I'm looking forward to an event.
There's a nonprofit that my best friend runs,
and we're having a big event on Veterans Day,
and looking forward to helping put on that event
and participating in it.
Oh, that's awesome.
What's the event type?
It's called Swing Time,
and the charity is a nonprofit
that recognizes the Scottsdale Airport during World War II,
was used to train Army Air Corps pilots.
And a lot of people didn't know that,
so they have a steerman airplane on the display there,
and then all the money they raised,
they give scholarships to young folks
going into aviation disciplines,
and they also partner with an organization
called Paws for Events.
So I like what they do for the community, so happy to help.
Wow, that's awesome, man,
and thank you for your service.
How much has your time in the military
had an influence on your leadership and business decisions?
Well, first, let me just say it was a privilege and honor
for me to serve my country.
It's funny, I think that veterans,
we bring a lot to the workplace,
but for me, I thought as an aviator,
there are certain things that we learned in aviation,
and one of them is planning, right?
We just don't go out and fly in air fucking right, you land.
Thank goodness, thank goodness.
So you gotta have a plan, right?
And so we, and then we brief the plan
before we go out and fly, we execute the plan,
and then we come back and we debrief it, right?
So it's always that cycle of, you know,
talking about what you're gonna do,
going out and doing it,
and then coming back and talking about how it went,
because in aviation and life, right,
there's a lot of variables over which you have no control,
right, and so you have to sort of embrace uncertainty.
When you take off in an airplane,
you really don't know where you're gonna land.
You don't know what's gonna happen.
You don't know, I mean, you could get a prediction
out of it, but it could be wrong.
So there's a lot of those things that I learned in aviation
that I found that I brought back with me to life and business.
I love that.
How accurate is Top Gun?
That thing's gotta be as great.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up?
And welcome to the Vision Pros Live.
I'm your host, Jackson Calame,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
I've got Ron Higgs on today, former US Navy,
well, still US Navy veteran, Ron Higgs,
and turned fractional COO.
We're gonna be talking about the difference in roles
of COOs and CEOs and why they shouldn't hate each other,
why they should be working together.
Same thing with the forgotten CMOs in the equation.
I mean, there's just so much growth,
so much understanding that even if you don't have
any of those sealable executives in your business,
it's something to vision paint.
It's something to be thinking about and realizing,
you know what, maybe that's part of my problem
is that I don't have great leaders
helping me build things out.
I'm just saying, it might be.
We're gonna be diving in more with Ron on that.
So before we dive into that,
we're gonna talk a little bit
about these sponsors right here,
ColdClick and TapMental.
So ColdClick, these are sponsors, by the way,
that are chosen by me because I use their services.
In the case of ColdClick, I use LinkedIn,
I use their services for LinkedIn automation.
And that gets me connected to all of these people
that you're seeing come on these pre-shows,
sorry, pre-shows, on these shows with Vision Pros Live,
I do a little pre-show with them in advance.
It connects me to wonderful people
who are doing great things in the world.
I also utilize that to, of course,
get people connected to our services
that we provide at first class business.
So they protect us from algorithm changes.
They stay very close to what's going on at LinkedIn
and how we can make sure that we're compliant.
And also, they're strategic advisors
for helping us with our messaging, auditing that,
editing that, helping us make sure we're on point
with how we approach people.
Then there's TapMental.
TapMental is a company run by Dave Goodall.
You go to tapmental.io,
and Dave helps blue collar businesses
really not transition, not transform,
but connect the problems of psychology
that a business owner faces with the systems
that need to be executed and put into place.
And I know that sounds kind of like, what?
Like, how do those two things go together?
Well, if you haven't heard about mind trash,
I recommend looking up a few videos on YouTube.
If you haven't done a lot of work
with self-awareness, same thing.
However, if you have been a business for three, five,
10 years, you probably have started to see
how some of your own internal limitations
are direct components of why your business
isn't operating as effectively as it could be.
Dave has an incredible ability to cut through with clarity
to help business owners understand
how to work their CFO departments,
what changes to make in terms of their systems,
and his case studies have impressed me tremendously,
so much so that we switched gears from
not only him being a client, but also advising me
on some of my systems and diving a little bit deeper
into my psyche, if you will.
So I can't recommend Dave enough,
especially, again, if you're in that blue collar,
construction style business, if you feel like,
you're a good old boy, you need somebody to relate to you
who's not as emotional, but is still able to dive into
the disruptions that you might need internally,
Dave's awesome at what he does.
So before we move into Ron's story,
we also always wanna highlight the Water Project.
The Water Project is my go-to charity of choice
to talk about, and anybody who,
if any of you listening in have ever been in a situation
where you don't have access to water
for an extended period of time,
then you may know, you may really wanna consider
helping out with this project.
These children, these communities,
they don't have access to clean drinking water.
They often have to walk miles and miles just to get water
that could end up ruining their life further.
And this project focuses on different communities
that need help for more than 300 people at a time often.
And you get to pick which project you wanna support,
which I think is really cool.
And you get to see the outcome as they document
the process of these people going from not having access
to water to then getting access to water.
And you get to learn about the training they go through
and the process as well.
This is going to change a community for generations,
which is why I love the effects
of giving back to this cause.
If you have a cause that you wanna be supported,
don't hesitate to drop that in the comments
and compete with our cause.
We all have lots of opportunities to give in life.
This is just one of them.
And we appreciate you taking some time,
putting in some effort to help us help the 8 billion people
in the world who need further help.
So without further ado,
I'm gonna bring Ron Higgs on board.
We're gonna be talking about his vision as a fractional COO.
Ron, thanks for being on Vision Pros, man.
Hi, Jackson, thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Absolutely.
So Ron, let's dive in hot and heavy.
Who should be listening right now
and why do you feel they should listen to you?
Well, I think anybody who's open to learning
more about themselves, becoming better leaders
should be listening.
So C-level executives,
anybody aspiring to be a C-level executive.
I think that leadership is the cornerstone
of pretty much everything, right?
And so if you can learn to be a better leader,
it will help you at whatever stage of your life
or professional career you're in.
Absolutely.
And let's talk a little bit about your background too.
So I've got, let me pull up your LinkedIn page a little bit.
I'll prelude it a little, let's see here.
I'm either gonna race to it
or Cynthia is gonna beat me to it, we'll see.
Here we go.
So again, US Navy veteran.
So you have experience in the military.
You're a strategic business advisor
and you've been an executive coach now.
And let's, I'll scroll through this
while you talk through it,
but walk me through your experience
of growing into leadership.
Well, it started at a young age.
I'm a graduate of the US Naval Academy.
So it started there.
I mean, leadership is embedded in the DNA
of that entire institution since 1845
and they embedded in us as we went through
those four years there.
So that was an important part of where it started.
And then my time in the military,
always in leadership positions as an officer in the military,
always having to lead by example.
And everything that we did in the military
was growth oriented.
You move from assignment to assignment,
but you're growing, you're learning from people.
And one of the things that got me in,
we didn't call it coaching then,
but in the military, you go into a unit
and everybody has a tour in that unit.
Let's say it's three or four years.
And that means that we're training our replacements.
We're moving up every year.
We're in our responsibilities increasing until our time is up
and we leave.
And so we are constantly leading, up leveling,
and coaching all of those that come behind us
because we know they're going to replace us.
So that's one of the things that you asked me earlier
what I brought with me in the civilian world.
And so that was one of the things that I brought with me
from the Navy.
That's awesome.
And that depth that just going through your resume
on LinkedIn, seeing the types of companies
who've worked with Boeing for six years,
I think it said the military for 19 years,
having grown up in an Academy of Leadership training,
like the depth is awesome.
I wanna circle back.
I wanna actually focus a lot on that,
but for the sake of the show's format,
we're gonna have to come back to that after,
if we have time, if not,
we'll have a secondary conversation
because there's just so much that I think people can learn
from, again, that dynamic of not only leading the military,
but then transitioning back to civilian life.
And going through that, I got a lot of buddies and friends
who would benefit from that conversation.
So before we do that,
what's your vision for those that you serve right now?
I like to keep things in fairly simple terms.
So for me is to teach people to inspire others,
to inspire others to do whatever it is they wanna do,
whatever it is they wanna grow into.
But I think we've all been in situations
where people just don't inspire us to perform.
They don't inspire us to go do and be anything.
And so I like working with people
to sort of unleash their greatness
to help them inspire others.
Awesome.
And then for the business owners that you're serving
as a fractional COO,
let's dive a little bit deeper into that one as well.
So what beyond the inspiration,
what do you hope to see them accomplish?
What are they looking to accomplish in their lives?
Well, I'm gonna go back to the inspiration thing again,
because you have to learn to inspire those
at every level around you to do it.
But for the business owners,
typically you understand the concept of visionaries.
Visionaries are the people with all the ideas and everything.
They're the ones that are typically all over the place.
But without those visionaries,
there are a lot of things that wouldn't exist.
There are other people that they need to engage
to make those things a reality.
So I'd like to help people in every position
realize that they have blind spots,
they have natural tendencies, they have expertise,
and then others have expertise that compliments theirs.
So an example is if you know and you realize
that you're sort of a low EQ person here at the top,
then you should hire somebody else at the top
that has a high EQ to balance that out.
And I think that happens at every level
for people to be open to those
who don't sort of operate like they do
and people who have different perspectives than they do,
but to learn how to work with those people
in a complimentary manner to move the business forward.
Huge, absolutely.
It's different elements provide different strengths.
And also come with different weaknesses.
So businesses is no different, well said.
Let's talk about your vision for you.
Ron, what do you see for yourself
over the next five minutes to five million years?
You're welcome to define that however you want.
Well, you know what impact, right?
So I want to be in a position
where I can have a positive impact
on more and more people.
I was in the aerospace and defense community
after military aerospace and defense community.
I was in that community for a long time,
but I just had this calling to go out and do,
what can I do?
Where can I go where I will have more impact on others?
Okay, so I stumbled my way into fractional COO business
and now moving towards doing some strategic advising
for smaller companies
that are in the aerospace and defense industry.
And again, the executive coaching,
I think that will allow me to have more of an impact
on others.
And the next step in that thing is I'd really like
to do some keynote speaking and reach out
and stand in front of groups of people.
Again, that will increase my impact.
Absolutely.
What about outside of the business world?
Once you got, you like golf, you like fishing.
You know, I'm waiting for golf, right?
To the golf, I have a lot of friends that like golf
and as long as my body holds up, right?
When I retire, I'm just gonna learn golf.
And apparently I have to learn pickleball
because everybody else does.
But I am a snowboarder and a mountain bike.
And I most enjoy spending time around, you know,
with good food and good drink with family and friends.
That's absolutely the thing I love to do the most.
We can do this food thing.
I'm all about the food.
Pickleball, we can watch pickleball.
I'll watch it, I guess.
I'm sorry, typically when I travel, I'll check out,
I'll try to check out a diners drive-ins
and dives restaurant, you know, just.
Nice.
Just to expand that, you know, culinary.
Yeah, yeah, I like trying new things, man.
That's my go-to is find a new place, something local.
It's great.
Okay, well, let's take a dark dive.
So in terms of business,
what's the worst business experience that you've ever had?
Well, sort of business, but I had,
I actually took a W-2 job
and I took it and I felt like it was the right fit
at the right time.
It would help me sort of in the future with my business.
And it didn't work out, let's say.
And there, I don't think that there was anything
that I could have done, anything that I could have asked,
anything that I could have, you know,
as far as the interview process
that would have uncovered all of the stuff.
And I will say that, you know, the values for the company,
I was aligned with the values, I thought it was great,
but it turned out to be kind of lip service, right?
Yeah.
Company was mired in bureaucracy, you know,
arrogance to like our way of doing this
with the absolute best way.
There's no other way to do it, right?
It's like, eh, okay.
Not very open to, you know, input from others, you know,
and sort of more focused on meaningless KPIs
than actually helping the client.
And I will say that my KPIs around the client
all had to do with numbers and selling the client something
and it didn't have anything to do
with how much I helped the client achieve their goals.
And so I just, it wasn't the right place for me.
Yeah.
But I will say, so it wasn't a good experience at the time.
However, the learning from that was huge, right?
The learning on how to, okay,
what kind of different questions could I ask to spot this?
But moreover, being able to go into an organization
and see some of those things
and help the organization work their way through it.
Excellent.
Dude, you just sparked something really big for me
between you and actually Scott, both of you guys,
back-to-back appointments, values.
Everybody has values.
There's not a single person that doesn't have them.
And at the same time, they're executed very differently.
Yeah.
So you're bringing up something that's super important.
It's not enough for the culture to just,
I don't wanna say claim they have values,
because they do, but there's a different magnitude.
So for instance, somebody who hates everybody in the world
may love their family.
They still have the value of love.
They just exercise in a way where you're excluded from it.
They may have the value of patience.
They're patient enough for the microwave
to finish their food, but if they're stuck in traffic
and you're the problem,
there's no patience whatsoever expressed.
Right.
And so when we get into the habit of just looking at values
as a unit of like, oh, cool, we share the same values.
Well, no, sorry, but no, duh.
We all share the same types of values,
but how do we exercise those in life?
And I've been there, Ron, too,
but you guys have really opened my mind
over the last couple of days of, oh, okay, yeah.
This is how I need to shift my own thinking
in relation to values, because if I don't,
then it becomes more of like a fight
and an understanding of, well, wait a second.
How are we exercising these values?
Do we exercise them in the same way?
You kind of blew my mind right there.
Thank you.
Another thing I would add that helps
is for the company to actually define those values.
You could put a word up there.
You could put a word, say integrity, accountability,
but what does it mean in that context?
Just like you said, I may walk away from that with,
I may go look at the textbook definition and go, okay.
Or I may have my own.
So it helps for the companies to really define
what they mean by the words that they have on there,
painted on the wall or on their website and all that stuff.
There's some really smart people
who will challenge you on that and say,
what do you mean?
The dictionary definition is the definition of the word,
but not if you look at the history of the dictionary.
You go back to that, you use an 1820s dictionary
to define a specific word,
that word definition has completely evolved
and changed for today's society.
And so I love what you're saying there.
There's a lot of extreme value in getting clear
about how you relate to your values
and how you want others to relate to those as well.
So that was an awesome share.
What about your best experience in business?
Let's shift gears to the lighter side.
What does that look like Ron?
Well, this is gonna be another sort of unorthodox story,
but it really was the best for me.
I left my corporate job and I started off
as an independent consultant.
I just in the learning phase of starting off
and then just like everybody else,
I think you start some problems with client acquisition,
some problems in really stating what my value was
and all of the above.
And so I was getting a little frustrated,
maybe three or four months into this,
my new self-employment experiment,
I was trying hard, I was networking,
I was doing all sorts of stuff,
just not able to close anything.
And I was out with my wife one Sunday afternoon in July,
it was hot, we were at shorts and flip-flops,
we were all into a microbrewery.
We sit next to this couple and we start chatting.
Just started chatting and ended up talking to the guy
and he's like, well, I'm in town
because I'm gonna buy this brewery.
Oh really?
And so we start talking about beer
and I'm a craft beer enthusiast,
so I knew my subject, I talked to him.
So I gave the guy some advice about what breweries to visit,
what to do while he was in town and all that stuff
and we talked a little bit.
So I gave him my business card
and about a week later, he emailed me and said,
hey, everything you told me was spot on.
How'd you like be my consultant
for my expansion into Washington State?
And I was like, yeah, so handshake deal.
All of the networking and all of the books I was reading
on closing and sales and everything, right?
And all of that, nothing,
and then just a chance meeting with someone
at the right time because my wife
and his wife started talking and it was great.
And so some people say, hey, there is no luck,
there's this confluence of preparation and opportunity.
Well, that's right.
For me, preparation is I know my subject, right?
Right.
Opportunity was what was handed to me
right there at the time.
And so that to me was the best business experience I had
and standup guy, great guy,
and everything we did was with a verbal agreement, right?
And so he held up his hand, I helped up my hand,
it really was a fantastic experience
and I wish I would have more experiences like that.
Well, and we can manifest those.
I'm not big into saying like, oh, I'm gonna manifest this
and so five minutes later it's going to happen.
There's a lot of actions that go along with that
and a lot of cultivating and it wasn't luck, right?
So there you were living your life,
putting yourself into an environment
where that could happen, right?
It probably wouldn't have happened
had you and your wife had dinner at McDonald's.
You probably would not have run into that person.
You certainly wouldn't have run into that one.
You might have run into somebody like them
but when you're going about living,
according to standards aligned with your target audience
and what you do, you're not forcing the issue
like a lot of networking experiences are
where it's like, oh, we're here to try to
robotically build business.
That's not nearly as genuine as what happened.
I also love that you guys did the business
on the handshake deal.
There's so many great opportunities that come forward
and that can happen for business
when you're not so rigid trying to play lawyer.
I know it can feel like the right way to do business
is have everything documented and don't get me wrong,
by the way, disclaimer, I'm not your financial advisor.
I'm not your legal advisor.
Everything that I say is potentially wrong, blah, blah, blah.
The disclaimers that need to be said,
don't listen to Jackson.
But I have made plenty of handshake deals and you're right.
Those are often the best ones
because you got two human beings
who are willing to be human beings together.
Yeah, there was no proposal for that.
Just said, this is what I want you to do.
This is how much I pay you.
We went back and forth on that a little bit
and that was it.
Healthy dialogue, right?
Negotiations, so many people think that negotiation means
negotiating with terrorists, right?
Hostile negotiations.
Now negotiation means healthy dialogue ideally.
I agree.
I will add this.
I had one of my colleagues tell me, she goes,
I had some of my, I told her that story and she says,
you know what?
She goes, I got some of my best clients
while I was on vacation.
So same kind of thing.
Yep, exactly.
So let's talk about another powerful lesson.
So what powerful lesson comes to mind
when you think about being in front of visionaries
who can learn from your experience?
So we touched on it before.
If you're a visionary, realize that you have blind spots.
And so again, there's visionaries typically,
big thinkers, big picture thinkers, 30,000 feet,
but a lot of people that take care of the details
or a task driven people, they like that stuff.
And the visionary needs, if they wanna complete a task
or if they wanna get their idea off the ground,
they need to seek out some of those other people
and realize that they have the different skillset.
There are people out there who are driven by task.
Just tell me what to do and I'll go out and do it.
People out there that are driven by data,
data and setting up processes.
They look at the task people and go, hey,
I know you're doing this, but let's systematize it
to make sure we do it right every time.
And the visionary has to realize what their blind spots are
and find those people.
I love that.
And so there's a level of maturity here
that you're talking about.
And that's that, it doesn't matter.
You can be 19 and be mature.
You don't have to have 10 years of experience in business
to be a great business owner.
I find that that's taste more often.
Those who are 40 years old,
those who've had the business ownership experience
for eight years, they tend to have more stability
because of the experiences that they've had.
They tend to make more room for others
because they've been through their own transitions of life
and figuring out who they are and their identity.
What does that look like?
I think it's brilliant.
So anybody who's younger and listening in
or maybe who has a whole team of cheerleaders
that are just like you,
it might be a really good idea to take a step back
and look and say, okay,
how do I make space for all the people who love
what I complain about or love what I hate to do?
And how do I, that leads to, I guess,
maturity number two, which has been on my mind a lot.
You gotta let people lead.
Yeah.
And one of the things that happens often,
I would say, I don't know,
maybe 20 to 40% of the time,
I'm not gonna pin it down yet,
but in our pre-show environment,
when people come on to qualify for this show,
you're one of the exemplary guests, Ron,
like your leadership stood out.
You allowed the process to progress naturally.
There's a lot of people who come into the pre-show
and they immediately start dominating the meeting.
They immediately take control
and they want to determine their own outcome for how it goes.
And it actually derails the entire process for one.
Two, they never really get to see who I am
and how I do things,
because now I have to cater to what they want
the experience to be like.
So you end up, what's that word for it?
You end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy
of creating a fabricated environment for your experiences
rather than being a leader who steps back and listens
and allows the process to unfold
so you can naturally see how people behave
and how they interact.
What are your thoughts on that as a leader?
You've had to experience that a ton throughout your career.
Well, I agree with you.
The big thing is that there's letting go is big.
Two words, let go, right?
Let go of perfectionism, because that's a big thing.
I suffered from it as well, as I'm sure most do, right?
You just realize that,
I gotta let go of this perfectionism
if I'm gonna get something done, right?
And then letting go of control, that's a big one, right?
And I have the best ideas, I'm the idea person here,
and I'm the only one, right?
And so it's like, no, that's not really true
because I don't think I've ever had an idea
that someone else didn't make better, right?
And so you see something that's a brilliant idea,
and then there's other people that'll jump on it
and just keep expanding upon it
to make it that much better, right?
So there's this thing, there's this letting go
and then being open, right?
And just being open to other perspectives,
being open to uncertainty, being open to failure, right?
And then being humble too, right?
Humility, we talked about that.
Humility, I saw one of your other,
you were speaking with one of your other guests
on a previous podcast, you talked about humility.
And that was a big deal, you know?
If somebody comes and asks you something,
you know, it's like, you know what?
I don't know, or I'm not sure,
but let's either find the answer together,
or I thought, would this work for me,
a very powerful ways, a very powerful phrase,
what do you think?
Right, right?
I think you need an answer that way.
Great answers that way.
So there's that combination of, you know,
to sum it up, you know, be open, you know,
and be open and let go, right?
Those two things, you remember those two things,
I think you'll be okay.
I love that, I love that a lot.
I love this quote, too.
I've never had an idea
that someone else didn't make that much better.
That's humility in full confidence on display.
And leaders would be wise to pay attention to that.
So let's explore some of the opportunities
of being a visionary leader,
bringing you in as a fractional COO.
What does that look like?
Well, these days, you know,
it always starts with a conversation, right?
And then truly trying to understand
what people are looking for.
And you know, my website,
I have to admit, honestly,
my website could be better, right?
But I figure-
Everybody has to admit that, Ron.
I'm gonna blow you away with that.
Every single website can be better.
Yours is great, keep going.
You know, I use LinkedIn.
People typically find me through Furo or LinkedIn,
and they typically are only gonna go to my website
to sort of check me out.
But let's see, it starts with a conversation
and not an assessment, a conversation.
Let me truly understand what your problem is.
And I mean what their problem is and not a symptom.
Because those of us who come in from the outside
to help businesses or other people, right?
Typically, they'll say, I have a problem with X.
Well, just like when you go to the doctor,
you go to the doctor and say,
hey, I've got this problem.
And then the doctor steps back
and evaluates the cause of the problem or the disease, right?
So ask enough questions to figure out to truly understand
what their issue is.
And for me, okay, am I the right person to help them?
What kind of help do they need?
And am I the right person to it?
Four, I offer three services.
One of them is as an advisor, self-explanatory.
The other one is as an executive coach.
And the third is as a fractional COO.
Obviously, I can't take on that many fractional COO gigs,
right, but that's one of those things
where I have to really, really, at this point,
Mike, I have to really, really like and enjoy the business
and want to do that.
Because at some stage, I think we all have to,
you know, I have three answers.
So like, hey, Ron, do you wanna do that?
It's no, yes, or heck yeah, I wanna do that.
That's great, and I try to keep it to a heck yeah.
So that's where it starts
with that conversation and evaluation.
And typically, I built a network.
So it's like, hey, I know exactly what you need.
You actually need marketing help.
Let me refer you to this CMO person
that I know who will be the best to help you
and let's stay in touch, right?
So that's, you know, it's typically where it starts.
And like I said, I evaluate their needs
and recommend the best solution,
not necessarily the best solution for me,
but the best solution for them.
And every discussion is unique.
Every company is unique.
Every situation is unique,
which is why I use the word bespoke on my website.
Define that word for me, please.
Unique, different, tailored specifically to you.
Awesome, appreciate that.
I typically operate at about a third grade level.
So that's helpful.
Let's also do that with advisor and coach.
Two grades above me.
Well, so the advisor and the executive coach.
For those who want to know the difference,
how would you define the difference
between somebody who's advising
and somebody who's executive coaching?
Well, an advising is to a business.
So I am an advisor to a couple of startups
in the aerospace and defense industry, right?
And they have a board of advisors, right?
Or, you know, they have some challenges, you know,
if they're going, and not necessarily,
they don't have to be in aerospace and defense industry,
but sometimes an executive team or an executive
just needs someone to ask a question, you know?
And especially, let's say,
I dealt in government contracts from both sides.
I was a part, I was in the government as a Navy guy,
I did program management and acquisition.
So I worked with defense contractors on military systems.
So I was on that side of it.
And then as a guy who worked for a defense contractor,
I was on the other side of the contracting part.
So some of these folks that are new,
that don't know much
about the government contracting process, you know,
I'm able to help them with that.
And there's even some simple stuff as a veteran.
They're like, hey, we're doing this thing with the Navy.
And I'm like, okay, let me show you all the different ranks
and help you understand, like,
whose question you have to answer first, you know,
when they're asking, when they're sitting around the table.
Simple things like that, right?
Executive coach, again, someone,
I am working with someone one-on-one
to achieve a specific goal in a stated period of time, right?
And it doesn't have to be, you know,
the time can vary, but, hey,
I am trying to figure out my mind,
but I am trying to become a better leader.
I am trying to work on my EQ, right?
I'm trying to work on my patience, whatever it is.
I'm trying to become, you know,
I have some visionary tendencies
that tend to turn others away.
I need to be able to control those work,
those work better with people,
all of those different things.
And so we go through a series of one-on-one discussions
that allows that person to reach their goal.
Absolutely.
I think a lot of those leaders too,
they don't know what they don't know.
That's one of my favorite sayings.
You can kind of reach that point, you know,
where like, and it's not an ego-driven thing.
It's like, okay, I've learned a lot of Spanish, for instance,
and there's a ton of things
that I can now do with the language,
but I can't catch anymore what I do and don't know.
And I can't just turn to a simple book
to quickly get guidance on how I can take that
to the next level.
It would be much faster, much easier for me to work with
and advanced Spanish coach or trainer to open my eyes
to all of the flaws that I have and what I do.
And that's ultimately what executive coaching
kind of boils down to as well, I would say.
Anything you want to add there?
No, that sums it up really well.
I appreciate that.
Awesome.
So one of the, you had sparked a memory of mine about,
oh, that's what it was, it was huge.
That's what I was like, I gotta get back to this.
I wrote it down.
You talked about ranks around the table.
And in the military, right, that can be very overwhelming
for somebody who's not familiar with military ranks.
And on the flip side, I take that for granted for business
because of how long I've been at this,
but it made me realize, whoa,
I can do a far clearer job of making sure
that I test my sales reps or any customer service reps,
anybody that has to engage with a client or a client's team,
ideally would be well-trained on POC, DMs, et cetera.
And what are we talking about?
Point of contacts, the decision makers,
the influencers for the decision,
the partners, the principals, you use the tag principal.
I know a lot of business owners
who've never heard that term before.
Or they think of a high school principal
versus the principal of a company.
And if you don't know those things,
then it becomes impossible to operate an organization
if you don't have familiarity with it.
Two, it becomes very difficult to sell
because you don't know who to tell what.
Let's talk about that a little bit.
We got a few minutes.
Well, again, there's this,
if you're sitting around the table,
you're assuming that everybody needs to be heard,
everybody's input is of value,
but you're absolutely right in having to know
exactly who does what.
Like who are the people who are responsible?
Who are the people that are accountable?
Who are the people who are sort of just consultants
and who are the people who just need to be informed
or there because they have to be?
And I think Amazon has a really good,
they have something called the bar raiser
in their interview process.
And that person is just sitting back,
not a part of that organization.
And that person is responsible for making sure
that the interviewee is going to level up Amazon.
So that's pretty interesting in having
all of those different people around the table
and knowing who's who.
That's important, but it's also important to make sure
that everyone is heard.
So the example that I gave you, it's just that,
again, that's one of those things that you don't know.
If you don't know the military ranks, I'm gonna help you.
I'm gonna help you, hey, when the Admiral speaks,
this is what the Admiral's insignia looks like.
And you'll see everybody else defer to the Admiral,
the same thing.
Absolutely.
So these-
That felt like a ramble a little bit, but sorry.
No, no.
Hopefully I answered.
You did.
So you're talking to, let's say a founder
or a CEO and they're considering bringing
in a fractional COO, right?
Cause they don't have one.
They've had some office managers.
They've had people who've kind of filled the gap,
but they've realized like, oh,
that's really not how we're gonna go about the COO thing.
What are the main questions that they should be asking you
to really get down to business and understand
you're the right guy to turn to?
What is a fractional COO?
That's a good one.
Right, that's one.
And I think it's worth an explanation, right?
Because fractional is somebody who actually has the role,
the responsibility is a part of the leadership team,
an equal decision maker on the leadership team,
but does it work 40 hours a week?
Hold on, I'm gonna defend you real quick.
I'm gonna dive pretty deep on that.
I'm gonna hit this hard.
I want you to think about those deeper level questions, Ron.
And here's why, my friends,
here's why I'm interrupting Ron on this so rudely.
Ron is a nurturer to an extreme and I know that.
And we've seen that in our behind the scenes interactions
as well, so his goal right now is like,
man, I just wanted to find this for everybody.
That way everybody gets in the same page.
But Ron, I want you to take the time right now
to dive in for the people who already get it.
The people who are at the stage where they really,
like they understand the value of fractional CEO,
they might've even experimented with a few,
maybe they did that wrong a little bit.
What's that deeper level question they should be asking you
or the deeper level questions they should be considering
if they wanna like bring you into their operation right now?
Well, one, why do you think you need me?
And I really mean, honestly, right?
What is it?
What's going on in the company?
And I had one CEO say, listen,
I think we're doing great at the stuff that we do,
but I don't think we're doing really good
in running the business.
And I need someone that can help us do a better job
of running the business, right?
I need somebody that can take a look objectively
and tell us really what's going on
and be honest about it, right?
And they really should ask,
let me see how I can put this.
I can come in with a dispassionate view of the company,
I don't care who's related to who, right?
Who helped start the company.
I'm just looking objectively at this is what's going on.
Here and now.
This person is toxic, right?
And do you know, this person has to go.
Yeah, I know it's your co-founder,
but if you wanna get anywhere and your best friend.
Or your sister, right?
Your brother, parent, whatever,
but they're gonna have to go.
So what questions do you ask?
They have to be, will you be honest with me
about what you see?
And nobody is looking to hurt anybody's feelings,
but I have to be honest
because I'm on the side of the business, right?
And there's no malice there, right?
This is what I see, right?
It's not personal.
Facts.
Business.
Right, and this is what happened.
And as you well know, one person,
only takes one person can really, really sell a company.
You know, have you had, you know,
they can also ask about my, why do you do this, Ron?
Why do you do it?
And I tell them, again, I am one of,
I'm a generalist and I like to leave things better
than I found them.
And I, you know, will go in and look
and I just like to improve things.
I like to walk away and leave things better than they were
when I got there.
I am, you know, sort of addicted to self-improvement
and continuous improvement and all that stuff.
And that stuff I love.
I love to do that.
To help the addiction.
Right, and then they also will ask,
what's the ROI on working with you?
Right, now that is a tough question
because some of it suggests, a lot of it is.
Absolutely.
Right, and so some things take a little bit of time
because visionaries tend to be impatient
and some things take a little bit of time.
And I remember having a discussion with a CEO
who said, one of our ops people,
somebody who worked directly for me,
came up with this idea that was great.
And the CEO said, he goes,
well, why couldn't you have come up with this?
I go, well, that guy's been here for a couple of years.
Right, and I'm sure he had that idea a couple of years ago.
Right, so obviously the environment was such
that he wasn't comfortable sharing that idea.
I just came in and created an environment
in which him and others are much more comfortable
sharing ideas like that because guess what?
I am not an expert at what we do, right?
But they are, so all the problems within the company
and all the solutions within the company
rest with those on the front lines
and those that are actually doing it.
And I created an environment to help
where they felt comfortable voicing their concerns
and coming forth with solutions.
So that's why I didn't come up with that.
Right.
My job, Ron, that was awesome.
That's why I didn't come up with that, right?
I couldn't have come up with that.
You couldn't, it was his idea.
It just is what it is.
And thank goodness the value was now extracted.
So a way to articulate that,
a very diplomatic ability to voice that
and help them catch the combined value of both people
in a situation where it sounds like a leader
may have been trying to consider
how do I have one or the other rather than retain both?
And it's not always the way to grow
is looking at what you can eliminate,
but looking at how do we create additions
and cultivate new solutions.
So this is awesome.
Vision Pros, we're happy to have you on.
If you wanna connect with Ron,
absolutely reach out to him on LinkedIn and elsewhere.
You wanna have the social media platforms, Ron?
Just LinkedIn.
Hey, I like it, even simpler.
So we'll make sure to add that in the show notes.
Also, if you're on one of the other channels,
you wanna connect with them,
then just drop a comment on the show and let us know.
We'll for sure get him involved in that.
And maybe him or I will do
like the Loom video response to you
if you have a really good question.
We're always happy to give
and support anybody who's listening in.
So everybody have an excellent time sharing your vision.
If you wanna come on the show and share your vision,
don't hesitate to apply.
And Ron, thanks so much for being our guest today.
This was fantastic.
Thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time.