Jeff Rogers | Building a Legacy Business You Can Sell

• The types of businesses that won’t sell… unless you take this step
• The 3 best business books you know and a 4th you must read this year
• 2 must-dos for startups you’re not thinking of
• The biggest mistake most small businesses make
• And more

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Mentioned in this episode: kiros.org, www.oneaccord.co

Episode Transcript:

Doug Hall: Welcome to the Go for Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Hall and with me today, I’m honored to have Jeff Rogers, the Chairman and Founder of OneAccord of Kirkland, Washington, which is a major suburb of Seattle. And with that, I’d like to let Jeff kind of introduce himself, because the reason he’s my guest is, I know and respect him number one, but number two, he has a really unique business model. And I really want him to explain it rather than me messing it up. So Jeff, welcome to the podcast.

Jeff Rogers: Well thank you, Doug. It’s an honor to be on the podcast and hopefully serve the good work that you do, as well as just a multitude of business owners and leaders that engage through this podcast. So my hope and prayer is that it’s a value-added content for all involved. So it’s a pleasure to be here.

Doug Hall: Thank you. I know it will be value-added, so I’m really eager to hear what you’re going to share with us, Jeff.

The first thing I want to ask is, how did you get the idea for OneAccord and what is it? Take us back to the beginning and how you got the idea and how it’s evolved over the decades here.

Jeff Rogers: In terms of OneAccord beginning, which was in 2005, it was born out of a desire I have to build teams. The essence, and I think one of the elements of being successful in a career, and I mean successful in a holistic sense, is aligning with really how you’re gifted or you’re wired, really what your DNA is. If I look historically, I’ve always enjoyed building teams. My work history began with a company called SouthWestern Company in 1980. I worked there 20 years, starting as a salesperson and I grew a sales organization to about 400 people in a couple of countries.

Over that period, what I found I enjoyed, although while the sales were good, and I performed well in the sales function, it was really seeing other people do well that motivated. That’s really what gave me passion and … is building and growing teams.

If we back prior to that, my dad was a business owner in Seattle. So he had a company here and I watched him as an entrepreneur and I watched my grandparents as entrepreneurs in another suburb called Ballard with their business and so I grew up in a family of business owners. The plan, I thought, was to go to work in my dad’s company and take over that business. But realizing he has a boutique company that he’s now sold, and it did very well and it was a very good business, but it wouldn’t have ripple effects through numbers of people. And I really enjoy, like a coach … There’s some folks who are, maybe they were so-so players, maybe they were great players, but the attribute of being a great player doesn’t always make one a great coach. I’m thrilled as a coach to see other people do well.

So I had that in my DNA and that was always motivating me. If you then think of the timeframe, I went out on our own. As I mentioned OneAccord formally began in 2005, but from 2000 to 2005, it was in process of development. The market in ’99-2000 was incredibly strong, companies going public all the time, the Internet was really taking off. We know it led to a bubble. But what I saw were companies that didn’t really have good process and structure to scale. And their business plan was built on what we now know to be not really a solid foundation. At that time, people didn’t see it, but I think I saw it.

So what I began doing is contracting myself and then developing a team of professionals that could serve private companies and how they could grow profitably and build scale and process and systems. So it’s always been back to that enjoyment of coaching and developing and seeing others grow. So that led to, then, the founding formally of OneAccord in 2005.

Doug Hall: Great, so you prototyped it during 2000 to 2005, kind of perfected what you wanted, and then launched?

Jeff Rogers: Yes, yes, that would be a good way to say it.

Doug Hall: So when you really peel the onion back, what’s your fundamental why of why you went into business for yourself? I mean, you were successful in sort of a corporate job at SouthWestern?

Jeff Rogers: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Hall: Apart from your DNA, which I totally respect, I get that, from your family, but what’s the real why as to why you wanted to go off on your own?

Jeff Rogers: You know, again, I would go back to … There’s an organization, Doug, that coincided, that I founded in the Seattle area called Kiros, it’s K-I-R-O-S dot org. And Kiros has now several thousand business people involved with it in the Pacific Northwest region. One of the unintended consequences of that is I get to meet executives regularly who find themselves in transition; sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes intentionally. So I’ve had over 600 meetings, one-on-one, over a number of years, with executives that have been in that scenario.

One of the questions I ask is, what naturally comes to you? What do you know that you know that you know? That you can kind of fall off a log and you can do well at it, just because you not only have experience in it, but it’s just always been part of who you are. The artist has probably always been the artist. The singer’s always been the singer. The person that loves math has probably always loved math. And you have to certainly develop that skill. For me, it wasn’t as much about really going into business or needing to be the business owner. It is really the calling of how could I make the greatest impact for what I value and what I feel is important?  I didn’t see an organization that I could join that would allow me to go do that with the privately held companies that we focus on. Had there been an entity, I would have considered it. There are today some others. But at that time, I couldn’t find any.

So it was more being, I would say, drawn into or pulled in this direction than it was let me push into a business opportunity.

Doug Hall: Right, it wasn’t because you couldn’t work for the man, it was because your mission pulled you into this?

Jeff Rogers: Yes, yes. I was fortunate in my prior career, those 20 years I absolutely loved what I did. To this day, I’m engaged as an alumni speaker for them and I still, every year, literally, work with their sales teams, which is not a client, and I don’t get paid for it, because I believe in that business. I only left because it was a travel-based job in a couple countries and I was on the road at least 200 days a year, some years up to 300. So I decided I needed to focus, for family and just impact reasons, in the Pacific Northwest and our business. Otherwise, I would have stayed in that business because I was able to make that impact. But I looked for something here in this region and couldn’t find the opportunity to do that. So that led me to start something, like it led me to start Kiros, similarly, I was looking for an organization that met this core value set and couldn’t find something. So I launched our business and that non-profit, really at the same time.

Doug Hall: Got it. So, describe the business model of OneAccord today.

Jeff Rogers: Well let me make it really simple and I’ll start with the market that we serve and back into what we do.

Doug Hall: Perfect.

Jeff Rogers: So we serve privately held companies that are based typically with an owner, founder, family, but they’re privately held companies that are going to run from one to five million EBITDA, or if you look at revenues, typically about five to 50 million dollars, and that those companies are exploring how to build their value. We focus in the acquisition side and manufacturing distribution and service and then on the investment banking and consulting side. So there’s three parts of our business, which I’ll get into. And that is more broadly across, really all sectors that we serve there.

But we’re focused on this market segment of the privately held business, where it’s someone’s … It’s their legacy, it’s their values, it’s often a lot of their identity. It’s just not what they do, it’s a lot of who they are. We want to help them steward that and preserve the legacy that they’ve built. Often that means they’re going to go through some type of transition, and we want to be able to serve in that.

So we do three things. We buy, we help sell or operate these privately held companies. So let me back up. So, buy, Solomon’s Fund is that business, which is part of OneAccord. That, over the past two years, has acquired five companies in the Pacific Northwest, in a range from manufacturing, distribution and service. That will continue to be typically about two companies a year over the next several year. So that’s on the buy side.

On the sell side, we were drawn into that business similarly, or pulled into it, in working with private companies that we were looking to acquire. We found the majority of them just didn’t have any good representation helping them through the process. Again, it’s their life’s work. And I just found that most of the people in investment banking were about a transaction. They weren’t about a relationship. It was just kind of like another plaque on their wall of, “Oh look at this other company we sold.” I’m like, “This is someone’s work. It’s their life. It’s family to them.” So that led us, our first acquisition, which called Graphic Label, in Yakima, Washington.

We were looking at 16 companies. We bought one. Of those 16, 14 had no professional representation. So that’s when we started an investment bank. So we’ll work with about 10 companies on an annual basis that are wanting to transition their ownership.

Then on the operate side, we currently have over 20 full-time CEOs where we will actually step into help the owner in running that business and building the value. Pretty common, if you take a sub-hundred million dollar company, that a tremendous amount of the value of that business is tied up in the owner. So the issue, if you’re looking to buy it is, what happens when the owner’s not there? How much is it worth without that owner? The only way you know for sure is actually transition the running of that business before you want to go through the process. So we will help work and run 30 to 40 companies this year. Of those, we’ll help sell 10 and we’ll acquire two. So we buy, sell or operate.

But in reverse, in terms of quantity, we help operate, which is our primary business. That’s what we began doing in 2005. So we’ve done that for, I think about 450 organizations. We added the fund and the investment bank over the last couple years. So all along, we’ve been helping build value for private owners, and then we added the buy and sell side the last couple of years.

Doug Hall: That’s a fabulous summary and I’ve been privileged to watch at least the last six or seven years of that and I’ve watched you grow your organization while you’ve helped owners grow their organization.

So the theme for my podcast is go for growth. So I want to ask you a really open ended question. What’s the biggest challenge that you’ve seen, both in growing OneAccord through this and likewise, is that similar to what you see with other owners that your team is helping? So again, kind of open question.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, Doug, that is a great question. I am really blessed to have the opportunity, as I said, to meet with a lot of executives that are outside the OneAccord ecosystem, but also, a lot of emerging leaders in our market that I spend time. There’s about 20 younger entrepreneurs that I’m in regular one-on-one meetings with them, and some that I’ve pulled into a smaller group. That’s one of the questions they’ll ask, “What are the biggest challenges?” I would say, I’ll put these two as bookends, but they really are integrated, and it’s very simple and I’ll be direct.

The first is, finding values aligned people. The second that are performance based professionals. So let me back up on that. Values alignment. We hunt hard, in the looking for someone for whatever role it might be, on skill alignment. We interview deeply on their skill. We do profile tests to see what’s their personality. Is it a DISC or is it a, in a strengths finder, is it this or a Berkman that? We go deep into certifications and experience. We don’t often look at what I believe is the most important, that is, does this person align to the values for which you espouse to in your organization, whatever those values are? They can be all over the map in terms of what’s important to someone. But are you looking for people that fit your values set? Which begs the question, what are your values? Have you determined your values as a company?

I know you well enough professionally and have seen your work. I’m on a board of a non-profit that you serve greatly that … and you help facilitate a strategic planning session. We were at an off-site board retreat out of state just a couple weeks ago, reflecting on the great work that you did that in the meeting. And the progress we were making at the foundation was the work that you took us through. One of the things, if you look around that table and you know most of the people that are on that board, they’re there because they align in values. They’re all over the map in terms of experience. They’re there because they share values.

The second thing I said is performance-based professionals. A person that can really deliver, can they actually get results? I know a lot of people that are strategic, and a lot of people that are incredibly bright, they have a lot of degrees, they’ve gone to great universities, they may have a pedigree that really is great and has probably been very effective in what they have done. But yet, to find the person like yourself, that can go out and hunt and find the business and put things together and solve problems and doesn’t have to work by consensus, that can lead. That unique skill set for us, of finding someone with strong values who’s performance based, is an interesting, challenging mix. So I can find some people that have great values I align with, and they’re phenomenal people I’d love to have dinner with, but I wouldn’t necessarily want them in our business, because I’m not sure they’d deliver.

And then I find some people, they can deliver. It’s just the end justifies the means. The way they go about it is not consistent with our values. So it’s a little bit of a needle in a haystack to find that right person. That would be, for me, the biggest challenge.

Doug Hall: And the common denominator is, it’s all about great people.

Jeff Rogers: Absolutely. But we, you know, we’re-

Doug Hall: And the bookends.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah.

Doug Hall: The bookends are perfect, the way you describe them, the dichotomy or the tension between your two bookends is … I get it, I mean, it’s real. You’re absolutely right on.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah.

Doug Hall: In looking for these people, do you have any lessons learned, any words to the wise? Because we’ve got people listening in here on us that are like, “Okay, I get it Jeff. You’re right. Now, how do you go find those kind of people?”

Jeff Rogers: Great question. And I want to give tangible, practical ideas that you can take the theory and say, “Well, okay, again, how would I actually do that?” So I will give some specifics that I believe can help in that. I’ll give three.

The first is, get involved in service outside your business somewhere, whatever it is, whatever your convictions are around. It can be coaching soccer. It could be working with the homeless. It could be in Junior Achievement. I’m not so certain that it really has to have anything to do with your business. I sometimes see people join non-profits because it’s affiliated with their business, and that can be fine. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Find a place you can give. As you’re a good leader in business, what you’ll find is in the work that you do there, you’re going to … It’s not your vocation, it’s avocation. People are going to see you do a good job at whatever it is you’re doing. You’re going to naturally attract some other people around you and start to find, through relationship, other like-minded professionals that can be part of your organization.

Now, let me give you an example. The third company that we are privileged to bring into Solomon’s Fund is a company called FarWest Fabricators. And FarWest is a custom outsource metal fabrication business with over 100 employees. I’m not going to find a hundred or 200 or 500 employees through being part of coaching soccer or Kiros or whatever, right?

Doug Hall: Right.

Jeff Rogers: But what I can find and I have found is I’ve found the CEO of that company and I just found the plant manager through one of those organizations and I found another manager through an organization I’m involved in. So it came to relationships, where you get to work shoulder to shoulder with someone on a project, whatever it might be that you do for that avocation that’s part of your calling and your ability to serve. You start to find people that you work well with and through relationship. I find if I’ve had a few cycles of working with someone, then I have a better idea how they’re going to perform when they get on the job. The reality is, I have proven ineffectual at the ability to predict someone’s success based on a resume and an interview.

Okay, so that’d get to number two. There are professionals who either in your business or that you know you have relationships with, who can then help you vet people out because that is where their expertise resides. There are all different, from having someone that’s a recruiter that would help do that to someone that’s an HR specialist, there’s different tools that you can use. But I would just really say there is wisdom in the counsel of many. Many doesn’t have to be, I’ve got to run a person through, like some of the companies around here are known to do, I’m going to run them through 20 different people in interviews. I think that’s a bit overkill. But don’t try and do it on your own. Get a second or third opinion.

So, we have a little test at OneAccord. So here’s what we do. If someone’s interviewing with us, they’re going to meet at least three people. I’ll be one of them. We have this two thumbs up approach. Basically what it says is, look at them for their values and look at them for their experience. In those two areas, if you have both thumbs up, we move forward. If one thumb’s kind of halfway or down, we don’t go forward. If it’s not double thumbs up from all three people, we just don’t go forward.

It’s been really hard for me, because I’ve had some friends go through our interview process, good friends, like people I think are rock stars. And I’ve had a couple of people on our team come back with a thumb down or half sideways. I just won’t usurp, for the benefit of our team and culture, me pulling the chairman card to say, “Yeah, but because I’m chairman, we’re going to hire him or her anyways.” I don’t. And where I have tried to kind of massage someone to change their mind, they’ve proven to be right in the long run.

Doug Hall: So your batting average isn’t so great on that, right?

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, yeah. So I’m like, “I’m just going to stick to a process.”

Doug Hall: There you go.

Jeff Rogers: So I tell my friends, I tell anybody interviewing that I meet, “Hey, here’s our process. Here’s how it’s going to work.” So number one, get involved where you build relationships naturally. Get yourself outside your business. Number two is leverage and utilize other people. Number three is, I ask for referrals. If I’m looking for someone, and we’re very often looking for people for some of these different businesses, I may put something on LinkedIn. I may put something on Facebook.

Now, I don’t have anybody in my LinkedIn that I do not know personally. So I don’t accept invitations if I don’t know the person. I’ve gone so far to have people request and I say, “I won’t accept it unless I’ve met you personally. Where have we met?” And, “Well, we haven’t. You just looked interesting.” But I will say, “And if you want to meet,” and it may take me six months to get it scheduled, because I’m busy, but I’ll meet. I’m just not going to accept it just because … Why would I put my name to someone I don’t know?

Doug Hall: Good point.

Jeff Rogers: Similarly, on Facebook, I haven’t accepted anything from people I don’t know. So there’s been times where we’ve actually cast kind of a broad net, but it’s at least through people that I know that can get the word out, that then we can kind of back into, “Okay, well let’s find out more about this person.”

So number three is, use some of the tools that can cast a wide net as you’re looking for right people to fit your organization, but there’s still a bit of a relationship. Maybe not as direct as someone that I volunteered with side-by-side, but it’s through someone that I at least know.

Doug Hall: Right, know and trust and so you’re getting … So you’re a second degree connection to them-

Jeff Rogers: Right.

Doug Hall: Those are awesome, three practical suggestions. Thank you. That’s excellent. Sort of a corollary to that is, do you have any favorite management or leadership tools that you and the team use in your various elements of your business?

Jeff Rogers: Yes and I’m going to zero in on one. There are several different tools that I’ve found effective for different applications. But I’m going to give one that I think is overarching for any business. So back up into our business. OneAccord, on the partner side, has worked with over 400 organizations to help them build their value. Our tagline is Building Value, Built on Values, really straightforward. Our values are truth, compassion and service. That’s it. I’ve been part of companies and in lots of companies where the mission statement’s on the wall and it’s really long. And it may be great. I’m just not smart enough to remember them.

Our mission statement is, Building Value, Built on Values. And then our values are, truth, compassion, service. Simple, that’s it. I could unpack what those mean, but I have the unique giftedness, not that I’m gifted, it’s been a gift given to me, to work with hundreds of different companies to see what works well and doesn’t. Now I’m eating my own dog food in a way, in what I’m going to say. When we started doing acquisitions and we’ve deployed tens of millions of dollars, am I going to use actually what we sell? Am I actually going to do what I say we do for other companies? Are we going to use our assessment process? Are we going to use our strategic planning process, our structure board development? Are we going to actually implement those things in the companies where we’re putting money? And we’re the majority owner, by the way, so we’re not co-investing. We’re the full owner. We own the entire company. We have full control.

So there is one system that I think is heads and tails above the others, and that’s the EOS system, partnered with the book, Traction. It provides an operating system that’s ubiquitous. I’ve got companies that I want to have them on the same language or the same OS. Now, I may have a different ERP system in one company than another, because one’s manufacturing and one’s distribution, but I want to have a common platform or language. And I have found, Doug, that the content in Traction isn’t one of these books of nice business theory, but it’s actually usable content. Then through that, it’s been made available that there are the tools that you can actually use in the company. You don’t have to have a big software licensing agreement or an annual subscription. They just make them available.

I’d suggest strongly that any company that would look at that system is going to be better served by having someone that knows and understands the system help facilitate them through it, because just like our self, when we do a business assessment, actually hire … The companies that we acquire hire OneAccord folks to do the assessment on them and we pay them the full rate, because I understand I can’t have one of our companies assess itself. It just can’t be objective.

So there are EOS in Traction, specialists that know how to take a company through this process. But I’m not going to give you, here’s five different tool sets and this program. I’m just going to hone in on one right now. We are implementing that system across all the portfolio businesses that we work with. So my answer’s really simple. Start there. You can drill down to specifics for certain industries, different profile tools and things like that. But this is, to me, the most complete and simple, in essence, OS that you can put a business on.

Doug Hall: Okay, well that’s a great tip. As you know, I’m a big fan of Traction and EOS, too. So we’re reading from the same song sheet here, so that’s good to know.

Jeff Rogers: Well, I’m stating what obviously you and I know, but to the audience, when I was talking about that non-profit board that I’m on that’s aligned, and you facilitated us using that system and process, right? So I’ve seen it work in non-profits, I’ve seen it work in for-profits because it’s principle and accountability and clarity, with the mission and the vision and how you drill that down into actionable steps. Being able to say, “Okay, what’s the number for this? What’s the number for that?” I have seen you use it effectively and so I know you not only believe in it, but you’re really gifted in the instruction of how to implement it.

Doug Hall: Well thanks. OneAccord is just an ideal setting to leverage the single operating system with the single language, with the single vision setting tool, the people practices, like you talked about before. I really commend you. It is a holistic framework for you to run even different businesses, completely different businesses, but on the same language. So that’s really kind of-

Jeff Rogers: Well thank you. I’m very blessed and you are too in the sense that, hey, we should just be thankful that there was someone that had enough motivation, courage and conviction to write the book and put the system together. Because I’m certainly not smart enough to have created it myself.

Doug Hall: Nor am I and I’ll just, for our listeners, what Jeff’s referring to, the book Traction: Get a Grip on your Business, is written by Gino Wickman, Gino with a G and W-I-C-K-M-A-N. It’s been out there about 11 years now. And it’s stood the test of time, which is, I think important, right Jeff? You don’t want to just take the flash in the pan or the latest flavor of the month business book.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, there’s a couple business books. I have been a fan for years of just a couple books. Good to Great’s another one.

Doug Hall: Good to Great’s amazing, yeah.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, where each chapter is a standalone idea. I see many books that have one idea drawn out in the multiple chapters.

Doug Hall: Right, 200 pages of one idea.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah. I look at Good to Great and say, “Each one of these, do you have the right people on the bus?” Another would be Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey.

Doug Hall: Yep, another great one.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah. Seek first to understand before being understood. They’re just basic. Each one is a succinct point. Traction has taken concept and moved it into application because even Good to Great, if you were to say, “Well how do I do that point? I agree with the point, now how do I do that?” Good to Great doesn’t move you into that. I think that’s where Traction picks up. They’re complimentary, but it actually provides the framework to execute it. To me, it’s uniquely practical across industries.

Doug Hall: Right. Any other favorite business books that are in the back of your mind?

Jeff Rogers: Well, I’ll just stick with … Let me give you a-

Doug Hall: Good to Great, right?

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, let me give you a fourth.

Doug Hall: Okay.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, so obviously Traction, we’ve talked about, Good to Great, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Those three books are pretty well known, especially number two and three. Number four is not well-known at all and it is a book called, Right Away and All At Once. The author of that book, his name is Greg Brenneman, and Greg is a very accomplished mergers and acquisition partner that came out of Wall Street, Bain Capital. He was actually one of the co-founders of Bain Capital, or one of the founding members of Bain Capital. He runs a very large private equity fund.

The reason I like his book is it, again, has very specific content that you could use to run any business, but every other chapter actually includes his family story of how he takes the idea from business and uses it in his family. To me, if you or I are successful in our company, but our family’s a failure, that’s not really being successful.

Doug Hall: That’s not a successful life, is it?

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, and that book actually addresses and crosses over, “Okay, here’s how I did it in Wall Street. Here’s how we do it as a family.” Now, it could sound a bit egocentric to say I’m going to take my Wall Street management into my family and have little soldiers running around. And you read it, it’s not that at all. It’s very purpose based. It’s got a lot of heart in it. It’s got a lot of conviction, and he shares his personal story woven in this corporate M and A practice. So that would be the fourth book. It’s been very helpful for us, again, as a book to give to different company leaders.

Doug Hall: Well good. I’m glad you brought that one up, because the first three, of course, I know about. That fourth one’s a sleeper. That’s a sleeper.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah.

Doug Hall: I’m going to go look that up. Thank you. Thank you.

Jeff Rogers: You’re welcome.

Doug Hall: All right, so in a similar vein, as we head towards wrapping up, if you could think through all the stuff we’ve covered and think of the number one advice, maybe the most frequent advice you give to people that are still in the business building phase, they’re growing their business, they’re not transitioning out. What’s the number one piece of advice that you and your team like to share with business builders?

Jeff Rogers: Are you going to punch me when I see you later if I give two?

Doug Hall: I’ll let you have two.

Jeff Rogers: Will you give me-

Doug Hall: I’ll let you have two, Jeff.

Jeff Rogers: Because if you said I could-

Doug Hall: I’ll let you have two.

Jeff Rogers: … I’d only do one. Okay. So I’m going to tell you-

Doug Hall: No, I think we’re going to give you a bonus.

Jeff Rogers: Okay, thank you.

Doug Hall: So you get to do two.

Jeff Rogers: Thank you. I’m glad to have permission, or I wouldn’t do it. I’m going to share a story. What I’ve shared about our company can sound like, “Wow, you’ve done really well and it’s always been good.” No, no, no, not always the case. There was a season prior to ’05, before we launched, where we were serving companies well, but our business model itself of how we were doing was not working. The economic model for it internally was not going to. And I was really questioning the direction I was going. Would the business make it? Were we going to have enough capital? Not, could we provide value to clients, but could we actually sustain ourselves? If we had done our assessment on us, we would fail. I didn’t know what to do.

So what I did is, I formed a board and I did something that I wouldn’t suggest most people do. I would suggest you form a board. What I did is, I gave that board, an advisory board, voting board rights. So I had to do what they said. Because I come from sales and I was afraid I could kind of sell my way out of an advisory board. So I legally would have had to challenge them if I didn’t do what they said I needed to do. I was really questioning the direction and where we were going. One of the board members, this is my first piece of counsel, Dave Bloom looked at me and said, “Jeff, what is it that you know that you know that you know? Go build around that.”

If your business is going back to your giftedness, the core of who you are, and you can build your company around that, not the market opportunity, not because you see a niche, not because someone said, “Hey, you’d be a really good x.” According to my high school guidance counselor, I was supposed to be a park ranger, literally.

Doug Hall: You could have been a fabulous park ranger.

Jeff Rogers: Hey, you’re really kind, and God bless park rangers.

Doug Hall: Yeah, we need them, don’t we.

Jeff Rogers: But you know what? You know me. I would have died. I’m a relational person.

Doug Hall: Yeah, there aren’t enough bears for Jeff to talk to out there in those woods.

Jeff Rogers: Can you imagine? Who do I get coffee with, out in the woods? I mean, really.

Doug Hall: You’re not going to do that. That part, you would fail, my friend.

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, so a lot of people are well-intended and say, “Oh, you should do this, because this segment of the market’s really growing,” or “Go be this because there’s a lot of jobs in it.” And what this friend of mine, Dave, said, on this voting board is, “We’re going to build your company around what you know that you know that you know. Because that, you’re going to do well.”

And more of the back story is, part of the reason from 2000 to 2005 I was … because there was another part of our business which we hadn’t discussed, which was larger than this consultative business that you’re here about, that we’ve talked about, there was a larger part that they said, “That business is not you. That’s a transaction business. You’re relationship business.” And Barry Horn, another board member, said, “Jeff, shut it down. That dog won’t hunt, because it’s not you.” So my first point, build around what you know.

My second one, it’s really important. And that is, find service providers that provide service. So make sure that the people that you bring in to be your banker, your accountant, attorney, insurance representative, leasing agent, recruiter, whomever those service providers that you contract, know and understand your type of business, your size of business, the season your business is in, the market you’re in, the geography you’re in, the vertical you’re in. And really find people that know and understand your specific space. Because I had some very highly regarded professionals in each of those segments that absolutely did not know our business. They came highly referred and they’re big names in our market. But unfortunately, they didn’t understand our kind of business. We spent a lot of money with people that provided a transaction, like insurance or banking. They did the transaction fine. They provided no incremental value outside that.

I think that’s something that most younger, new entrepreneurs or newer business owners or people that just get comfortable, they’ve used the bank down the street for 35 years, that bank’s not the right bank for them today. But they’re comfortable. So that’s my second, is to have service providers that know and understand your specific business, that they can provide you service in addition to the function that they do.

Doug Hall: That’s fabulous.

Jeff Rogers: That’s my bonus round. There’s my bonus round.

Doug Hall: Hey, and that bonus tip was well worth it. Thank you. That’s one that I think … People really miss that, they overlook that. And I’m sure you’ve tapped value now that, as you’ve changed your service providers, you’ve found untapped stuff that you can into and take advantage of. So that’s awesome.

Jeff Rogers: Thank you.

Doug Hall: So, we’re at the end of our time and I want to make sure that you tell listeners how they can get ahold of you or get ahold of OneAccord to learn more. What’s the best way?

Jeff Rogers: Yeah, absolutely. Again, going back to my LinkedIn comment, I want to be about relationships, not transactions. So our website is oneaccord.co. If you put a com, you’re going to find a wonderful gentleman down in Southern California that has a little non-profit. But ours is oneaccord.co. My email is jeff.rogers@oneaccord.co. I’d love to hear from any listener that I could serve or add value. That’s a privilege.

Doug Hall: Well, that’s great. Thank you for that offer. And I thank you for sharing so many great nuggets today. There’re going to be people going over the transcript of this more than once to pick out the good stuff you shared. So thank you. Thank you very much, Jeff.

Jeff Rogers: It’s a pleasure. Doug, thanks for your good work, the work you do. The ripples in the pond go far and wide from the impact that you have in doing not only this type of work, because it can get out there through thousands of people over many years, but also the one-on-one you do in serving private companies. So thank you.

Doug Hall: You’re welcome. You’re very kind, thanks.

Well, everybody, that’s it. Thanks to Jeff Rogers and thanks for listening to Go for Growth. We’ll see you on the next episode.