"Just Add a Zero" with Chad Jenkins

Guest Chad Jenkins discusses the power of collaboration and innovative business strategies, sharing insights from his entrepreneurial journey. He explains how identifying and addressing customer friction can drive growth and contribute to long-term business success.

Key Takeaways:

Collaborative Approach: Chad Jenkins highlights the significance of partnering with entities trusted by top clients to reduce marketing costs and add value.
Value Addition via Collaboration: By combining offerings and leveraging mutual trust, businesses can streamline services and deliver seamless value. (ex. Apple + Microsoft Excel)
“Just Add Zero” Concept: Chad’s book outlines strategies for innovation and removing friction points within businesses.

Guest:

Chad Jenkins, entrepreneur and author of “Just Add Zero.”

Resources Mentioned:

Quotes:

-“The key is to alleviate customer frictions and create seamless value delivery through strategic collaborations.” – Chad Jenkins

-“By focusing on what your employees are becoming, you’re investing in future growth and innovation.” – Mark Wright

Listener Challenge:

This week, identify one friction point in your business or daily routine and implement a strategy to address it. Share your results on social media using #BEATSWORKINGShow.

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Transcript

The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.

[00:00:00] Mark Wright: Chad Jenkins, welcome to the BEATS WORKING show. It’s great to have you here. Welcome.

[00:00:04] Chad Jenkins: Man, I’m so excited. Thanks so much.

[00:00:07] Mark Wright: So as Chad, as I was thinking about how to introduce you to our listeners, the idea of Miracle Gro kept popping up in my head because you really have this amazing ability to grow companies by uncovering invisible opportunities. And you’ve really developed a knack for this. We’re going to get to your methods in just a little bit, but I would love to start at your beginning.

[00:00:29] Mark Wright: It seems like every entrepreneur that we’ve had on the show has told us stories from their childhood that really make us see that who they are today really started way back then. So I want to take you back to your childhood.

[00:00:41] Mark Wright: You grew up on a farm in the Carolinas and you started making money by riding horses that were going through auction., how did you figure out that that could be a moneymaking opportunity?

[00:00:52] Chad Jenkins: So That’s a great question and a great comment earlier reference that you made just to picking up on the commonality [00:01:00] because in my research, I’ve validated it., it seems to happen consistently with the entrepreneurs I deal with around the planet, around eight years old. It’s definitely in all examples below 10 years old.

[00:01:11] Chad Jenkins: And I can vouch for that, at least from my personal experience, because it’s about the same exact time I was eight, myself. When I figured out roughly what my father made, and I am known as a 3 1 print, which is to succeed and achieve, and for everything to be correct, right, and perfect. Those are my two subconscious motivators.

[00:01:30] Chad Jenkins: Obviously, I didn’t know that when I was eight years old, but I had this burning desire to do more, and to achieve more. And it, when I figured out what that number was, it scared me. I did the reverse math back down to the hour and I thought, well, that’s not too bad. I added a zero to it, which is where the first book name came from just at a zero.

[00:01:48] Chad Jenkins: And when I took that number back out to the annual amount, it freaked me out. And I figured, and I referenced it now as what happened at the same time, fear and greed struck me. I wanted more and I had no [00:02:00] earthly clue. I figured being on a farm, I had nothing at my fingertips that would enable me to create value and create that type of money.

[00:02:09] Chad Jenkins: Completely not true. So, at the time that fear and greed struck me at this exact same moment, I think I began to look at, it forced me to look at things completely in a different light. Because I began to ask questions around what can I do to create value by combining something that I have, or multiple somethings that I have.

[00:02:30] Chad Jenkins: And what I was really driven by at a very early age is I was driven to find friction. So you mentioned the horse sales and those were awesome at that age. I recognized pretty quickly that the people that were bringing their horses, obviously, wanted to sell their horses and the folks in the stands wanted to buy the horses.

[00:02:50] Chad Jenkins: But there was a commonality that I picked up on or a trend. The more a horse looked like anybody could ride it, the more it brought. I’ve been riding since [00:03:00] before I could walk. That’s a resource. I recognize friction. The folks wanted to get more money for their horses, but the horses were absolutely crazy.

[00:03:08] Chad Jenkins: You could tell that by whoever was riding it and they would not bring more. But if you had this little kid who looked like a peanut, it took me well into high school years before I actually grew any. It felt like, and if it put this little kid on it, anybody thought that they could ride it. Not a hundred percent true, but what that converted to is 10 to 20 per horse.

[00:03:29] Chad Jenkins: Per evening that I was able to ride. And at that time I was probably attending two or three horse sales a week. It turned into a few hundred bucks a week at that age. That’s big money. And I was able to find another way to create money is I kept hearing about real estate and doing research and I, I took all that cash that I made from riding those horses and ended up buying my first piece of real estate at 11 mm-Hmm.

[00:03:53] Mark Wright: That’s crazy. That is just unbelievable. What I think is also really interesting, Chad, is that you say you learned a [00:04:00] lot from the nonverbal communication that’s necessary to work with horses. And what I think is really crazy about this is we have a husband and wife couple who are farriers. They shoe horses coming up on the show.

[00:04:13] Mark Wright: And that dynamic of communicating with an animal is super strong with them. We also have an equine gestaltist coming on the show who uses horses in therapy. And it made me think that there must be a common thread that if you can understand a horse in a way that maximizes a positive outcome with that animal, that’s a real skill set, isn’t it?

[00:04:38] Mark Wright: And I just found it so interesting that this is a common thread In three of our shows on

[00:04:44] Chad Jenkins: Yes, indeed. Indeed. I liken it. If you hear me reference it now, God gave us four inputs and one output. Try to use them proportionately. You have a distinct and clear advantage, honestly. So many folks are more interested in what they have to say than listening. [00:05:00] And they missed the complete point. And then the other person doesn’t feel heard and the conversation or the objective doesn’t go any further.

[00:05:07] Chad Jenkins: When I was much younger, of course, being on a farm in South Carolina, not a lot of humans around. Pretty much me and the horses, especially during these dog days of summer when it’s so hot. But not long after I began to ride them during the cell barn or through the cell barn, I began to train them as well for people.

[00:05:24] Chad Jenkins: So I would be there by myself training horses Monday through Friday, every day. You pick up on a lot of mannerisms and communication that as to your point earlier made is non verbal. And a horse or an animal can pick up on so many things. They know if you’re scared or not, they can immediately sense it.

[00:05:44] Chad Jenkins: And that affects their behavior, which of course can create a snowball. By the same token, if you’re gentle, patient, and you’re aware of what they want, right, I have a friend that wrote a book, what’s in it for them, Joe [00:06:00] Polish. It’s what it’s all about, right? My favorite future wisdom quote is nothing matters, but someone else’s future and how you can help them create that future.

[00:06:11] Chad Jenkins: BEATS WORKING. So even way back at a very early age, listening to those horses, they had an objective. They wanted something. If I could pick up on what they wanted and show some slight consideration in that direction, not let them do anything they wanted to do, but I would just give a little bit, then they would give a little bit.

[00:06:29] Chad Jenkins: And you began to create a relationship that mutually, both parties benefited. It happens today in business, almost in every engagement I have. If we listen, remember four inputs, one output, more listening than talking. Of course, on a podcast, I don’t really have that luxury, but in a business meeting, I am certainly able to, but picking up on what’s in it for them.

[00:06:52] Chad Jenkins: What’s the other party wanting as an objective?, super important and extremely valuable.

[00:06:56] Mark Wright: on a farm, I grew up on a farm and I think [00:07:00] sometimes on a farm, there’s kind of a scarcity mindset because there’s never enough money to do everything that you want to do, but what you, as you mentioned just a few minutes ago, you, began to understand that. You actually did have some, valuable assets at your disposal on the farm and you combined those and you actually started a landscaping company while you were in middle school, right?

[00:07:21] Chad Jenkins: Yes. Yeah. Leveraging the assets that I had at my fingertips. So you’re starting to recognize a pattern. And it’s the same in businesses that I encounter today, helping entrepreneurs grow. They have so many more resources at their fingertips, but it’s, they’re interpreting them as the convention, as what the world calls them, versus what they can be as their authentic expression and combine them with something else to create new value.

[00:07:47] Chad Jenkins: There’s been many organizations that I’ve started and they were actually birthed out of the divisions or departments required to run an existing business that I had. Take an HR department, right? That, by and large, one [00:08:00] would typically and conventionally perceive that as a call center. But the common friction is small to medium sized businesses, I recognize.

[00:08:07] Chad Jenkins: HR is a little bit of an afterthought. So I can take these well qualified people, because the size of the organization I have requires that I have one or multiple people in HR, and package that up. And offer it to other small to medium sized businesses who are currently afflicted by friction, by not taking a proactive approach to HR.

[00:08:26] Chad Jenkins: They’re attrition’s up, they can’t keep people, all the normal things that we hear, and I was able to not only turn a cost center into a revenue, but that ended up spinning out to SMBHR, which is another organization I sold last year. So now I spent a lion’s share of my time looking at the resources, most specifically the vision, the capability and the reach that entrepreneurs have at their fingertips that they’re not maximizing in their own organization.

[00:08:55] Chad Jenkins: They’re doing it the conventional way. And a lot of times getting less than, or at [00:09:00] most the conventional return, but they want for more and they have it at their fingertips. I’m so, so fortunate to be in struck with that at eight years old, where it made me start looking. Add things a little bit differently as what they are, not what someone calls them.

[00:09:16] Chad Jenkins: And really in naturally curious to the value that can be created when you combine two or more people, places, and things. Yes,

[00:09:27] Mark Wright: kids. I wish I could go back and shoot video of that. It must’ve been awesome to see this middle school kid running a business. But you know, you talk about pain points and you identified that some of your clients were banks that bought property., and we’re going to build on the property, but not immediately.

[00:09:45] Mark Wright: So. Cities have ordinances that you have to keep the property up. And you realize that someone had to mow that. So you targeted that. So just time after time, you’re identifying friction points, right? That can play into your success.

[00:09:59] Chad Jenkins: They play [00:10:00] into your success because friction specifically, most including small to medium sized business, entrepreneurs and owners, there’s something about their business is causing friction. that they’re turning a blind eye to. So along my path and my journey, I look for those. A lion’s share of reason is they’re easy to identify.

[00:10:18] Chad Jenkins: Typically, if you just, again, four inputs, one output, if you’re just listening, you’re going to hear a lot of those frictions because they’re delivered to you as complaints. That’s the conventional wisdom of them. I, of course, see them as opportunities. When I see enough of them with commonality or trending, I begin to ask myself a couple of questions.

[00:10:36] Chad Jenkins: If I resolve this for, let’s just take an hypothetical example, Julie in accounting, and it could be one of my firms. It happens daily. Is it going to help Julie? Or is it going to help all the Julie’s in companies I own? Or is it going to help all the Julie’s in accounting in a company like I own in my local market, the state, the Southeast, the whole United States?

[00:10:59] Chad Jenkins: [00:11:00] The old me, when I got yes, yes, yes, I went and created a company. Because I found a lot of commonality is the same in many organizations that do what I did and in some examples I had just gotten back from the industry association show With people that were in my phone. They’re in theory my competitors.

[00:11:17] Chad Jenkins: They’re having the same exact friction So you just you’d be the answer to somebody’s questions someone’s complaints and It immediately creates value and you probably have built in clients that you know, they may already even be in your phone

[00:11:29] Mark Wright: So I’d love to talk a little bit more about your early career, Chad. You helped build tractor supply before it became tractor supply. You also worked with Nextel. Tell me how those work experiences shaped who you are today. What were some of the key lessons?

[00:11:46] Chad Jenkins: For, the tractor supply reference and in that particular reference, because it’s so commonly known now, tractor supplies are obviously wildly successful. Years and years ago, it was called America’s Country Store. And it was a concept store by Purina [00:12:00] Mills. It’s a very, very large and long feed supplier in the U.

[00:12:04] Chad Jenkins: S. I think it is even worldwide now. They wanted to buy, build a store that had all of these components in it and drive value. Well, Right out of high school, I used to team rope all around the country and I was at a place called the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma. My father called and said, Hey, there’s this gentleman you sold a pony to for his daughter.

[00:12:24] Chad Jenkins: Back when I was 12 or 13, he’s tried to start a Western clothes store and a feed store not far outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. He’s not doing very well and he wants to sell it. He wouldn’t know if he wouldn’t buy it. And I, of course, am in Oklahoma and I was at the national finals. So I’m not sure when I get back, I’ll go check it.

[00:12:41] Chad Jenkins: And I did. And I ended up buying it. There’s a book that I’ll reference is written in 1993. It’s called the one to one future in that book. And this guy was an absolute savant. I’m not sure how he could see this far into the future, because in that particular book, he talks about, it’s no longer about [00:13:00] market share.

[00:13:01] Chad Jenkins: It’s about share of client unbeknownst to me, even at that particular feed store. I began to do that day one. That’s why we went from just a little bit of western clothes and a little bit of horse feed and different types of feed to basically, building the equivalent of a tractor supply with a very large horse trailer and utility trailer business all wrapped into one.

[00:13:22] Chad Jenkins: So I went from this 1200 square foot facility and began to add products from around the country, which are hay, pine needles, shavings. Flat trailers, like a 6×12 utility trailer, dumped trailers. This lady who bought feed for me asked to sell her horse trailer. I passed by her location on the way in. I picked it up at 6am.

[00:13:43] Chad Jenkins: That afternoon I had sold it and made 400 above what she wanted to sell it for. And a year later I had a million and a half dollars of floor plan inventory. At 19 or 20? I could spell floor plan. I didn’t know what that meant. Of course, picked up on it real quickly., so [00:14:00] doing that particular business, the one to one future talks about, of course, having a one to one relationship with your client and adding value on a consistent basis.

[00:14:09] Chad Jenkins: I’ve done that from day one. There’s folks that bought horses from me. They bought a horse trailer. They bought feed that eventually bought Nextel telephones that we might’ve created their first logo, put logos on their trucks because integrating business. Build a website, build an application to do time and attendance and proactive maintenance on their equipment, and then they may be engaged with my M& A firm now to exit their business.

[00:14:32] Chad Jenkins: So building that trusted relationship and constantly evaluating two reasons, what frictions are they afflicted by, and how can I leverage what is at my fingertips To create more value for them, builds a very long lasting, strong relationship. And it enables you to just continue to grow where there could be a recession or a pullback or interest rates are up, but you continue to thrive and no one can really figure it out.

[00:14:56] Chad Jenkins: The fundamental thing is every day that God gives you, when [00:15:00] you do open your eyes, I start mine with gratitude until I run out and then I open my eyes just right after I become conscious. The first thing in my brain every morning is how am I going to create more value today than I did yesterday? BEATS WORKING.

[00:15:12] Chad Jenkins: And I know that unlimited, as long as I’m looking at friction and being paying attention to it, it’s an unlimited amount of innovation that just being a little bit curious can take you really, really far.

[00:15:24] Mark Wright: I’m, I’m smiling because, the feed store really was the gathering point when I was a kid, we had one of the Purina stores near our place. But when you look at all, the multiple chains, now the multiple stores that sell the whole experience from water troughs to clothing to boots to you name it, those stores are just so prolific.

[00:15:45] Mark Wright: Now, it’s interesting that you helped shape that industry way back then. BEATS WORKING., Chad, I’d love to talk about the origin story of Seed Spark, how it came to be, and when you realized that you really wanted to formalize this strategy that [00:16:00] started way back when you were a kid.

[00:16:02] Chad Jenkins: SeedSpark, the organization was originally conceived and created in 2005. At that particular time, driven by friction, I had recognized a previous friction in the wireless industry. You mentioned Nextel telephones at that time. In the Nextel business, there’s some really, really simple things. I created the entire city like an ice cream truck route in quadrants.

[00:16:27] Chad Jenkins: Obviously, it would be quadrants if it’s five. But they would go to all the production builder neighborhoods. BEATS WORKING and service next cell telephones and bring them because of course, who used that type of product? The brick mason, the landscaper, the building contractor, the grading contractor, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:16:43] Chad Jenkins: And I noticed a friction that particular industry because they continue to have to buy these phones. Thank goodness they bought a lot of them for me, but their bill was always a little out of control because they didn’t know all these rate plans. And when I talked earlier about know what your resources are, Well, I [00:17:00] recognize that every month these wireless carriers change their packages.

[00:17:03] Chad Jenkins: That’s a true statement. All of my clients continue to get more phones and their packages are metered. You can only send so many text messages or talk on the phone so much and therefore you had exposure. But all of my people know these rate plans. They have to know them every 30 days because that’s what they’re using when I say they being the wireless carriers to attract new business, but also But no time in the past including your cable carrier, wherever you pay for your internet or your cable at home They’re not calling you to give you the good deal.

[00:17:31] Chad Jenkins: You hear the good deal on TV, but nobody I’ve been with them 10 years They’ve never called me. So I just connected the dots between the two and created a wireless management It seemed before telecom expense management was an industry now It’s multiple billions at that time. Nobody wanted had any care about looking at your bill and helping you save money So you would gladly pay 5 a phone per month For me to receive the bill, look at it and make it much more attractive.

[00:17:56] Chad Jenkins: Save millions upon millions of dollars. SeedSpark at [00:18:00] that time was created because I was growing so fast. As it turns out, people really like it when you save them money as a business and they will be delighted to buy their phones from you. So I ended up growing faster than anybody in the Southeast United States.

[00:18:13] Chad Jenkins: And I could not hire people enough fast enough and train them how to look at those bills and forecast trending of usage patterns. and play matchmaker. So it pushed me to go into software. At the same time, BlackBerry, for the ones of us who still wish we had in our hands, was beginning to hit mainstream.

[00:18:33] Chad Jenkins: And I distributed a ton of those, because a lot of those construction guys began to move over to them. So two years before the iPhone was launched, I launched SeedSpark, which was an application, is specifically a web application company to automate business processes. For those same guys who bought Nextel telephones from me, who I now had a piece of software that would help give me scale in managing their wireless bills, [00:19:00] but another friction I identified with was they have people in the field that are creating the value and they have people back at the office that are sending the invoice for the value that’s created and it’s disjointed.

[00:19:13] Chad Jenkins: A lot of times it’s being shuffled by paper. Sometimes the paper did not show up and sometimes the paper showed up with a boot mark. Looks like coffee on the back. But it was a size 11 and a half. Nobody could read anything. So it’s a huge impact to cashflow. Well, as Blackberries were becoming mainstream, they had a mobile web browser that I could take these same software guys and create applications that would automate pushing and pulling of data from the field to the office and from the office to the field, sped up the process exponentially.

[00:19:43] Chad Jenkins: And that’s where SeedSpark was birthed to become a software company. So it continued. Managed services, cyber security, and eventually digital marketing. And it, it, it housed three organizations up under its umbrella for quite a few [00:20:00] years. And the way that I looked at it is with the IT and the cyber security, we could share up the foundation of the organization with a hyper focus on removing the friction in their process.

[00:20:09] Chad Jenkins: So the way they create value, we could wrap software around the process to automate it. But in doing so we could actually add a ton of enterprise value To the organization, because not only did they produce it at a much lesser cost, but they could do it consistently and they had their own process and their own technology that backed it up.

[00:20:28] Chad Jenkins: So it made a wildly more valuable. And then the last thing that you need to do, if you’re securing your foundation and you’re ready to scale, you’re ready to put some gas in the car. That’s where the digital marketing was birthed out of as an, as a service arm under SeedSpark. It was all about growth.

[00:20:43] Chad Jenkins: Looking backwards now, I know that. Over the last few years, I’ve split out those organizations to their own brands and they stand alone because their P& Ls are pretty sizable. And SeedSpark itself now just partners on the outcome, all facilitated around growth of the [00:21:00] organization. So it’s the same

[00:21:02] Mark Wright: about everybody else is just selling the gadget. You sell the gadget and fully integrate it, eliminating the pain points for the organizations. That’s just genius. Oh my

[00:21:14] Chad Jenkins: walk along them in partnership. And now, of course, the revenue model is we split the outcome.

[00:21:20] Mark Wright: Yeah, let’s talk about that. I wanted to talk about your book just out of zero, but I think I’d love to have you, Chad, explain this partnership model. When you and I first talked a few weeks ago, I was really impressed with how unique and innovative your, consulting, model is, your mentorship model., for someone who’s not heard, What you stand for and how you do this, explain if you would just briefly what the model is.

[00:21:46] Mark Wright: It’s not, not like the traditional consultant by any means.

[00:21:49] Chad Jenkins: Oh, goodness. No, no, sir. Looking backwards in all the organizations that we’ve talked about in our time today, there’s a common theme. I’m drawn to unique and [00:22:00] sometimes unconventional ways to create exponential growth. The old me, driven by friction, and you mentioned the book earlier, there’s a concept, remove the film.

[00:22:10] Chad Jenkins: Friction identification, leverage the market. That’s always been me. The old one would go and answer those questions. If I fix it for one, does it matter to all in my local market, or this industry, or the entire country, or every company? And if I got yes, yes, yes, I’ll go spin up and create a new company.

[00:22:26] Chad Jenkins: And that worked. I got really good at creating logos and websites and mission and vision and processes and selecting the right ERP. And then I was introduced to Strategic Coach not long ago. And they have this concept called Unique Ability. And I invested a lot of time, effort, and energy and ask a lot of my, colleagues what they thought they could count on me for above and beyond everybody else.

[00:22:49] Chad Jenkins: And it was to create unique and unconventional ways to grow that creates exponential outcomes. So I elevated SeedSpark to be exactly that. [00:23:00] I partner only on future money, and you’ll hear me say split the outcome. And that’s literally it. So an organization has referred to me quite often on many times a day, I should say, I take a look at all their existing resources, leveraging what is classified as the VCR model.

[00:23:17] Chad Jenkins: So I’ve created a concept called ICVCR and VCR, just like we all used to have one as a kid. It’s not exactly what I’m talking about, but it should anchor in your brain. VCR, the formula was created by Dean Jackson, who’s an absolute savant in marketing. And I would argue a savant period. VCR stands for vision, capability, and reach.

[00:23:39] Chad Jenkins: So as organizations are introduced to me during the time in which I’m trying to find ways to create value for them, I’m absolutely evaluating what level of vision do they have? Is it horizontal or is it vertical? Most entrepreneurs only have vertical vision and that’s okay. What capabilities do they have?

[00:23:55] Chad Jenkins: And I don’t mean the sign on the door. I don’t mean the department in their [00:24:00] organization that they’d be conventionally known as, and I absolutely am not talking about what’s the title and the email signature. Who are they? What do they have at their fingertips to create value? And the last is reach. A lot of folks don’t think that they don’t have reach, but to be in business, we all know that someone has to know you like you and trust you.

[00:24:20] Chad Jenkins: So every organization does have reach. They just haven’t contemplated that particular way. So after evaluating their BCR and understanding what is impeding their ability to grow and to reach their full potential and getting to know them and understanding, do they have a growth mindset? I’ll contemplate engaging with them and the engagement looks like this.

[00:24:41] Chad Jenkins: Whatever they currently are valued at, whatever profit they make is always theirs and will always be. If they’re growing at a certain rate, we consider that as an average growth over the last three years. But that’s its baseline. Everything above baseline when we began to work together to create these exponential outcomes, [00:25:00] I do split the outcome.

[00:25:02] Chad Jenkins: 90 10 in the 10 percent that comes my way back to SeedSpark, SeedSpark. com. I take 50 percent of that and give it back to the community of other like minded growth mindset, entrepreneurs on this planet that are out of the goodness of their heart of picking up the phone or responding to an email of somebody in a type of business that’s different than theirs.

[00:25:24] Chad Jenkins: And they’re trying to help them on a daily basis. They just hadn’t had a, they haven’t figured out a way to monetize it. And that’s basically what I did with SeedSpark. Not only is it about the growth concepts that I create, but it’s more about the community that can be created. of that similar growth mindset individual where everybody is incentivized to help everybody.

[00:25:45] Chad Jenkins: So that is what I do today and consumes the lion’s share of my time and I go home with more energy than I came to work with, because it’s what I’ve been doing since I was eight years old.

[00:25:55] Mark Wright: So this is so contrary, Chad, to, the current, [00:26:00] uh, Model., it’s like the current model is, I’m a, consultant, I sign you up for my services and I bill you X amount a month, and I try to keep you as a client for as long as I can. But your model, you only get paid. On the net increase that you’ve helped bring about.

[00:26:19] Mark Wright: And then you also, when you bring about an increase in the value of the overall company above what it normally would be, if there’s an exit, then you share in that, that’s it. I just, when I spoke with you, you know, a few weeks ago, I said, well, how many other people do this? And, and I don’t think, you don’t know of anybody else in the country that’s doing this to you.

[00:26:41] Chad Jenkins: I’ve found no one on the planet yet, and I have reached ties to Dubai, the UK, I have growth partners now in all these different countries. And, uh, no, I haven’t found it yet. There’s a little bit of a talk of McKinsey doing a little bit of partnering on the outcome, but it is the exception, not the rule.

[00:26:59] Chad Jenkins: [00:27:00] And they’ll only do it with certain ones, which I really think of most specifically to small to medium sized businesses. I spoke of vertical vision versus horizontal vision. I’ll put that in the context. When you first start out and you’re kind of bootstrapping something, you are driven by friction to complement a little bit of what we talked earlier and what’s in the book. You figured out a different way. You figured out that there was an issue with an industry because you might’ve been working in the industry for someone and you knew you could do it better. You knew that if you did it better, you would obtain clients, but you got to start from somewhere. Well, your brother has resources and your cousin has resources and your uncle or your father will give you a little seed money and you have somebody who works somewhere at another organization like you could create value for, and they’ll put in a good word for you.

[00:27:47] Chad Jenkins: You’re collaborating. You have horizontal vision. You’re looking at the resources at your fingertips to get started and you’re leveraging them by combining them and creating value. But then you start to make some money and your vision goes to [00:28:00] vertical. It’s more about how can we scale inside of this industry?

[00:28:04] Chad Jenkins: What are best practices, which I struggle with best practices a lot. Cause if you think about it for it to be best practices, it kind of has to be average, right? It’s the average of multiple people in your industry. I think we can shoot a little bit higher than that, but that vision becomes very vertical.

[00:28:20] Chad Jenkins: And I’m not saying it’s bad. You can scale a company and get bigger, but the one who has horizontal vision, you have to watch out for, because they’re looking at things and they’re focused on the hero target. Who do you want your business to be a hero to, and you’re creating value along the way. So in doing that, going back to that horizontal vision, it’s exactly what I’m doing.

[00:28:40] Chad Jenkins: And in my world, it would be called a joint venture collaboration. It means I’m going to take my skill set and I’m going to combine it with your skill set. And if you’re really confident what you can do and I trust you and I’m really confident what I can do and I’m showing that I trust you because I’m putting my work in before I get paid, you’re doing the same, we’ll split the [00:29:00] outcome.

[00:29:00] Chad Jenkins: And not only are we aligned way before something is signed, like a proposal, which I don’t do, we’re aligned all throughout the journey. And if something doesn’t work out, let’s take a marketing example, right? The convention in the marketing today is it’s going to take about three or four months to figure this out, to start getting leads.

[00:29:20] Chad Jenkins: Is that sales qualified or marketing qualified? That’s a little hard in this proposal, but they’re going to go away and give you a proposal. It’s got 50 bullet points on it and put on page three is 15 or 20 or 50 grand a month. You get to month four and the leads aren’t showing up. You get to month six and you’re trying to figure out how do I get back out of this?

[00:29:35] Chad Jenkins: And we’re going to have to hit the reset button and start again. That’s a horrible idea. In my scenario, if you’re really confident in what you can do, wouldn’t you like to make double the margin? It’s going to take a little bit of risk on the front. So partnering on the outcome, concretes relationships of mutual value creation in alignment with creating that value with whoever you’re serving.

[00:29:58] Chad Jenkins: It’s a win win for everybody. [00:30:00] Yeah, but it’s, it is quite unconventional, even though it’s really what it should always be about, right? Because it’s where we started, but then your vision, you stop being so horizontal and you get vertical. BEATS WORKING And you know, it’s not about the value you’re creating.

[00:30:11] Chad Jenkins: It’s about how you’re scaling the business. Cause you just got back from the industry show and you’re trying to do those best practices. It’s not about you. It’s about who you’re serving.

[00:30:19] Mark Wright: So it’s interesting. You have all kinds of clients that you partner with. Doctors, chiropractors, a marriage counselor, an investment fund manager. I’m curious, Chad, is there a common blind spot when you come in and you assess the organization? Is there a common blind spot where you say, sort of where you mentally start when you assess what they’re doing right now?

[00:30:41] Chad Jenkins: It is most oftentimes the convention and I have one scenario that’s really easy to unpack and this hopefully will provide a lot of value for the folks listening. If you think about whoever you’re serving before they show up at your door, let’s imagine, if you will, a road in front of you. And it’s [00:31:00] perpendicular to you facing forward.

[00:31:01] Chad Jenkins: On the right side is where they come from. This is your hero target. They’re walking down the street. In front of your driveway, you have a mailbox. That’s your business. As they’re walking from the right and headed to the left, if you begin to engage with them and learn a little bit more about them or just look back at your top five clients of where they came from, you’ll see there’s some commonality.

[00:31:25] Chad Jenkins: They came from somewhere. That’s a collaboration partner for you. It’s a huge opportunity and you really wouldn’t consider that. Why? Because that’s not what they do in the industry. They implement the software and they change their marketing to be this and they can get more clients. I’m like, if you want more clients, collaborate with where they come from.

[00:31:43] Chad Jenkins: That guy’s got a bunch of them and guess what they already do for him? They already trust him. And if you consider collaborating with him, you’re actually adding more value and you’re reducing both of your expenses because I’m not having to spend a bunch of money on marketing They already [00:32:00] trust the business that they come from historically before they come to me.

[00:32:04] Chad Jenkins: And if it is possible that I would combine and collaborate with this particular gentleman and give this collaboration a name, maybe even put it on my website and his website, share it with my sales team and his sales team. Every time somebody shows up and they didn’t come or they don’t have that order of their business taken care of, I’m going to introduce him.

[00:32:23] Chad Jenkins: And by the same token, when they get to him, he’s going to say, we also offer the blah, blah, blah service, which is properly named. And instead of having to sign two contracts and engage with two people or qualify two vendors, you’re now adding value because he does it with one and you get pulled into the ride and vice versa.

[00:32:41] Chad Jenkins: Now I talked about considering that with what comes before you, but wouldn’t that also work with what your best clients do after whatever it is that you do do when you deliver that value. You recognize what they do when they leave you because that’s another collaboration partner that’s beyond you.

[00:32:58] Chad Jenkins: That’s what I see [00:33:00] a lot. We’re so enamored with whatever the convention is in our industry, and we’re leveraging the best practices to grow or the next new marketing message or tactic, and we’re leaving a lot of value on the table. We’re leaving a lot of organic growth that could be leveraged just through the art of collaboration.

[00:33:19] Chad Jenkins: Then if I, if you’ll go back with me at the very beginning, when you first started your business, you leveraged collaboration to get started. But then we stopped doing it. And I’m saying, you might consider getting back to it because you can completely wipe the competition off the field. In the example that I just gave, if I create a competition, a collaboration with whoever comes before me, and that gentleman puts it on his website and I put it on mine and we call it something when our hero target begins to ask for that, no other competitor is able to deliver it.

[00:33:53] Chad Jenkins: Because they didn’t consider collaboration and combine two business services into one delivery of value. And a [00:34:00] clear example of that, some, some may say, Oh, you can never do that in my business., maybe, but I’d be open to having a conversation because I absolutely love a challenge, but you’re already being afflicted by this.

[00:34:11] Chad Jenkins: Larger companies do take advantage of this. And I’ll give you an exact example. I’d 10 years ago, we bought our home security system from this vendor. We bought our internet from this vendor. And we bought our mobile phone services from this vendor. And now you can buy them from one vendor. That originally started out as a collaboration.

[00:34:31] Chad Jenkins: There are little local, internet provider companies and cable providers that began to offer AT& T services. And now it’s become one. So why do small and medium sized businesses not even consider that for an array, our growth strategy? But you’re right. There is a lot of commonality in that. And that’s low hanging fruit that, that hopefully many of their listeners can take advantage of and begin to grow.

[00:34:50] Mark Wright: I think I remember in Apple’s early days, it was pretty clear that Apple wasn’t really concerned with beating the competition. They were more concerned about [00:35:00] serving their own customer base and creating a community of people who loved their company. And tons of companies like Microsoft started, you know, trying to launch mobile music, uh, you know, players and, and phones and all kinds of products directly aimed at trying to knock off Apple.

[00:35:17] Mark Wright: And Apple was just Kind of like the company that shrugged its shoulders and said, Oh, well, that’s interesting, but we’re pretty sure that our customers are going to like this. And,

[00:35:26] Chad Jenkins: not about the media player. What a great example. You know, even earlier on, and that’s a wonderful example. Do you know that they shipped, when they were launching Excel, they included the CD in all the new iMacs. Microsoft. Apple did it. Why? Because it added value to the iMacs. To of course, the hero target and Apple clearly knew it.

[00:35:46] Chad Jenkins: Well, Steve Jobs clearly knew it. It wasn’t about what you created. Therefore, there’s a wild array of products, but it’s all around creating value for their hero target. And the wonderful thing is they’ll pay for it. Why? Because they want the outcome very [00:36:00] similar to business. And we talked about it earlier.

[00:36:02] Chad Jenkins: Combining your services. If you’re confident in what you can do, if not, please run some Google ads and hope that that SEO really pans out for you. But if you’re confident in what you can do, consider putting it all on the line and driving some value for somebody who needs those services, who wants to serve the same hero target.

[00:36:19] Chad Jenkins: And then split the outcome. You’ll double your margins. You need half the clients. You can, in this free time where you can focus and be creative, you’re actually creative. Just in the way in which you approach your business. What a great example though.

[00:36:31] Mark Wright: Chad, does this, process of identifying untapped resources and abilities, could we use that also in our personal lives, when we try to develop a side hustle or something like that? I’m guessing that each of us is sort of uniquely qualified in certain ways., to expand our own brand. So I’m, I’m wondering if, if this process could be done personally and not just at the company level.

[00:36:54] Chad Jenkins: It’s glaring. Yes, absolutely. Yes, sir. The everyone has [00:37:00] vision capability and reach. They’re not typically looking at it that particular way. Because if you say you meet them at a party, Hey, what do you do for work? They’re going to give you a title. I work for and I am known as the, or I hold a position of fill in the blank.

[00:37:16] Chad Jenkins: And that’s not the way they create value. They’re not even considering what is at their fingertips with vision capability and reach. BEATS WORKING. Did they could leverage and combine together with that other person they just met their vision capability and reaching Cree value? So there’s it’s a little hard for me to go to a party You would guess my wife doesn’t really like to take me to the neighborhood party Luckily, there’s other people like me on the planet though and I travel to meet them and we have a great time Good things happen.

[00:37:43] Mark Wright: You’ve, you’ve found your tribe. I love it. So Chad, let’s, let’s dig a little bit deeper into your book just at a zero, because it really does lay out your business growth strategy., In the book, you talk about mastering three components. You talked about removing the film, outpace your competition. [00:38:00] So that you become a category of one.

[00:38:02] Mark Wright: I’d love you to explain that a little bit more.

[00:38:05] Chad Jenkins: so in the book just out of zero My intent and what I was trying to create is a mechanism that would encourage people just to think differently. So if you start out with looking for frictions as innovation opportunities, not as complaints, which are delivered to you, that’s first and foremost. And if it’s, as I mentioned many times on this call, it’s all about the value you’re creating and whatever value you created yesterday, if you’re not thinking about the value you’re going to create tomorrow, you’re losing ground to the competition.

[00:38:36] Chad Jenkins: But how can you really get innovative? How can you begin to leverage the opportunity, the gray matter, all the experience and wisdom that’s on your leadership team or in your organization? And I’ll give you two low hanging fruit examples that you can put in place tomorrow, depending on what time you listen to this, you might do it today.

[00:38:54] Chad Jenkins: Consider creating friction at yourcompanyname. com and empowering your entire [00:39:00] internal team to send those frictions in. After a little bit of explanation, and this is a really funny one and everyone’s welcome to laugh. The next email that you get, the next test text message that you read are the first three words that come out of someone’s mouth.

[00:39:14] Chad Jenkins: When you pick up the phone, I guess some of them still talk on the phone and you do a miniature shoulder shrug. I assume everybody knows what that is. When you tense up, forward that into friction at your company name. com. What I’ve recognized in this is even before I written the book is the entrepreneur on the way down the hall to the meeting, to the leadership meeting may have to resolve three things.

[00:39:38] Chad Jenkins: on their way. What they’re requiring themselves to do, and this is not new, it’s been the same way since the beginning of time, they’re having to be what we now know is the chat GPT. They got to be really good at synthesizing the data and understanding where, hey, I just resolved this, it was client facing, or I just resolved this, or Julie was going to leave while you’re running to the meeting, but ooh, this has [00:40:00] happened three times over the last three months, or five times over the last year, we need to invest a little bit more time to do it.

[00:40:05] Chad Jenkins: But we don’t focus there because there’s a list. And I’m sure most people that are listening to this may run EOS, Entrepreneurial Operating System, wonderful system for small to medium sized businesses, but on their IDS section, which is the last half of the meeting where you’re really identifying, discussing, and solving things that are impeding your growth, they’re what I would classify as small fry issues on there.

[00:40:28] Chad Jenkins: If we would consider friction at yourcompanyname. com, capture those all in central repository and in lieu of the. Entrepreneur having to figure out which one of these really matter. Take those frictions and run them through JAT GPT and ask for the top 10. What are the top 10 trends in these frictions, i.

[00:40:47] Chad Jenkins: e. these complaints, these things that made you do a little shoulder shrug because you might have fixed this three times and it’s showing up again. But you got to remember, has it happened three times? [00:41:00] repository in what is known as a shared mailbox. It literally costs you no money. And just let them forward them in, the whole company.

[00:41:07] Chad Jenkins: What happens in your leadership meeting then is you begin to innovate on things that really matter. And you get to show back up with the guy who is receiving the 16 tractor trailer loads of windows if you’re a windows installer every week. And you say, you know what? I appreciate you sending that in. I understand how big of an impact that is to you.

[00:41:27] Chad Jenkins: And now we’re going to resolve it this way. Or the lady at the front who’s fielding everyone that walks in. And she now is empowered because she knows that her frictions aren’t falling on deaf ears because they were just going to HR. We were expecting HR to be able to synthesize this and understand where we can create real value.

[00:41:45] Chad Jenkins: So that’s a part of removing the film and leveraging that friction for continuous and unlimited innovation. And the good thing is the entrepreneur doesn’t have to do it by themselves. You just unleash the power of your entire team. Now I’ll give you another one. So the just add a zero [00:42:00] and of course folks will say, Oh yeah, I want to add a zero to what I take home.

[00:42:03] Chad Jenkins: I’m sure we all do. Cause I would take that deal. Let me raise my hand twice. But the reason I added it to that is because it, and I mentioned it at the very beginning of the call, when you asked me, where did this all begin? And I said, at eight years old, I added a zero to that number, figuring out what my father made because I wanted to aspire to be more.

[00:42:20] Chad Jenkins: Of course I did. Well, that freaked me out and I had to begin thinking differently. So the just add a zero. Hypothetically, you export your P& L. In the next leadership meeting, you throw it up on the board, and you have a zero added to every category, and then just be really quiet. I guarantee many people in that meeting are going to tell you which number is not right.

[00:42:44] Chad Jenkins: Either there’s no way we can hit this revenue, that’s okay, or these cost of goods are not proportionate. If it’s going to be 30 million or 500 million, there’s no way that this cost of goods salaries aren’t going to be that much. Insurance is not going to be that much. And that’s [00:43:00] wonderful. So if we want to be there, why don’t we start thinking today to go ahead and get those aligned, those numbers in alignment so that when the revenue is that, or the profit that we target is this amount, we’re ahead of schedule.

[00:43:13] Chad Jenkins: So it’s, it’s a catalyst to make you think differently. And it’s okay, and I’ll definitely encourage you to do this. Do not chastise somebody because they tell you it can never be true. Embrace the way your brain works naturally. When you add that zero, the first thing that’s going to happen, typically, and I say typically, every leadership meeting I’ve ever been in that’s absolutely applying this methodology, is they come up with initially, wow, that could never be true.

[00:43:40] Chad Jenkins: And I would encourage you just to write it down on the whiteboard. And then after they get it all out, and I would say pull it all out of them, then go up to the whiteboard and write the power of one little word, UNLESS. Between that, and remember back in the horse days, I had to be really quiet because they didn’t talk, had to pick up on what they’re saying, you gotta have patience.

[00:43:59] Chad Jenkins: But if you write [00:44:00] UNLESS after all those bullet points, for the reasons that this could never be true, you’ll see the reason that you pay all these wonderful people a lot of money, because they’ll begin to give you what has to be true for you to reach those big numbers. And what happens if you go up and write down what they say on the right side of the whiteboard is a roadmap to create the outcome that most of the people just a few minutes ago thought could never be true.

[00:44:24] Chad Jenkins: And they had the ideas in their head, but we were not asking the right question. So that’s what Just Add a Zero is.

[00:44:30] Mark Wright: Wow. I love how you encourage business owners to tell their, their people to don’t be afraid of the friction points. I think so often in business, we see a friction point is somehow a failure of our ability to execute the owner’s plan. And if we keep going to the owner with. You know, this really isn’t working very well.

[00:44:49] Mark Wright: And I wish we could do this. We kind of think that we’ll be seen as the squeaky wheel and just will be an annoyance, but I love how you’ve reframed that because at every [00:45:00] friction point is an opportunity,

[00:45:01] Chad Jenkins: It’s an opportunity. So a good friend of mine, Lee Brower, which I’m sure many people know, especially if you’re in the entrepreneurial community, He shared a word with me, tribal luminescence, which is in the book and tribal luminescence, the definition is when friction changes to light. So for me, as I mentioned, friction has been at the root of every innovation and every company I’ve ever started.

[00:45:25] Chad Jenkins: It’s the ability for me to transform an industry and to remove the competition just by embracing that friction. So truly it changes into light. So when he shared with me tribal luminescence and he did it as an offhand comment, I was like, Whoa, That’s gold because it literally is that when you change your perspective and look at those frictions that are making you do those little miniature shoulder shrugs, that would only encourage you to put them in central repository and ask for the trends by something that is made to find those trends.

[00:45:55] Chad Jenkins: It’s not you and I, we’ve done a good job for a long time, but if you want to scale [00:46:00] your ability to continuously innovate and create value for your hero targets, you might consider starting to embrace those frictions. And empower your team to create that innovation for you.

[00:46:09] Mark Wright: I’d love to talk a little bit more about focus, Chad., when we spoke a few weeks ago, you said that our brains receive something like 2. 2 million inputs a day, and we kind of get lost sometimes in all that Sea of information. How did you figure out the value of focus? My boss and your friend, Dan Rogers, has a saying that the world is full of too much, too muchness.

[00:46:34] Mark Wright: And the power of focus really is a superpower because knowing what not to do is probably more fundamental than knowing what to do,

[00:46:44] Chad Jenkins: Yeah. I would

[00:46:44] Mark Wright: and I’m guessing that you have tons of opportunities coming your way every day and tons of inputs. When did that realization come about?

[00:46:52] Chad Jenkins: Mm. I would definitely say very early on the first part of my entrepreneur career [00:47:00] journey, I was definitely drawn to shiny objects. I would qualify frictions. But I would not so much classify them of how deep is this market? What is the depth of market? And I would create some organizations, pretty quickly.

[00:47:14] Chad Jenkins: And those were moderately successful, but eventually they got folded into something bigger that I had created. So the power of focus, and I appreciate that reference, I’d run across that information just in my reading that we truly everybody on the planet, 2. 2 million inputs a day and you can only retain and respond to about 130, 000.

[00:47:36] Chad Jenkins: So it also requires you to have perspective and what that means is the awareness of 2. 2 but I can only retain 130, 000. That means that if you and I wake up in the same place, get dressed the same way, walk down the same path, go to the same business, maybe even perform the same job and we sit in the same meetings, you’re going to hear something different than I am.

[00:47:58] Chad Jenkins: Not because you didn’t hear it. [00:48:00] It’s just your brain deleted it before it actually made it all the way in. And it deleted because of your experience, your background, your wisdom, something completely and wildly different than my experience and wisdom and background required my brain to delete. So focusing first and foremost on how are we going to create value from what we know, and then engaging every brain in your meeting or every brain in your circle of influence.

[00:48:29] Chad Jenkins: to understand from their perspective and try to get to the root of why do they see it differently because it could be that they’re actually seeing it closer to reality to what your hero target wants but that that focus is absolutely paramount. No,

[00:48:44] Mark Wright: talk about naming companies. You’ve gotten pretty good at naming companies over the years because of how many you’ve worked with. What’s the key to coming up with a good name? Because I feel like there are a lot of amateurs out there. Every time I drive by like a cafe called [00:49:00] the country kitchen spelled with K’s, or sometimes you’ll see a family name forced into the name of a business.

[00:49:06] Chad Jenkins: yes, a little hard

[00:49:07] Mark Wright: got an interesting way of, of naming companies, naming businesses. If you could share that, that would be awesome.

[00:49:14] Chad Jenkins: Yeah, so naming in its own right is so paramount and impactful. It can require you To do less marketing, it can absolutely result in your marketing goes a lot further because it can communicate so clearly. And I began to really unpack this. I was at a leadership meeting. It’s been four or five years ago, maybe a little bit longer.

[00:49:36] Chad Jenkins: And we were using a naming tool and it was around technology based words. And one particular COO of one of the organizations I own, he continued to add maximizer to the end of everything. Now he was being funny. I wasn’t deleting it and I didn’t really find it that damn funny, to be honest with you. And, but actually, but it made me focus one, you mentioned focus earlier, and it made me really go down the [00:50:00] rabbit hole to say there’s gotta be more.

[00:50:01] Chad Jenkins: I know there’s a lot to this naming thing, but how can we leverage it? Cause of course, remember my subconscious motivators are to succeed and achieve and for everything to be correct, right, and perfect. So it can always be better. My internal wiring is better is infinite. Let’s get started today. So in this naming thing, when I really unpacked it, I began to see patterns, and I combined it with value creation, and I combined it with what’s in it for them, i.

[00:50:27] Chad Jenkins: e., how is this applicable to the hero target, and if we would consider naming our things aligned with the value that they perceived, more specifically leveraging the limbic part of your brain, so the emotional part of your brain, if we could use parts of words that projected the outcome that the hero target wants.

[00:50:50] Chad Jenkins: And combine them to create our own word, which is really easy to go and buy the domain name, by the way, whenever you take two existing words and you don’t lose their value, [00:51:00] but you combine them together, it’s pretty easy to go and buy the domain name really quickly and state your claim, which is awesome.

[00:51:06] Chad Jenkins: I’ve done that many, many times, but the power in naming it correctly focused on the outcome that your hero target seeks, what they would be emotionally connected to, because it’s not about what you do or the sign on the door. It’s about what they want. But if you would consider doing that, just put yourself in your hero target shoes and think about your best client and whenever you delivered your value, however that is, what words do they describe the outcome when they communicated with you?

[00:51:36] Chad Jenkins: If you can put yourself in those shoes and write those words, we’ll go to this imaginary whiteboard on the left side of the whiteboard and look at those particular words and say them out loud to your team. And if everyone is mimicking like they’re your hero target, when you say that word, do you feel it?

[00:51:51] Chad Jenkins: And if it is, I would rate that a number five. If you say the word, it’s a wonderful outcome, but you don’t feel it, it doesn’t cause you to lean forward. [00:52:00] If you wanted that outcome, it’s a great outcome, but it doesn’t make me lean forward. That’s a number one. So you just grade them one to five. And I, what I do is take all the fours and fives and I move them to the right side of this imaginary whiteboard.

[00:52:12] Chad Jenkins: And I literally just sit there and look at them. And one filter that I’m running through is, can I take two or three letters off of this word, in two or three letters off another number five rated emotional outcome descriptive word and still retain the meaning. And if I can, can I combine them? Because remember, if I combine them, my competition is not calling it that.

[00:52:36] Chad Jenkins: You know who is? My client. It’s already been validated. That’s where you started from. So if you’re able to name your products and services and even more applicable your company with that type of methodology, When your hero target, those that you want to be a hero to, hear that, it doesn’t take a big fancy tagline or a big sponsorship because that’s the outcome that they want.

[00:52:59] Chad Jenkins: And we [00:53:00] all have heard that you must have a guarantee in your business, and I absolutely agree, even in my growth partners where I split the outcome. I still have a growth guarantee. Combine that with a growth guarantee with the proper naming applied to the outcome that your hero target is emotionally connected And you remove a lot of things that you have to explain what’s going to happen if they engage with you.

[00:53:22] Chad Jenkins: Super, super powerful. It’s super simple as well. I’ve just explained it to you. We, we have a named, and I literally, I call it named a baby because inside of businesses, guys, and I see this all over the world, entrepreneurs are creating intellectual property on a daily basis. They’re packaging all these bullet points and they’ll even use them on their one pagers that describe the service, but they’re not naming it.

[00:53:44] Chad Jenkins: And I likened to that at home. If you have a baby and I have a baby, but we don’t name it, which one’s yours and which one’s mine, yours may have a little bit more hair, maybe, but are we just going to call it the baby? That’s, we don’t do that at home, right? We give it a name. And when you give something a name, it [00:54:00] has an identity and then other people can embrace it.

[00:54:03] Chad Jenkins: But in our business, we do it every day. We create intellectual property and we don’t name things. And then we try to communicate it and train somebody else. And we’re hoping that they remember these 15 to 20 bullet points that This wonderful new service that we’ve created. Our clients can’t do that. I would strongly encourage you to consider naming that baby.

[00:54:22] Chad Jenkins: And what we talked about recently is the way in which I name.

[00:54:25] Mark Wright: Yeah, that’s fantastic because, it’s a level of intentionality that, you know, the thing, it’s so frustrating when you come across a business that you, the name confuses you, number one. And then sometimes it’s hard to say, and like, if it’s not clearly pronounceable, but your approach reverse engineers from the customer hero experience backwards

[00:54:47] Chad Jenkins: Yes, sir.

[00:54:48] Mark Wright: so that when they hear it, they feel it.

[00:54:50] Mark Wright: That is so cool.

[00:54:51] Chad Jenkins: they lean in. And when they pick up the phone and call you, they just want the outcome. You can call it whatever you want to. Maybe you’re an electrical. Really, if they [00:55:00] said, when you press this button, the lights are going to come on and they named it something applicable to that outcome.

[00:55:04] Chad Jenkins: That’s the person I’m calling because I want the outcome, especially if they have a guarantee. I don’t need somebody to sell me. You’ve already done it when you’re naming. So don’t leave that value on the table. It’s too easy and low hanging fruit.

[00:55:16] Mark Wright: we’re just about at time, Chad. This has been so fun spending time with you. I’d love to finish on the thought. We’re on a mission to redeem work. And that is, to make work better for everyone, for companies, for employees. and I’d love your thoughts on talk to that business leader, that business manager who wants to make work that place where people develop, that place that makes people better than they otherwise would be in life, what does redeeming work look like for you?

[00:55:44] Chad Jenkins: so I liken it to something that I use quite often. And of course in the organizations that I own, we have titles. Sure, because it communicates well and it’s the conventional understanding. But what I’m most interested in is what the heck are you becoming? I don’t really want to know what your current [00:56:00] title is.

[00:56:01] Chad Jenkins: I want to know what you’re becoming, because if I know what you’re becoming, I’m going to leverage whatever capabilities I have to help you get to that outcome. In doing that, it connects people to your organization, and As well, I talked about earlier, embracing those frictions. So in my example, I gave is the gentleman who’s unloading all those tractor trailer loads of windows, and he’s got a better idea.

[00:56:21] Chad Jenkins: We just don’t have an outlet for that to come into our organization to help us create innovation. But if we do consider implementing that the way that I described it, you’re able to go back and tell him how he directly contributed to the organization and how we’re adding value and we’re becoming together.

[00:56:40] Chad Jenkins: So I would expect. Even after that first day and whenever they start to see that as a pattern in your organization the perception of working here Becomes working with and being a part of that organization and ultimately the perception is work has gotten much better

[00:56:57] Mark Wright:, and you mentioned the value of [00:57:00] transparency as well. When everybody shows up with their cards on the table, nobody’s, you know, sort of trying to play the organization and that, that transparency and that honesty can fix, a lot of problems. Um,

[00:57:14] Chad Jenkins: that’s embracing the art of collaboration There’s many many and we don’t have enough time today to talk about all the things I’m not good at doing but I embrace exactly who I am I talked about strategic coaches concept of unique ability I strongly encourage everybody, dig as deep as you can.

[00:57:30] Chad Jenkins: Michelangelo said, I continued to chisel. I could see David the whole time. I had to chisel all of that to get to him. We have to do the same thing. You talked about it earlier that most, in your example, you had given a couple of them. It starts at a very early age. I believe it started for all of us at a very early age.

[00:57:50] Chad Jenkins: And what I said is, I believe it happens before the age of 10. This is the primary way. That God has given you the ability to create value. Most people haven’t tried to [00:58:00] chisel it away, nor they have, they tried to name it. But as you begin down that journey and really become comfortable in your skin, whenever you go to, in this example, we’ve given a couple of times a leadership meeting or an all hands meeting, you’re able to contribute because you know exactly who you are and you also know exactly who you’re not.

[00:58:19] Chad Jenkins: So think about a culture inside of your organization that embraces that holistically. Holy moly, I would not want to be in the same industry as someone who fully embraces that and levers friction for innovation. You ready to get out of the way? Cause they’re going to run over you. Yeah.

[00:58:38] Mark Wright: I feel like, Every day you wake up and you see the possibilities and you see the challenges and you, it gives you energy. And that’s, that’s just a page out of the playbook from Strategic Coach and the unique ability, exercise that they do. Where do you hope to be in five or 10 years?, what’s the next big iteration for you?

[00:58:57] Mark Wright: Is anything big on the horizon? Have you started the podcast yet?[00:59:00]

[00:59:00] Chad Jenkins: So I appreciate that. We we’ve got a couple, I do one for all of my growth partners that is named Friction Fuel Forum. That’s where me and four or five other entrepreneurs as panelists are just unpacking one of my growth concepts. And how they have applied it to their business type. There may be 50 or another hundred entrepreneurs that are on the zoom meeting and they’re able to submit questions so that that’s fun.

[00:59:26] Chad Jenkins: And I’ll continue. I do those twice a month now. Thursday of this week, we’re beginning the CoLab podcast. On September the 1st, we’re launching my version of LinkedIn that drives collaborations. So basically I’ve made a system out of doing what my brain does so it can give me scale and provides a lot of value, but it is also called the CoLab.

[00:59:47] Chad Jenkins: So it’d be a very extensive mobile app and online platform that is building in a global growth minded entrepreneurial community driven by value creation. Through the [01:00:00] art of leveraging collaboration. So taking all those unique abilities and identifying the way that they can come together to create new and unique value, removing the competition in their business.

[01:00:12] Chad Jenkins: That’s a big one., we have some lofty goals for that. My goal for it. And you talk about the future is to impact 1 million entrepreneurs directly, 100 million people that work for those organizations and indirectly 1 billion people. And we’ve set a 10 year goal for that. The CoLab is a platform that will help get us there.

[01:00:32] Chad Jenkins: We can have exponential growth and scale and then alternatively partnering on the outcome that we talked about earlier through my growth partner relationship. We’re seeing exponential growth there on many continents. I can see that getting much bigger than I ever thought.

[01:00:48] Mark Wright: Well, I’m so inspired to spend time with you, Chad. And I think what’s just so really cool about your story is the awareness that you started to pick up on as a kid. Really has been your North [01:01:00] Star as, as you’ve developed as an entrepreneur. And you’ve not tried to shy away from that. You’ve tried to honor it at every turn.

[01:01:07] Mark Wright: And I just think there’s so much wisdom that, that you’ve, you know, created and that you surround yourself with by simply just tapping into who you are as an, a unique and amazing human being. So thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us, Chad, on the BEATS WORKING podcast. This has been just a complete pleasure.

[01:01:24] Chad Jenkins: Wonderful. Mark, I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Look forward to seeing you again soon.