In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Megan Lynch, President and CEO at Six Point Creative about "Letting go of your Legacy Thinking and Approach your Business with Radical Courage". Get the answers to your "Radical Solution" questions along with Megan's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!
You can find out more about Megan and the wonderful team at Six Point Creative on trashing legacy thing and embracing radical solutions by the links below. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2020. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melynch/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sixpointcreative/
Company Website: https://sixpointcreative.com/
Free Stuff: Go to Six Point Creative and download your, Brand Touchpoint Matrix, Free Book: Hiring to Build Brand Value and Free Brand Assessment.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
companies, people, industrial, collaborate, stage, business, conversation, fears, talk, industry, built, innovate, megan, market, point, innovation, product, educate, listeners, scott
00:03
Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go. Alright, thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast where we celebrate you the industry heroes, you are bold, you are brave. You dare greatly solve problems, you're transforming lives and you're transforming the world. That's why we celebrate you, thank you very much for what you do to make our lives better. All right, in the hot seat. Her name is Megan Lynch. She is definitely the president and CEO of six point creative. And I gotta tell you, I was jacked on this particular doggone interview, because we talk a lot about being you know, bold, brave and daring greatly. It's one thing to talk about it. She does it, let's get cracking.
01:03
Yeah, which is really interesting when you get right down to it. Also there, and I'll talk about the necessity to be bold, to be brave, to dare greatly, specifically in this time of whatever the new normal next normal, whatever we call it, I got to come up with a better name. However, whatever we're living through. You've heard me talk over and over again about, yeah, there's the negative side. But I think there's the positive side. And I think that there is a desire to be more vulnerable, to be open to be, you know, just the necessity to be able to collaborate, because we need to educate, collaborate, and of course, innovate, especially now. But it's all great. And it's all wonderful. And it's all just dandy. Words, however, there's got to be action to it. And And what's great about Megan, is the simple fact that she does, she recognizes the necessity to be bold, brave and and dare greatly. But what does that mean? How does a business do that? How do we take it today? Whatever this world we live in today, and be able to be able to, you know, survive, rebuild and succeed. And, and she brings that real world that ability to be able to do that. So that, I mean, we need people, we need to constantly be out there and innovating. We need to be out there collaborating. And definitely she brings the tools to be able to do that now in line with what she's doing. I just plant the seed again, industry, industrial talk to Dotto is really just a neighborhood of industrial professionals. Yeah, it's a network but it's a neighborhood, because we have a desire to make everybody succeed, whatever that might be, whatever that level is. But more importantly, it is a great location to find where people are truly innovating and truly having a desire to collaborate. That's industrial talk to Dotto. It's in the works. We're doing it it's a neighborhood because we are bound together we have ties, and whether we like it or not, I think the pandemic has really highlighted the fact that we are we don't have all the answers. But you know what we have out there incredible professionals that understand what to do and how to do it, and be able to share that knowledge with you so that you can survive, rebuild and prosper. That's my intro. It's always the same, because it doesn't change. I mean, we just, we just got to collaborate. It's important to collaborate. Alright. Meghan Lynch,
03:48
President CEO, six point creative, we're gonna be talking about, you know, real tactical solutions to that point of thinking, you got to be bold, brave and daring greatly. You can't have that legacy thinking. You got to do it. What does that mean? How do you find that help? She's all about that. She's great. All right. Enjoy the interview. Megan, welcome to the industrial talk podcast, again, an absolute honor that you make time in your busy schedule to talk to the wonderful and bright listeners of industrial talk. That's what they are. Thanks so much, Scott. So excited about it. It's so cool, man. I'm going to have a great conversation. I mean,
04:27
listeners, we were having a conversation offline. As you know, we do all the time. We we do that just because we have to. And we were sort of wrestling with the necessity to educate and the companies that truly are committed to education will have no guarantees don't don't go to somebody and say, Scott guaranteed if I educate I'm going to be a success. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying companies that have a greater focus on education, have a greater opportunity for success. And that's all we're trying to create here and Megan brings the lumber in this particular conversation before we get into
05:00
That interview before, give us a little 411 on who you are and why you're such an incredible professional.
05:07
Absolutely. So I have a company called six point creative. My background is in brands strategy. But really kind of what six points focus is, is to help companies who are at an inflection point, we call them second stage companies that are often family owned businesses.
05:30
companies that have kind of hit this point of a plateau have, we've kind of tapped out our existing network, we've tapped out our growth opportunities, but we're still looking for more. And we still feel like there's more opportunity in the market. Those are the companies that we really honed everything that we do to try to help. And I really did that because I have a second stage company. And I just realized that how different the needs are of companies that are established in the marketplace, who have a reputation, who have something to lose, how different they are from like a startup company, and also how very different they are then a large corporation with, you know, deep pockets and multiple levels and lots of internal expertise. These companies are really in this messy middle. And I feel like although they're being served, I don't know that they're often being so like intentionally served right around that life stage in that interesting because I, I can see if you're at a position and you've talked about second stage companies, what define what that looks like? Yeah, yeah. So a second stage company is a company that has anywhere between 10 and 100. employees, like those are loose cut offs, but it tends to be the, the range that you see it happening. And basically what happens is, early on, when you're going into second stage, there's often these like, you start to see just the need for more process. The need everything that you're doing just feels like Oh, man, like when we were super small, this just hummed. And now everything's just like so much more difficult, it's hard for me to delegate things, people aren't listening, you have a lot more people problems, people are asking for more process, and you can't give it to them, right. And then on the later side of the company, this is usually when they've like matured through that cycle. And they have some expertise, and they have some systems and processes. And oftentimes, maybe like, if it's a family owned business, maybe they're bringing in like a professional CEO, with industry experience for the first time, who's going to kind of like lead this company into the next kind of generation. And oftentimes, what you start to see then is like this push pull between the past, which is like valuable, and it's where the relationships are. And it's all this historical, you know, again, from a brand perspective, it's kind of like, the reputation that you have, and the goodwill that you've built. That track record that's so important. And then the push pull between that and then this vision for a future, which might mean doing things differently than we've done them or pivoting, you know, taking our existing product line and moving it to a new market where we see opportunity, you know, something that's coming down the line and that innovation piece, and they're these tensions between like, you know, do we stay with what exists? Or do we do this new thing. And I think often companies look at this as like, I can only do one or the other. And I think what we're really there to say is like, no, there's a third path where like, keep your reputation, you keep your customers, you keep that strength that you've built, all of that is super valuable. And that's an asset that you need to leverage. And you also have this other thing, which is this innovation, this new market, this you know, maybe new sales strategy, whatever it is a new product innovation, those things, that's going to be what's going to sustain this into the future. Because you know, it is it does become a little bit of that grow or die piece of like, if you're not growing, then you're probably shrinking, if you're not out there. So this is what I this is my head and I'm processing this information, all I hear is like it and you need to change and you need to change more, and you need to change. And over here you need to change and change and change and change. And nobody you figure you figure if a company gets to this particular second stage, they've changed, they they put a lot of sweat equity in right now you're saying Hey, hey, you still need to change. I would imagine many of these companies are saying
09:44
I just want to glide on into whatever the future. Yep. How do you how do you keep them from saying you don't want to do that? Yeah, well, I mean, I think again, it does become figuring out what is important to them. You know, if if if change is there.
10:00
Really, totally unwilling to change and they have no vision for the future will then like that's not going to be that's not really a second stage company because they don't have that next stage vision they're not trying.
10:12
So it really what they want and what they have is where they want to stay, then that's great. Like, I don't want to, I'm not gonna mess with somebody's vision for their business. You know what, what I where we really thrive is with the companies that are struggling in this kind of like middle area of like, we want to change, we see it, there's more people who need our product, they often call themselves like we're a best kept secret in the market, I often hear that, that they'll refer to themselves as like, Oh, we are best kept secret. And I'm like, Okay, well, cute. Like, do you want to let that secret out? Because that's not like, it's great that you have the confidence in what you've built? And also you don't have to be a secret.
10:59
That's, that's true. It's sort of I've heard that same thing. Sure. Absolutely. We're the best kept secret. Well, then you're leaving money on the table? You're not Yes. That's fantastic. But but but but exactly. Yeah, they'll say it proudly, you know, because they've they've built so much equity in what you know, the product that they build, or their service team or whatever it is. And the but you know, I always look at it as like, there's probably more companies more people, you know, you're always talking about these people are changemakers, they are people who want to help their products get into the right hands of people who can do something amazing with them. And so for me, the question is always, like, you know, don't we want to get that into more hands? Do we want to, you know, increase that innovation in the market? You know, if you have something that's going to change an industry, like you need to let those engineers know, you need to let those product managers know.
11:58
You know, and give them the opportunity to use what you've built. So yeah, so Okay, listeners, what we have, we're talking about second stage, companies, that's between 10 and 100 employees. But I think the key here, what Megan has pointed out is that these second stage companies want to definitely focus on growth, they're willing to, you know, deal with the pain of change, and go through that process. And that's, that's a great thing. And don't be a best kept secret. That is where we're at now.
12:27
When we start talking about that, what the outside of all that, I would imagine, because of COVID. A lot of these companies been hit pretty hard. Yep. yet they're trying to survive, rebuild, and then try to prosper in this next normal. And what does that look like to you? Yeah, so for me, again, that one of the things that COVID has done is that like, a lot of the companies we work with, we're about to have their best year ever going into COVID, I heard that so much like we are poised for our best year ever. And then they get the rug ripped out of them. And,
13:05
you know, that has an emotional like psychological effect on you of well, now I'm going to be a little bit more fearful, like I thought I was doing everything right, I thought I had this figured out, and then this thing that I totally couldn't control, you know, takes all that away from me, and we did not have the gear that we want to have, you know, so it becomes this balancing act of making sure that companies like stay in some kind of comfort zone and keep some kind of realistic, you know, safety net for themselves. But at the same time, I think it's also given companies a sense of like, Hey, we were resting on our laurels a little bit, we were a little bit complacent. We didn't make some of the big decisions that we knew we had to make, whether that was you know, getting a product launch quickly, or whether it was some personnel changes that they needed to make, they're carrying some dead weight, you know, and I think that one of the good things about COVID is that it created a sense of urgency, right? Like I like all the business owners that I'm talking to are like, Hey, we made decisions that I knew I had to make. I just didn't want to make the tough. So
14:19
worse my hand. Yeah, this is exactly what I've heard the same thing. It's like, I believe, yeah, there's the pain of COVID. Got it. Everybody knows. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And we're not going to, you know, go through that. But I think there's a silver lining in the COVID conversation, and that is the conversation of resilience, and the truth right now we're having conversations that make sense, right? I'm not gonna sit there and lollygag and, and be lazy. I want to build a business of resilience. Because when this happens again, if it happens, again, haven't helped us. I'm ready. I got a business of resilience. So I see it as a positive thing.
15:00
And a conversation in the business of resiliency. Yeah, great. Yeah, absolutely. I think you're totally right, Scott. And I think, you know, one of the things that you talk a lot about is collaboration. And I think that that's the other been the other silver lining of COVID. And I've seen so many really cool collaborations of companies coming together to solve some really complex problems, I was just talking to somebody the other day who they have like a kiosk and cart...