EP 23: Bob Paden: Watching a train wreck happen - what do you do?

Ed Mysogland  0:16  
I'm your host, Ed Mysogland. I teach business owners how to build value and identify and remove risks in their business so that one day that they can sell their business at maximum value when they want, how they want and to whom they want. On today's show, I am so stoked to welcome Bob Paden of growth coach of Northern Indianapolis. So

Bob Paden  1:29  
welcome to the show, Bob. Thanks, Ed, for having me today.

Ed Mysogland  1:32  
So before we got started, that gave kind of a high level overview of you. So if you don't mind, can you share a little bit more about you and what you're doing to serve business owners?

Bob Paden  1:41  
So you bet. Well, I mean, background wise, I spent 20 years at Rolls Royce here locally in Indianapolis, and hit the end of 2008, or middle of 2008. In fact, right before the downturn, I left Rolls Royce after that 20 year career and ended up honestly by accident, starting my own consultancy, and even through the downturn, financially, etc. That occurred, I had some really great experiences in self employment, and ended up probably with about a half a dozen clients by the end of the year. And then a few years later, that ended up taking me overseas where I worked in Australia of all places, which was quite enjoyable. And a year and a half later, that brought me back to the US where I'd worked at Cummins, in the Persian market. And then about a year and a half later ended up opening an engineering office in downtown Indianapolis, with about 70 people here and about 70 offshore. And when that came to an end, I really kind of went back and evaluated what I really liked to do. And my took a look at my second half of life and turn 50 In that same timeframe and really enjoyed being self employed. And so returned to that in early 2017. were added both consulting and coaching. And what I found was a lot of my consulting clients ended up being coaching clients. And so kind of started to make that transition over the last few years. And then, earlier this year, had met a lady named Lisa Hudson, who was the growth coach at Carmel. And we hit it off and had a great conversation and ended up even in a mastermind group together. But she ended up taking the role as president of the franchise of the summer. And the next thing I know, I'm in a conversation with her. And I bought myself a franchise in June of this year. And so last several months, I've just been converting what I would call existing clients, and future clients over from my past business over to the growth coach. And I've got a great team in Cincinnati, which headquarters and support me. And so right now I'm a solo coach, but I do have a part time coach that focuses on people and some HR focused things. And then come 2020 Expect to add a few more coaches to the portfolio. So currently serving business owners who really are in growth planning phase or actually in the growth phase and are in typically what I would just call it the Whitewater. It's the rough patch of time in business where all these changes are occurring, some because of growth and just change. And it's pretty difficult. It's it's very common, very few businesses go through big changes without going through what I call that Whitewater. So I'd literally just help business owners and leaders believe that the actions that they're taking today will actually deliver the results they want in the future. And so that's kind of what to do.

Ed Mysogland  4:49  
Well, the funny thing is, so I bumped into your name, you know, throughout LinkedIn, certainly some some mutual acquaintances and they all they all I certainly speak highly of you and and just how results oriented you are. But one of the things that surprised me was that you bought a franchise, it it, it seemed to me that you, you had a pretty decent shop going. And so I'm curious what made you buy into a process of another?

Bob Paden  5:21  
Sure. A couple things. I mean, most franchise owners would know that, you know, being on your own has a lot of goods. And there's a lot of positives to that. But some of the negatives is you are alone. You know, despite a great network, despite colleagues, and similar nature of business, sometimes you do feel alone, and I had been searching probably for a year for something, I call it, I probably couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time. And that's honestly where I met Lisa, I really liked how she did business. I just liked her a lot. And the next thing I know, you know, obviously, she's becoming the president of the franchise, and I just liked how they did business. And I went, you know, took a tour met the team, very down to earth people, this isn't some, you know, San Francisco, high tower, glossy office place, it's, you know, really great team, solid people. And for me, it was all just about support. And you know, I get a great support team behind me, I get a coach, I get resources that I didn't have on my own, and just having that, to support. Not only just my own business, but my clients, she has been extremely useful. So that's, that's really why I bought it.

Ed Mysogland  6:38  
Yeah, something something else that you you said in passing, but I've always wanted to know is what's the difference between consulting and coaching?

Bob Paden  6:48  
Consulting, I'd say is, the simplest way I describe it is consulting is I may tell you what to do, and actually maybe do some of it for you. Whereas coaching, you know, we're actually coaches just like a sports coach. You know, I don't mind getting my hands dirty from time to time. But you know, our job is really to figure out how to get the most out of what you're already doing. Not necessarily to remake the wheel, even though that may be part of the process that we go through. You know, you're not paying me to actually Institute you know, let's say SAP or an ERP system, we're gonna talk about that change and how it impacts your people and how to, you know, get the most out of that, you know, investment and how to prepare your people to do it. But that's, that's the simplest way I can describe a consultant versus a coach,

Ed Mysogland  7:38  
I got the one of the things that, you know, it seems as though there's, there's a lot of coaches out there. And the and that's not necessarily a bad thing, I think, I think it dilutes a lot of of the message, that the good coaches always tend to rise to the top. But I think it, it takes a little bit longer to kind of plow through those that, you know, say they're a coach, but I've never coached or perhaps have had one success story. And now all of a sudden, they they're the expert. So I guess my first question is, how do you see yourself differentiating yourself against all those other coaches? Sure.

Bob Paden  8:16  
I mean, I mean, we all know each other to be frank, you know, probably here in Northern Indianapolis, in Indianapolis, there's probably not too many coaches. And you know, that do what we do that don't know each other. And there's two things. One, I think, you know, every every one of us have different backgrounds, experiences and niches. And that's, you know, I think that's where, you know, coaching is a very personal business. And so every potential client or current client, you know, chooses a coach for a whole host of reasons, biggest one, just be in trust, right? So they have to, they have to believe that what you're doing is going to help them deliver, which we may talk about a little bit later. But so in my case, I caught, you know, 30 years of experience, I coached big teams, small teams, national teams, global teams, corporate activities, non corporate activities, etc. And the way I describe myself recently is, the best way I can come up with it is what I call a synergist. And so I have, you know, whether you call it a gift that sounds maybe a bit pompous, but I look at things through a different lens than other people do. I look at processes when I look at a business I look at process and what they're doing and how they're doing it, and all the pieces of the puzzle. And I take you know, you know what man and Mark winners in the book traction, which is a great book calls that the integrator and Les McCune calls that the synergist and so I've kind of picked up on the center just to describe myself. So for me, most of my clients are what I would call specialists, or small privately owned or medium sized business owners, owners of a privately owned business But they really just want to make some really big changes for the long term and their future for them and their employees. So that's kind of who I, who I serve.

Ed Mysogland  10:09  
Yeah. Anytime that you talk to somebody that's been coached, and either they have a real good experience, or they, or they have a real bad experience, and it's, and it's never Yeah, it was okay. It was just, it was one or the other. And so, I guess when, when you're working with, with business owners, or people are evaluating your service, I mean, how, how do you determine whether or not it's the right fit?

Bob Paden  10:38  
Great question as well. I would say for me, it's really about their thirst for knowledge and change. If if they're extremely risk averse, and they're really not open to change. And they're really not, I call it, you know, being a sponge, I love clients that are sponges are great, you know, they're learning, they're reading, they're reading things, they're asking questions, they're trying to figure out how to make things work. And those that truly want to look at the long term versus the short. You know, if you're looking just to do a quick fix, and just make some extra cash to pay for, or something that's, that's not my, that's not my gig, if you really want to set yourself up for the long term. And obviously, in the subject that we're talking about, is preparing your business for sale, that is not a short term activity. So I look for those people that truly have that type of, you know, go forward vision. So,

Ed Mysogland  11:35  
yeah, when when there's partners involved? I mean, what do you normally see? Do you see one partner on board? And then you got to? lasso the the other or others? Or do you come into the board meeting, Make Your Pitch and, and hope you get consensus to be brought on? How's that? Well,

Bob Paden  11:55  
I usually don't like making pitches that be frank, I usually start with a call it either the owner or the set of owners. And that's where we start. And honestly, if they're not on board, it's I don't want to say a losing effort, but it makes it that much more difficult. They literally have to be ready to make a change. And if that change then corresponds to you know, I'll call it a personality match, and just how I conduct business with them, then usually, it's off to the races.

Ed Mysogland  12:23  
Yeah, well, and the reason the reason I was asking, it has more to do with like the age of the owners, as we're talking about preparing your business for sale, you know, let's just, I know, we're seeing a lot of business owners 65 plus. And, you know, as far as digging your heels in, they are dug in, and this is this is the way we've always done it. So but they would so benefit from, from someone, a third party, just taking a look at the business, helping them kind of Shepherd everyone in one direction that at some point, you're going to exit this thing. And so those type of business hours, how do you get your arms around them. And, and I don't want to say convinced, but show them the intangible value that that you bring, or that you will bring through working with you.

Bob Paden  13:14  
Usually, I mean, honestly, the only way I can do that is just through examples. So I usually just talk through, you know, past clerk existing client interactions and describe what I do. Because there definitely are, you know, there's tangible benefits and intangibles. Sometimes it's just they want to feel better about something, you know, a decision, three choices they need to make or figure out which direction to go. And sometimes that doesn't have an immediate financial impact, but it definitely has a confidence impact. But then there's obviously bigger things that you may talk about about, you know, it could be restructuring your business, it could be changing your leadership team, it could be you know, changing your entire process of your business or actually creating a process for your business. Some cases, they don't have one to start with, but and so you know, measuring the impact of a repeatable process that then allows the owner to not be in the middle, I call it you know, sometimes those are hard to pin down. And sometimes they're not sometimes it's just purely you'll see a change in sales volume or a change in prospect volume or reduction in costs, etc. So, every client is different, I must admit.

Ed Mysogland  14:29  
Yeah, I know. Especially when I'm talking to the older and, you know, the it's not like they're that much older than me, but those that have been, look, I've owned the company for 40 years, you know, you're not going to tell me anything. I don't know, you know, you sit there and be like, Okay, well, how should we proceed then if if you're not even willing to consider someone else's point of view. So yeah, that's that's a tough spot.

Bob Paden  15:00  
Yeah, and my usually maybe snarky response to that, then everything must be great. You know, if, and, you know, you've talked to enough owners just like myself that, you know, every business, you know, obviously, it can be a mess. You know, there's some that are less messy than others. But every business has its challenges. I mean, especially, you know, privately owned or family owned businesses, you know, for sure. And so anytime someone kind of says that it's like, well, you know, then why are we even talking? There's a reason that they talked to me or you. And it's because they want to know, and that's kind of where we start. And so, you know, if there is a hard varnish, I'll call it that, surely you can't break through then until they really want to make a change. And I just, I keep them in mind and keep in contact, you know,

Ed Mysogland  15:53  
yeah. Hi. So what are you seeing in today's marketplace? As far as business owners and thinking about the process? Are you seeing an upswing? Certainly we are, I don't know, I'm assuming you're doing the same.

Bob Paden  16:09  
Yeah. And that's, I mean, it's probably a subject that we hit on a lot. And it came across, I'd say probably even weekly, I call it situation wise, is what, and you and I've talked about this before, just it's a bit of a denial of reality. You know, every private owner that I talked to, has a number in their head that they want their business to be worse, and think it may be worse. But it's not necessarily backed up with facts. And what I've been telling a lot of, you know, the business owners lately is think about who the buyer will be not about you, the seller. And you have to have a buyer that wants to buy it. And it may not be a boomer anymore. And so you may have a millennial that wants to buy your business, and how does your business look to them? And it is, I'll be honest, it's a little frustrating, because they want it to be worth, you know, a million dollars, but they've done nothing to really back up the true valuation of it, you know, even down to the financials. So that's kind of what I see is I mean, you know, just from a megatrends standpoint, you and I both know that, you know, the amount of Boomer retirements and people that own businesses is just staggering. That's coming due to be either sold or retired. So,

Ed Mysogland  17:31  
yeah, I mean, we see the same and the funny thing is, it's just it's hard to believe that with as much information that's available out there, that we still have to fight the battle of understanding value. You know, and the first thing is, we have said, Would you would you pay this for your company? Well, hell no, I wouldn't. Why would you think someone else is going to, you know, and it's, yeah, is such a tough a tough spot to be in, because you know, that liquidating or making that that asset, liquid or selling is, is integral to them having a reasonable retirement? And oh, my gosh, and we plow into, you know, you just didn't give us enough time that most of what the value penalisation, so to speak, that you're going to receive could have been corrected, if you just would have started this process a year or two earlier?

Bob Paden  18:34  
That's correct. Yeah, no, I tell, you know, everyone I meet that comes into this category of thinking about selling is, you know, at an absolute minimum, you want at least a year, I mean, maybe three, right? There's just, there's just a whole list of things that are involved when you decide to sell. And then because each business owner is different in their financial lives are different, and their goals are different. There's a lot of ground to cover, well enough, just well called the nuts and bolts of the basic business itself.

Ed Mysogland  19:09  
I mean, is there a particular way that you get the business or to buy into this investment? I know your track record speaks for itself, and you can point to look, here's my success stories. But you know, the funny thing is, it seems as though there's, it doesn't matter how much money that the business owner is making there is the fear of that investment in a person who is claiming to be able to amplify value. How do you get that? How do you get them over that hump?

Bob Paden  19:39  
That's a great question. I would say you know, initially, what I tell them is, I am not going to promise you a return on investment. There's too much work that rests on the buyer or on you know, the seller or the owner. And my job isn't to do all the work for them. You know, I can we can guide them through it. Uh, you know, I've kind of also one way to describe myself as a whitewater rafting guide, right, I'm the guy in the back of the boat. And my job is to paddle you know, and guide the boat where you want it to go. But in the end, you've got to be paddling or your team and your business has to be paddling in a certain direction. So, I truly it is an investment I'm, I don't make any bones in about having a discussion when someone's going to spend, you know, 1020 $30,000, over some period of time to, you know, figure out a way to get more out of their business. That's, that's, it's real money. You know, I don't make light of that at all. But the other thing I look at is, what else did they invest their money in, or in a lot of cases, how much money is being wasted by not doing certain things. And so, you know, I've had several instances where, you know, you go into a business, and you see what they're spending on certain things that are providing no value or return. And that's one way, you know, we may do some immediate little quick hits, I'll call it that generates some immediate cash value, by just looking at their business from the outside. And if we can do that, in the short term, fantastic. But it really is a long term. So it really just comes down to, you know, honestly, if I don't produce value in two or three months time as an example, we're going to know it and we're going to have a discussion about it. So I don't make any bones about them.

Ed Mysogland  21:31  
So what what are the habits that you're advising a business owner, that they must do in order to increase the value of their companies?

Bob Paden  21:40  
Sure, there's about four. And I'd say the first one really, is getting them out of the middle of everything. A lot of privately owned business, even medium sized businesses, the owner is in the middle of everything. And what I tell them is their job is, you know, our job is to help them figure out how to get out of the middle and get them you know, from being the point of constraint, there's a lot of constraints, my heaven, the owner in the middle of every decision and every function, and sometimes they may not even see it. And this is where an outside view comes in, you know, sitting in a board meeting for a while or a staff meeting, and just kind of watching how a business works, you kind of learn a lot of things pretty quickly. You know, what we'd like to get them to the point of is, when they come into work, they may even ask themselves in some future time, right? Why am I actually here? And that's what we'd like to get up to? And what are they spending their time on. And, you know, it's it's a bit cliche, but it's, you know, working on your business, not in it. And you know, a lot of other coaches have that same phrase. So that's one that's probably the primary especially in in smaller privately and even medium sized businesses. Second would just be mindset, and just thinking strategically, there's a lot of business owners that are really just employees. And they really haven't set up their business to be a functioning entity without them. And so helping them understand what that looks like, is another focus area. Third would just be I'll call it a plan. And I'm not big on humongous big business plans. So whether it's small, big, or I call it a one page, and I actually like one, one page business plans, because usually what I find is they don't have one. And so we start with just a page business plan on a page. And then you know, the saying of plans are worthless, but planning is everything, right? So it's actually more of the process of planning, than it is the plan itself. That's the value. And that's where you can create a business plan and put it on a shelf, and no one looks at it. And that's pretty much worthless. So having a repeated activity over the course of let's say, a year, at a minimum, once every quarter, if not once a month of planning, replanting your business, looking one quarter out, those things are extremely important. And then last is just knowing their numbers. They got to know their numbers. I'm just blown away sometimes the number of owners that I talked to that when you ask them some fairly basic things about financials that they don't know. And they really need to know their numbers.

Ed Mysogland  24:24  
Imagine that couple follow up questions to that. How do you coach them to find the time and that that always seems to crop up is you know, I just don't have the time and and again that I love putting my calendar up against somebody else and say, let's talk about time. If I have enough time to do this, you have enough time to do what I'm asking you to do. But I mean, how do you how do you help them find that time?

Bob Paden  24:53  
When you start small? You know, don't bite the elephant all at once. You don't need to carve off a week a month. Um, what I typically ask people to do is, you know, literally dedicate at a minimum two hours a week. And it just absolute minimum, if you're not willing to dedicate two hours a week to really improve your business, then you're really not dedicated to it. So that's kind of my minimum threshold in some ways. And, and literally, it's analyzing what they do every day. And one of the first activity sometimes that we actually do is actually have them record what they're doing. And it usually surprises them. And it doesn't have to be complicated. I'm not, you know, it's literally a notepad, just kind of write down. And then if they look at that, after a month, or even two weeks, a lot of times, there's a lot of waste in there. And so we start, you know, immediately just looking at what are they spending their time on today? And who else can do that work? And we start small, and it for every owner, it's a little different based on their background. So that's where we start.

Ed Mysogland  26:00  
Yeah. And then the second part of the follow up was, you said, the business owner has to get out from being in the middle. What is, and I think I just You just said it, but I want to go a little deeper, as far as you start small find one thing that someone else can do, what do you what do you do with that business owner, I've heard some, you know, you, you basically list out every, every job that you that you do over the course of a week or a month or pick the timeframe, and then you just prioritize? And then you start whittling them off as far as delegating to someone else it

Bob Paden  26:39  
is that sometimes it's that simple. Sometimes it's not. I mean, it again, it depends on the owner, and what kind of business it is, you know, I'll call it, whether it's simple or complex. But in some cases, yes, that is, and it's just holding them accountable to it. This, you know, it's, it's doing that over a period of time that it is, you know, like, you know, Jim Collins book Good to Great, right. It's a it's a momentum builder. The more you do it, the easier it gets, and the easier it gets, the more you do it. And it doesn't need to be big here, right?

Ed Mysogland  27:14  
Well, like I said, it's funny, you said, you know, work on your business, not in your business. You know, some recently somebody said, you know, if that's what you're going to tell me just just don't come in Don't? Don't even come through the door. Right? And I'm with them. I'm tired of hearing about it, too. You know, give me a solution. Don't tell me don't tell me what the problem is. I know what the problem is.

Bob Paden  27:39  
Sure. And and some of that is, but they're my response to that is, are they already doing it? Now? If they're not, then it is. It's not, quote unquote, as simple as doing that. That's part of, you know, it's part of my role to help them do it. But some of it is, I would say, 80% of the challenge is their mindset. And, you know, even in the short term, if you have to put in, you know, another 10 hours a week to make it happen, if that's the way to solve the problem, then you would do that on any other problem that you're trying to face. That magnitude. So

Ed Mysogland  28:14  
I represent a different Well, yeah, and like I said, it's all about execution. And not every fire needs to be fought today, in no direction. And despite the business owner. Thank you. So my next question is, in the people that you're working with, are you seeing business owners interested in lifestyle or legacy in today's market?

Bob Paden  28:40  
I would definitely, there's a mix of both. And this is a challenge that comes up a lot. I call it the boat versus the business dilemma. You know, when it when, when a business owner on a monthly or quarterly basis, you know, totals up and they go to their accountant, and they've got, you know, they made a decent profit. What do they do with that profit. And it's, you know, and sometimes in a lifestyle, you know, they want that return on investment to help them personally, you know, that may be a boat or boathouse or whatever vacation. But this is actually one of the areas that we start focusing on is how they manage their finances on the business side versus the personal side, because it affects not just them in the short term, but it affects their business and their culture, especially their employees, and whether they like it or not, when the owner is focusing more on their lifestyle than they are on the legacy, it becomes really apparent to their workforce. And it drives a lot of a lot of negative things in the workforce and the culture of the business.

Ed Mysogland  29:49  
So I think each coach is different. But I mean, what's the process in working with someone like you I'm certain there's some sort of exploratory initial same conversation but take take us through the process to becoming a client,

Bob Paden  30:04  
I'd say you know, it's a, usually uptrend is a cup of coffee, that's kind of where I start, I'm a cup of coffee type of guy. And we'll talk about their goals and what they want to get out of it. And, you know, like you've said, their past experiences both good and bad. And I talked about kind of just my approach, and it is a simple approach to start, we like to start off, I call it the typical approach is an every other week, you know, I call them accountability session. So whether that's an hour, hour and a half, two hours a week, or every other week, and we literally start with what's the main goal we're trying to hit both in the short and the long term. And then literally, you know, we may do what I would call whiteboard sessions is very typical, kind of splattering things against the wall and flushing out a problem. And to start with, maybe their immediate pain, you know, as an example, you know, one of my clients, they had a really good one of their first line of his, of his team was really struggling, rest of the team seemed to be going well, but he was having some real challenges. So we spent the first two weeks really just talking through that issue and ways to address his performance. And then obviously, we'd like to keep him just because, you know, you can't afford to lose people anymore. It's just not a good option. And so we spent the first month really trying to salvage this gentleman's employment, and we did, which was good and got him on the right track, and then we moved on to bigger things. So typically, that is, you know, whether it's weekly or every other week, I call it just as long as there's a cadence. And part of that is consistency. Part of that is accountability. You know, as you know, most owners may be not accountable to much of anybody, you know, they may not have a board, they may not even know, they may not even tell their spouse, what's going on. And so having just someone that provides them an opportunity to be held accountable, I find that is something else that I spend a lot of time doing.

Ed Mysogland  32:11  
Okay, one of my last questions, and I'm, and I appreciate you giving me a little extra time. But what is the last piece of advice? Or what if you had one piece of advice to give our listeners that would have the most immediate impact on their business? What would it be, probably to

Bob Paden  32:29  
view their business as a machine or an engine. And again, the cliche of working on it, not in it, but truly to step back, and literally take the time to look at your business as a machine. And look at the moving parts and the processes and the gears and what's in it. And if they find themselves kind of in the middle of that engine, they've, you know, we together have to figure out how to get them out of that middle. Otherwise, you know, the, especially a future buyer doesn't want to buy the business that has the owner in the middle of it. This just makes it really, really messy and sticky. So it really is this is to take the time, and whether that's two hours on a Friday afternoon and just say, Okay, what is this business I have? And what's it look like from from the beginning to the end? And look at that viewpoint, I think that has a lot of value.

Ed Mysogland  33:24  
Totally agree. So Bob, what's the best way we can connect with you?

Bob Paden  33:29  
Now I'm a I'm a LinkedIn guy, for sure. So whether it's LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook and Twitter, but LinkedIn is probably the easiest way. And obviously my website, which is the growth coach North indie.com, but and then obviously, telephone or email, either one.

Ed Mysogland  33:48  
Well, I will have I will have links to everywhere that your your add on in the show notes. So Bob, boy, I can't thank you enough for being so generous with your time and experience and the work you're doing helping owners maximize their value. So to learn more about Bob, like you said, you want to go to www the growth coach, North indie.com and Bob again, thank you so much for being a defender of business value.

Thank you and appreciate the time.