Leadership Excellence & Strategic Growth: Culture & Performance | Jeff Standridge

Unlock the secrets of achieving leadership excellence and strategic growth with insights from Jeff Standridge, a seasoned entrepreneur from Conway, Arkansas. Jeff brings a wealth of experience to the table, sharing how his initial business setbacks became stepping stones to success. He introduces GrowthDX, a diagnostic tool designed to accelerate business growth and innovation. This episode promises to equip you with practical strategies to avoid the pitfall of forgotten plans, ensuring that your strategic vision translates into tangible results.

Explore the transformative power of organizational culture with Jeff as we unpack the six essential elements that drive business success. We challenge the notion that culture is just an HR issue and emphasize that leaders play a crucial role in nurturing environments that boost performance and satisfaction. By fostering strong leadership, clear communication, and organizational agility, you can build a culture of excellence that sets your business apart from the competition.

Gain valuable insights on aligning company culture with strategic goals, as demonstrated in a compelling case study of an insurance agency that turned hiring challenges into opportunities. Understand how clarity and focus in leadership can attract top talent and drive sustainable growth. Jeff also shares expert advice on managing workplace performance and terminations with integrity, ensuring alignment with core values. Join us for an informative session that will inspire you to rethink and refine your approach to leadership and strategic growth.

Jeff Standridge: CEO / Innovation Junkie

Website(s):
https://innovationjunkie.com/
https://arconductor.org/
https://www.cadroncapital.com/
https://jeffstandridge.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffstandridge/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@innovationjunkies8599

Email: jeffs@innovationjunkie.com

#LeadershipExcellence #StrategicGrowth #EntrepreneurInsights #JeffStandridge #BusinessSuccess #GrowthDX #BusinessInnovation #OrganizationalCulture #LeadershipDevelopment #BusinessGrowth #CompanyCulture #BusinessStrategies #LeadershipTips #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusinessOwners #StrategicVision #WorkplacePerformance #TopTalent #SustainableGrowth #CoreValues #BusinessPodcast #PodcastEpisode #BusinessTransformation #SmallBusinessPivots #Success #BusinessOwners #MichaelDMorrison #OklahomaCity #BOSS #EntrepreneurAdvice 

Chapters

• 0:00 Strategic Growth and Leadership Excellence
• 9:53 Building a Culture of Excellence
• 18:49 Effective Leadership and Strategic Growth
• 26:52 Handling Workplace Performance and Termination

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots. We have another special guest from around the world. Actually, he's just a few hours down the road from where I'm at in Oklahoma City, but I know that a business owner is the only one that can pronounce his name and his business the way he likes to pronounce it. So introduce yourself where you're from your company?

Speaker 2: 0:20

Sure, I'm Jeff Standridge. I live in Conway, arkansas. I'm an Arkansan I tell people I'm a Texan by birth but an Arkansan by choice, been here my whole life, and I have a company called Innovation Junkie and another one called Cadron Capital Partners.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Very cool, very cool. Well, how are we going to help our listeners today before we introduce the show?

Speaker 2: 0:46

Well, I thought we would talk about generating sustained strategic growth and building a culture of excellence.

Speaker 1: 0:48

If that works for you. Oh man, that's some good stuff there, so let's introduce the show. We'll be right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast designed for small business owners. I'm your host, michael Morrison, a small business coach and founder of BOSS, where we make business ownership simplified for success, so that you can own a business that runs without you. To learn more, go to businessownershipsimplifiedcom. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. My friend, where would you like to start?

Speaker 2: 1:22

Well, you know it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Where would you like to start? Well, you know it's interesting. Strategic planning in businesses, particularly in small businesses and virtually in any organization, really gets a bad name because it's done so badly in so many organizations. Generally it involves generating reams of paper, putting in a three ring binder it's about four inches thick and you stick it on the shelf. You forget about it for about 11 and a half months and two weeks before the end of the year you pull it out and say let's see how we did.

Speaker 2: 1:53

And having done that a number of times across various non-profit, for-profit and actually publicly traded companies, we decided that we were going to put a little more focus on how do you get down to the really nuts and bolts of what is it that drives sustained strategic growth in organizations, from small businesses up to the mid-size market, which is really where we spend.

Speaker 2: 2:14

The vast majority of our time is in that small to mid-size business and we created what we call the GrowthDX GrowthDXai, if you want to check it out, and it is a strategic growth diagnostic that allows small business owners and their leadership teams, if they have them, to assess the company against 75 or so, 70, 75 different best practices across seven different diagnostic domains Revenue velocity, which is basically sales, marketing and messaging. Organizational Effectiveness, which is do you have a plan to grow? Operational Effectiveness really assesses your ability to have repeatable processes and to deliver consistently for your customers. Leadership Effectiveness we're going to talk more about that in a couple of moments. Innovation readiness, which is the degree to which you really are focused on disrupting the status quo and constantly making things better. Digital readiness is the degree to which you use the data and digital technologies that are available to you, managing your business by the numbers, and that really creates an opportunity for business owners to understand where they are and to inform their actual strategic growth planning process.

Speaker 1: 3:32

Wow, you left nothing uncovered, did you? I tried not to. I tried not to. Well, let me back up just a minute because I know a lot of our listeners like to know where we're coming from. Little trials and tribulations growing up along the way, anything that you had to face to overcome Because I know mindset plays a big role in business leadership oh, absolutely Absolutely so.

Speaker 2: 3:53

I grew up in a town of about 1,200 people in Southwest Arkansas, graduated high school with 28, in a public school and that wasn't a private school, that was a public school, yeah and went off to college and crammed a four-year degree into six years and, as a little joke for you there, a little dad joke for you and actually I actually bought my first business when I was 24 years of age. I bought the gas station, muffler shop and service center that I had worked at from the ninth grade up through my freshman year in college. I was in the healthcare field. After I graduated college, I was on the helicopter team at Arkansas Children's Hospital. So I worked seven days on, seven days off and thought that I could hire somebody to run my business for me and that I was going to make a mint. And within about two years I lost that business and spent the next 10 years paying off the debt.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Wow, wow, so you recovered obviously. I did, I did Slowly but sure what led you to the recovery. Was it another job, another business?

Speaker 2: 5:00

So I was employed at the time, fortunately all right, and I continued being employed up through. So I spent about 10 years in health care, was a professor at the University of Arkansas for medical sciences, ended up getting a doctorate in leadership and organizational behavior, and that led me to a publicly traded company called Axiom Corporation, where I spent about almost 20 years there. I ran mergers and acquisitions for them. I also ran global operations where I bought and managed businesses in multiple countries on five continents, and that's really where I got my experience and I began to look back on what all I'd done wrong.

Speaker 2: 5:41

First of all, nobody will run your business like you run your business, and probably when I bought that business, I didn't even really know how to read a financial statement or an income statement, and so really really developed my chops in the merger and acquisition world and then started venturing out with some real estate, to start with with a partner, and then ended up acquiring a company, a local company here that was an insurance business that was going into receivership. Then I bought a larger automotive service center here with some partners and just started picking up businesses locally, and then ultimately I started a venture fund and recruited investors. We invested in about 15 companies. We're actually on our third fund now, and so it was really more of an evolution than a revolution. I wouldn't say that. I woke up one day and all of a sudden I was the comeback kid. It was just scratch and claw your way back to the top.

Speaker 1: 6:41

What were the challenges that you faced implementing these new ideas that you had learned along the way? Because I know a lot of small business owners. When they hear of you mean I got to do one more thing or learn one more thing, and so they just put it off to the side.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Yeah, you know, the challenges were just what you described having the time, not having the time, taking the time we all have the same amount of time. Right, it's taking the time and understanding what's vitally important. My model has been that for investing is that I find partners with whom I can invest and in whom I can invest, and they are the day-to-day operations people in those businesses and I really bring more of the strategy, the process, the systems and what have you to help them grow. And so that's probably been, I would say, the secret to my personal investment success is not being the person who's working in the business, but being the person who's helping to invest and the person who's working on the business.

Speaker 2: 7:47

You know so many entrepreneurs. They hear oh, you spend too much time working in your business, you got to spend more time working on your business, and they just don't have it. And I think the sweet spot model that I found was okay, let me have somebody who's going to work in the business every day, let me work on the business and then over time, we can give them a little more leeway to work in the business when we get it to where they can. But that's been really a beneficial approach from my perspective.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Sounds like you learned great leadership, which you mentioned a few minutes ago, that we talk about that, so would you like to expand on that?

Speaker 2: 8:24

Sure. So my first leadership introduction was really more academic than anything else. I was teaching in a respiratory therapy program at the University of Arkansas for medical sciences and we had a bunch of respiratory therapists, radiologic technologists, medical technologists and other health care professions where students were graduating and they were going out into the far reaches of Arkansas and becoming shift supervisors, department directors, hospital administrators. Yet they had zero preparation to do so or to be so. You got no leadership training and many times in healthcare the best technologist or the best provider of care, the best technician, were many times the ones who got promoted into leadership positions first, when in reality the best doer is not always the best leader. And so I started my study of leadership then and decided to start a course for all of those graduating seniors that led me to get a doctorate in leadership, a course for all of those graduating seniors that led me to get a doctorate in leadership, and that then led me to Axiom Corporation, where I got to practice what I had studied there in various settings. And so I got into the world of leadership academically, but then I got the opportunity to literally practice it and observe it on five continents, working in a publicly traded company and now I get to work with organizations from small businesses up to middle market and even larger companies, and so that's kind of how I got into the world of leadership.

Speaker 2: 9:53

What I've observed is that the best leaders understand the importance of culture within their organizations. Now, when I first got into the world of leadership, culture was something that we relegated to the HR department. We said, yeah, we do some stuff on culture, but that's our HR leader that does that. Well, the reality is that culture strong, positive cultures have been positively correlated with every single measure of business performance More revenue, more profit, more satisfied customers, more satisfied and longer staying employees. Weak cultures have been positively correlated with more turnover, less profit, just the opposite of all those things More absenteeism, more failures, more errors, etc. So the word culture and the practice of culture building has moved over the years maybe the last two decades from being something that leaders relegated to the HR department to something that leaders who know what they're doing recognize that they have to be actively involved in it as well involved in it as well.

Speaker 1: 11:06

I love that because we had a podcast guest on probably a year ago and he mentioned that that's great and grand to have your culture statement, mission statement, but it's a moving target, it's an experience and not a bunch of words, and so somebody's got to lead that, and so we don't often have very many guests on our podcast that actually say that leadership is probably the number one thing that you should focus on. Is that fair to say that you're what you're sharing?

Speaker 2: 11:30

Absolutely, completely so. You know, when I ask people what's culture, they say, well, it's our core values, it's our mission, vision and our core values. I say, well, that's the way you, that's the way you put it on paper a lot of times. But in reality, culture is every single thing about a business. It's your core values, it's your unwritten behaviors and norms, it's how you treat people, it's how you approach your work, it's how you approach decision-making, it's how you feel. I've said before, if you want to get a real understanding of what the culture of your workplace is, then pay real close attention to how you feel on a Sunday night or a Monday morning when you're getting ready to go to work, and then pay close attention to how you feel on a Friday when it's time to go home, and that will point to kind of whether your culture is a strong, positive culture or it is a weak, negative culture.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:21

What are some? Every organization has a culture.

Speaker 1: 12:24

Absolutely. What are some tips that a new business owner could start implementing to get acclimated to building that culture?

Speaker 2: 12:33

So in our practice of working with companies, taking them through the growth diagnostic and helping them build strategic growth plans and implement systems around delivering those plans, we actually started paying attention to what are the cultural components, or the elements of culture in organizations that seem to perform consistently well, and so we've called it the culture of excellence. And there are really six elements that are components of that culture of excellence. The first one starts with strong leadership. So leaders who are committed to articulating and living by a set of core values, who are committed to modeling the way they want other people to behave, who recognize that, as a leader, you eat last and you put everybody else in line in front of you, that you don't flaunt special perks that you get as the leader in front of all of your employees, you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do the work if required. So strong leadership is the first one. The second one which comes about from strong leadership is strong leaders ensure that there is clarity and focus in the organization. They know where they're going as an organization. They know where they're going as an organization, they know how they're going to get there, they have charted the course to do that, and they also ensure that individual employees understand how they contribute to the common good or to where that organization is going. The third element is engaged and committed teammates. So they hire people that fit the culture and they fire people that don't, and that's how they keep people committed. They have empowering communication, which is the fourth element. The word empower literally means to make someone stronger and more confident in dealing with the circumstances they're facing, and good leaders who build a culture of excellence have and cultivate empowering communication within the organization. That doesn't mean you can't have a tough conversation. Good leaders have to do that as well. But you don't stop at just having the tough conversation. Once you've had that tough conversation, you move toward now. How can I help them take this and make them more confident at moving forward from here?

Speaker 2: 14:44

The fifth element is 100% accountability. 100% accountability looks like this if I, michael, have a requirement or I have a commitment to get you something by noon on Thursday and something happens Tuesday, that gets me totally off track. I get into a situation with a client, have a product failure or something, and I'm at risk at delivering what I said. I'm going to deliver to you at the very first possible moment that I understand that that's at risk, I come to you and say, hey, michael, let's talk. Is Thursday at noon still a drop dead for you? And you may say, no, no, no, no, we're good, I'm probably not going to look at it till Monday. Okay, great, no harm, no foul. But if you say not only is noon a deadline, it sure would be better if I had it by 1130, because I've got a client meeting at 1230, then I've got to do something to make sure I deliver on that.

Speaker 2: 15:44

The point is that 100% accountability means that I'm going to either deliver what I said or, if I see that it's at risk, I'm going to come to you at that moment, versus just waiting until noon on Thursday and just pray to God you don't ask me about it. Yeah, that's what most people do. And then, finally, the last one is organizational agility. The great management philosopher, mike Tyson, said that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Yeah, and organizations who build a culture of excellence, leaders who build a culture of excellence build not only mental toughness and mental resilience within their organization and their people, but they also use that to create organizational resilience where the organization may get knocked down 10 times, but they get up 11.

Speaker 1: 16:24

Very well said. Wow, you've put a lot out here. Where does one begin, honestly? You're listening to Small Business Pivots. This episode is proudly brought to you by BOSS, where business ownership is simplified for success. At BOSS, we help business owners create their businesses to run smoothly without them being there 24-7. Our seasoned business coaches, who have walked the path themselves, provide invaluable guidance and support, and with additional services like fast business loans, some approved within 24 to 48 hours, comprehensive online courses, detailed workbooks and engaging classes, boss offers a wealth of resources to help you succeed. Discover how small business success begins with Boss at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to stay connected by hitting that subscribe button, giving us a thumbs up or leaving a positive review. Your support keeps us going. Now let's get back to our incredible guest. Where does one begin, honestly? Strong leadership, strong leadership.

Speaker 2: 17:34

You know, and starting the process to build clarity and focus. So if you start with strong leadership and clarity and focus, then that's, that's the first thing that you do. You know, really, really build out what those core values are for the organization. Those are the behaviors that, the behavioral guardrails, the way you expect everybody to behave and to treat one another, and you believe in them so much that you're going to hire for them, you're going to interview for them, you're going to select and train people according to them. It's going to be the basis for how you promote leaders from individual contributor roles into leadership roles.

Speaker 2: 18:13

And you're also going to coach people when they fail to live up to those core values, relentlessly. You're going to coach them so much so that if they refuse to live out those core values, you're going to get rid of them and you're going to invite them to pursue a job in somebody else's company. And so that's where you get started. And then, once you hire, you a great team of leaders that that live according to those core values, that are committed to their core values. Then you bring that team together and say where are we going to take this place? We're going to take this organization and you chart a course to the future. Crystal clear.

Speaker 1: 18:49

I often say that there's one thing lacking in almost every small struggling business and that is clarity, and you just nailed it on the head right there. And the clarity involves it involves a lot of things. So some of the other areas outside of leadership, anything you know, kind of the one, two, three, number one being leadership, kind of what follows that for business owners that are struggling.

Speaker 2: 19:14

Yeah, number one's leadership. Number two is that clarity and focus right, making sure you have a plan. Number three is it's not enough to have a plan. When I talked a few moments ago about how badly most organizations do it creating strategic plans, they finish with a strategic plan and they're committed to it for about 90 days and then they fall off the wagon. They get distracted by a shiny object, they get distracted by a pandemic, they get distracted by something, and then they look up and it's been, you know, nine and a half or 10 months, right, and so we don't talk about strategic planning as much as we talk about a strategic growth system.

Speaker 2: 19:55

We have our own, but there are some others out there. There's the Entrepreneurial Operating System by Gino Wickman, which is written about in the book Traction. There's Scaling Up, which is very, very similar to that written about in the book Scaling Up by Vern Harnish and interestingly, vern Harnish and Gino Wickman are buddies and they talk about each other in their respective books. There's the Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. Maybe you've read the Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. He has a book called the Advantage. All three of those are what I would call strategic growth systems for small businesses, ours. We actually just call the strategic growth system. So pick up a book, learn what it is that you need to learn to build that system, and then kind of go from there.

Speaker 1: 20:41

I know a lot of business owners want growth and you mentioned sales being one of those components. Any advice on that for business owners?

Speaker 2: 20:50

Yeah, you know there are a lot of ways to measure growth and I have a slide that I use a lot of times when I'm talking about managing by the numbers and the title says the ways to measure growth and on the left hand side it's got number of locations, number of people, number of clients served, and I lead people down this path and then I put a big fat X across of it and I say no, no, no, no, no. Those are all vanity measures. Those are what make us feel good when we talk to others about we have 150 employees, or we've added 3,500 employees this year, or we've bought three new companies, or we have 12 locations. Those are all vanity measures. The only real ways to measure growth are sales and profit.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Sales and profit Particularly top line sales and bottom line profit and profit. Sales and profit Particularly top-line sales and bottom-line profit, net profit. And if you're not growing those, your company is not growing, no matter how many locations it has, no matter how many employees it has. I had the CEO of a technology company one time and the company was a technology company and he said if we could do it better, faster and cheaper with clipboards and stubby pencils, we would do it with clipboards and stubby pencils. It's not about the technology. It's about the value we bring to our clients and the revenue, profit and shareholder return that we can deliver back to our shareholders.

Speaker 1: 22:10

How would a business owner that's starting out and when I mean starting out, they could be a five-year business and they just haven't gotten to this level yet how do they find that leader? Those people that can come in, especially the businesses that they might have a machinist, they might have a delivery driver, those aren't really leadership roles. I just had a business owner say well, how can I hire one of those when I'm struggling to to manage what I've already got? Do you have any advice for that?

Speaker 2: 22:39

Yeah, you know, I was working with a company that were in the actual is just an insurance agency, is what it was, and and they mostly did insurance for machinists and truckers and construction people and agriculture and what have you. And about three years ago they couldn't find people for their business. And when they articulated the vision, the three-year vision for the company, they said we want to be the agency of choice for people needing complex insurance solutions, but for insurance agents who want to thrive. And so they made part of their vision not just being the agency of choice for customers but also for employees as well. And at that time they were dying on the vine. They couldn't find the talent, so they started implementing a variety of things to improve the workplace there. They got a new location that was kind of spiffed up. They started getting involved in the community and making a name for themselves. They started hosting the community at their location for baggo tournaments and other kinds of things and they really did a good job of articulating the kind of work environment that they wanted to create.

Speaker 2: 23:57

And over about an 18-month period we watched that switch kind of flip and they started having people coming to them saying I want to go to work for you guys. I love what you're doing and I want to work for you. And they were top-performing people and they now have all of their locations or all of their positions filled and they usually have one or two people that are kind of waiting in the wings. That they've said all right, you know what. They've vetted them against the culture, they've vetted them against their skills and capabilities and they said we want you to come to work here. We don't have a position right at the moment. So if you can just hang where you are for a few months, we're a growing organization and we feel like we'll have something within the next several months. So would you just let me know if you get a job offer somewhere else and we may have to move it up, but just hang with us here for a few weeks or a few months.

Speaker 1: 24:50

What would you say advice for those that are looking to vet those people to fit their culture? Because there are so many people that just need a job and they'll fib their way through it, and so I'm asked that a lot, yep.

Speaker 2: 25:03

So you have to know, as I said earlier, kind of what your core values are. Right. And once you know what your core values are, I actually recommend that you craft interview questions to interview people against those core values, right. So once you've determined that they're a skill fit for the organization and you know that they've got the skills and experience or the credentials that you need, then you craft a set of questions to really interview them against the core values. I'll give you a few examples.

Speaker 2: 25:33

So our core values, one of them is do the right thing. That's our very first core value do the right thing. And so we have a question that we interview people around that says tell me about a situation with a previous employer where you really felt like you were being pushed to do something that not only did you not agree with it, you didn't feel like it was the right thing to do. Tell us what the situation was. Tell us how you handle it. Now, unless they've been to covert operations, black ops, covert operations training, it's virtually impossible for them to to lie and tell us exactly what they want us to hear and answer the question uh, uh, uh, truthfully Right, and so, um and so, and so they basically start describing the situation and we know what do the right thing means. In our business we get to make the determination did that match?

Speaker 2: 26:24

And then we might ask another one. You know we have one that's called never trade results for excuses. Right, tell me about a time when you failed to deliver what was expected for you expected of you? You were given a task. You were failed to deliver what was expected of you. You were given a task, you were told to deliver it by this date and you didn't make it. You didn't get there.

Speaker 2: 26:42

What happened, what was the situation and why and you know they start pointing the finger at everybody else in that interview Then it's probably not somebody we want working for us. If they say you know what, I approached it wrong, I went in thinking this, I didn't see the signs and I let it get away from me. Hey, that's honest, that's great. Right, that's also about doing the right thing. So we have questions that tie to each of our five or six core values that help us to assess how they actually perform relative to those core values in specific situations that they found themselves in. Because you know, generally when you ask, tell me about your greatest weakness. They say oh, I work too much.

Speaker 1: 27:25

Yeah, oh, I'm kind of a workaholic, you know? Yeah, they know what you're asking.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Exactly, and that's completely unuseful right, and so that's what I recommend that leaders do.

Speaker 1: 27:38

So, for those business owners that have a leader that's fixing to leave or they need to get rid of, what is the process for that, so that you don't disrupt the rest of your culture?

Speaker 2: 27:50

Yeah, yeah, good. Here's the interesting thing is that everyone knows in the organization that that person is not a cultural fit. They already know that. They're just waiting to see if you, the leader, has the integrity to make that decision and to remove them from the organization. So you don't actually disrupt the culture, you actually embody the culture and you strengthen the culture when you step up to those. If you handle it in a respectful way and what have you? You don't even have to say anything. They're going to know right Now. What you may have to guard against is disrupting the workflow and disrupting the actual business. You know they may still be delivering significant value within the organization and you've got to figure out how to handle that.

Speaker 2: 28:40

Generally, what I say is that you know you have a conversation with them well ahead of a time and you say, hey look, I need you to understand that I observed this action or this behavior that was completely inconsistent with our core values and I need you to know that that's not going to fly here and this is the way this should have been handled, and I want to give you the opportunity to make that right. And so you do that several months before you actually get to the point of having to fire someone. And then, if you see that they're still behaving badly, then you start making some plans to offload work, to bring other people in, to shuffle the way the workflows and what have you? To start mitigating the risk while you're continuously coaching this person. And I've fired people on the spot for what I would consider blatant violations of core values, like do the right thing and they absolutely did something unethically. But I've also had situations where I hired someone and they just were not the right fit for the job or for the company and I said hey look, here's the deal. This is not working. You know it's not working. I know it's not working. We've tried multiple ways to try to get it to work.

Speaker 2: 29:57

I know you're a single mother. I'm not going to pull the rug out from under you and leave you without a way to earn a living. But here's what I am going to do In without a way to earn a living. But here's what I am going to do In 90 days, I'm going to make a change and I'm going to give you the flexibility that you need to interview and find another job somewhere else. Here are the kinds of jobs and the kinds of organizations that I would recommend you for.

Speaker 2: 30:22

Here are the ones that I'm not going to be a good reference for you for because we've seen that you can't do those. Now here are the. Here are the three or four things that I need you to do with excellence every single day, and if you just demonstrate you can't do just those three things, that that 90 days may move up. But as long as you can do those three things with excellence for the next 90 days, then I'm going to give you the flexibility to find another job, and when you do, you won't have to put in a notice. You can slip on out and start your new job, and I've done that in a couple of instances and I still have relationships with those people even decades later. So there's a benevolent way to terminate people from your organization.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Well, let's talk about your business. So, a little bit you've talked about the things that you do and how you help others, but let's talk about your business and how a business would work with you. The sizes things like that, sure.

Speaker 2: 31:17

So there are actually two different models, two different business models that we use and we actually have different names for the companies that have the different business model. One side of the company is called Startup Junkie slash Conductor and Startup Junkie is the parent company. Conductor is just a location here in central Arkansas. Startup Junkie is up in northwest Arkansas and it is what we call sponsored consulting, coaching, consulting and training and what I mean by that is we have contracts with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission is we have contracts with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. We have contracts with the US Small Business Administration, the city of Fayetteville, the Economic Development Agency and a number of other large institutions and organizations who have a vested interest in entrepreneurial development, small business development. So they pay us to provide free training, coaching, consulting, mentoring and access to capital to small businesses in the state of Arkansas. So that's where a lot of our business and we have a team of about 33 people who are between our different locations actually doing that work we started having a number of larger companies locations actually doing that work.

Speaker 2: 32:27

We started having a number of larger companies companies that are probably $5 million of annual revenue, up to $500 million of annual revenue and they were coming to us saying look, we need the same kinds of services that you provide to these small businesses, but we know we don't qualify for the free services.

Speaker 2: 32:43

We'll pay you for it. So we created a sister company called Innovation Junkie and it's a billable consulting firm and it's usually, like I said, companies that are $5 million to $500 million. Usually in that $25 to $20 million range is a pretty big sweet spot for us, and so we do innovation work with them. We help them really think about how to disrupt the status quo, either in their markets or in their companies, and create new ways of doing things. We do strategic growth planning and use our strategic growth diagnostic with them. Many times that leads us to doing work with their executive teams around leadership and building a culture of excellence, and that's how we work with them. Usually it's a 12-month engagement when we work with them and we help them install our strategic growth system and all the other stuff that goes along with that.

Speaker 1: 33:35

How is the best way to follow you for those that want to get some information and reach out to you?

Speaker 2: 33:42

So if they want to reach out to me, I'm very active on LinkedIn and that's Jeff Standridge at Stand on a Ridge Jeff Standridge at LinkedIn. They can also find me at jeffstandridgecom innovationjunkiecom, and jeffs at innovationjunkiecom is my direct email.

Speaker 1: 33:58

If you were in a room full of small business owners of all different sizes, what is one piece of advice that you think would be applicable to all of them?

Speaker 2: 34:07

Failure's only failure if you quit. Otherwise, it's just feedback. Right, that's it Recognizing that we all have setbacks, we all have failures. That could be failures, but they're only failures if we stop. If we keep going and we adapt our approach and we adapt our style and we adapt our direction based upon what we learn from that feedback, then that's all that failure is. It's just an opportunity to begin again, but more intelligently the next time.

Speaker 1: 34:39

Very well said. Well, you've been a wealth of information and a blessing to many. I appreciate your time and so do our listeners.

Speaker 2: 34:46

Thank you, michael. It's been a pleasure and an honor to be with you, and I'd love to interact with any of your listeners that want to reach out.

Speaker 1: 34:50

Yeah, please reach out to Jeff, you will be amazed, thank you. Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. Please don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. If your business is stuck, you need help creating a business that can run without you, or you need a fast business loan or line of credit, go to our website businessownershipsimplifiedcom and schedule a free consultation to learn why small business success starts with Boss. If you want to talk anything small business related, email me at michael at michaeldmorrisoncom. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.