this align with them? And not only in their, uh, you know, in what they're trying to accomplish within their role, but within their business. I think the second element of our secret sauce is, um, you know, it's no key. We're just, we're just trustworthy. We, um. You know, we are, we are trusted advisors to the clients we work with.

Kevin Wilhelm

09:28 - 10:03

And a lot of ways we feel like we're an extension of their team. And, you know, so we don't come in with a, Hey, it's our way or the highway kind of consulting approach. It's much more of a customized, you know, listening to their exact needs and helping them deliver to what they need for success. But what I'm always shocked with is that we'll be brought in a sustainability related project. And before you know it, we've earned their trust. And it really is just pure business consulting. Or when we get into the executive C-suite level, that's where we really start talking about stuff, whether it's about sustainability or not.

Kevin Wilhelm

10:03 - 10:09

And so it's really about developing that level of trust right up front that becomes our secret sauce.

Gresham Harkless

10:10 - 10:33

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

Kevin Wilhelm

10:34 - 11:05

Yeah. And even we go so far as pretty typically, you know, an organization will come to us and say we want, we need this, you know, we want you to help us do, you know, a B and C, and we'll listen to what their needs are and what they're doing and oftentimes we'll say, you know, B and C aren't what you need right now what you need are, you know, A, D, E, F, and we can come back to B and C in 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 up front.

Kevin Wilhelm

11:06 - 11:23

And so, sometimes, we're advising them, oftentimes, in our own economic disinterest, where we could take more money up front, 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

11:25 - 11:40

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, a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Kevin Wilhelm

11:40 - 12:07

I think it goes back to my CEO hack is really, I apply a lot of, um, I know this is really old school, but, uh, seven habits of highly successful people that Stephen Covey uses and Really, my CEO hack is I look out a quarter ahead, I look out a month ahead, and I look out the whole week, and I say, okay, what are the three things we need to get done this quarter? What are the three things we absolutely need to get done this month? What are the three things to get done this week?

Kevin Wilhelm

12:08 - 12:37

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

Gresham Harkless

12:37 - 12:46

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 a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Kevin Wilhelm

12:47 - 13:19

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 who are aspiring to get into the sustainability or corporate social responsibility space, is that if you want to do this work, or even if you want to have your own business, prepare to work twice as hard as what you think you will. 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.

Kevin Wilhelm

13:19 - 13:53

You're always thinking about the next thing. You're thinking about your employees. You're thinking about your customers. In a lot of ways, you might be putting in 10, 12-hour days, but it's just not on the clock 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 that Be ready to, you know, if you're not willing to outwork somebody, this might not be the right thing. You're going to have to put in a lot more hours and a lot more sweat and equity than people tell you.

Gresham Harkless

13:54 - 14:04

Nice, nice. 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 wanted to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Kevin Wilhelm

14:06 - 14:47

That's an awesome question. And you know, you're the only person who's ever asked me that and probably the, you know, 50 podcasts I've done and maybe, you know, 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, you know, inspiration and direction as to where the organization's going, but you're also, You're 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.

Kevin Wilhelm

14:47 - 15:27

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 you know the fires that you know are burning or are you know being addressed? And I think so a lot of times you know people think being a CEO is Wow, it's so amazing You get to be you know fly all around and you know meet all these amazing people and speak at all these you know different events Which is true, and that's 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 You're not doing it the way it needs to be done.

Kevin Wilhelm

15:27 - 15:47

And so I would say I probably spend equal amount of time thinking about my employees, what their needs are, what their keys to success are, 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

15:48 - 15:57

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I definitely appreciate it, Brett. 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 rest of the day.

Kevin Wilhelm

15:58 - 15:59

Thanks so much, guys. Take care.

Intro

15:59 - 16:29

Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. I Am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.