Ian Altman: 00:00:02

Ian, welcome to the same side selling podcast. I am

Ian Altman: 00:00:05

your host. Ian Altman, today's conversation is a special one.

Ian Altman: 00:00:14

Many of you know or have heard me talk about my good friend

Ian Altman: 00:00:18

John Ruland, the founder of giftology. John's generosity and

Ian Altman: 00:00:22

relationship mindset inspired so many of us. And after John's

Ian Altman: 00:00:26

unexpected passing last year, his business partner, Rod

Ian Altman: 00:00:30

neuschwander, did I almost pronounce

Unknown: 00:00:32

that right? Rod, new inch wonder, but you're good.

Ian Altman: 00:00:36

I'll mess it up from now to the end of time, so I'd

Ian Altman: 00:00:39

face not only the personal loss of a friend and longtime

Ian Altman: 00:00:42

business partner, but the challenge of leading their

Ian Altman: 00:00:44

company through enormous uncertainty. And rod has

Ian Altman: 00:00:49

released a new book called from crisis to clarity, and it

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captures how he and his team found their way through that

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season, and what all of us can learn about leadership, purpose

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and resilience when everything changes, and when I say

Ian Altman: 00:01:03

everything I mean, Rod, we talked about it before. It was a

Ian Altman: 00:01:06

gut punch for me, I can't imagine for you. So thanks for

Ian Altman: 00:01:09

being here. I know this book comes from a deeply personal

Ian Altman: 00:01:11

place, and what made you feel the need to write it now?

Unknown: 00:01:16

Well, Ian, I wish that was a short answer, but it's not

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so I'm gonna but I think it will provide some context to

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everybody.

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There's two primary reasons I wrote this book. One is deep,

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personal ones deep pragmatic. The personal reason is simple. I

Unknown: 00:01:30

promised John that I would so you backtracked almost 20 years

Unknown: 00:01:34

ago. So 18 years ago when we joined forces, but at that

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point, the company is called ruling promotion group, and when

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we joined forces, the company was in trouble, and so trying to

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figure out what to do with it. This is before John was John

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ruling on stage, and for giftology was a thing, right?

Unknown: 00:01:49

And so at that point, prior to that, I had a history in

Unknown: 00:01:53

turnarounds, so, and John's in that story too, but there's just

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too many stories that I'm not gonna be able to share with you

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all the back, but the how I got into that, but I had done

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turnarounds before, so we were in that mode. Our lawyer

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approached us because one of his clients needed help, and so John

Unknown: 00:02:10

I talked it over, and we agreed that I would join in that and

Unknown: 00:02:13

help that company as a consultant under the ruling

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brand, because we needed the money, quite frankly, and so

Unknown: 00:02:19

well

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that engagement led to others, which ultimately resulted

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in a separate company that nobody really knows existed,

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called Google partners, where we partnered with founders of

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companies that were in trouble and needed turnaround, and so we

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helped them from turnaround to wealth trading event. Well, fast

Unknown: 00:02:37

forward, 15 plus years later, and John was consistently

Unknown: 00:02:40

pushing me to write about those experiences. You know John. So

Unknown: 00:02:43

you know that he could be annoyingly persistent when he

Unknown: 00:02:45

had those things in his mind. Yeah, a little bit

Unknown: 00:02:48

so. But I was always like, Hey, I

Unknown: 00:02:50

will, I promise you, I'll do it someday. And I just never did

Unknown: 00:02:53

it. Just didn't feel like timing is right. And then pragmatic

Unknown: 00:02:56

reason is, after John passed, I was being asked to participate

Unknown: 00:03:01

in podcasts and things of that sort, and you own a company

Unknown: 00:03:04

called giftology, like, what do you think they want to talk

Unknown: 00:03:07

about? Is gifting? Reality is, is I suck at gifting. I built

Unknown: 00:03:11

the infrastructure to allow others to gift like John and our

Unknown: 00:03:14

team is brilliant at it. That's not my thing. And so and then

Unknown: 00:03:17

one day, I was on a run, and I thought to myself, wonder if I

Unknown: 00:03:21

wrote a book about our current transformation. Think of it like

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a real time case study on transformation, because that

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allowed me to do two things at once, it honor my promise I made

Unknown: 00:03:31

to John, and then it would also allow me to speak about

Unknown: 00:03:35

pathology and what we're doing to transform, since it's passing

Unknown: 00:03:39

in the way that I can speak to with authority, and so that's

Unknown: 00:03:42

the foundation of why this book came to be. You

Ian Altman: 00:03:45

know what? I'm so glad you wrote it. And there's,

Ian Altman: 00:03:47

there's so many great lessons in here. I got to ask you, what did

Ian Altman: 00:03:51

the first few weeks or months look like for you as a friend

Ian Altman: 00:03:55

and as a leader, suddenly doing this without him?

Unknown: 00:03:58

Yeah, it's hard to put into words. I'm not generally an

Unknown: 00:04:01

emotional guy. And so when John passed, I was like, like, I was

Unknown: 00:04:06

emotionally like, I didn't know what to do. And so my personal

Unknown: 00:04:10

perspective from, you know, he's my, he's my best friend for 18

Unknown: 00:04:14

years plus, you know, and so that I was because family and

Unknown: 00:04:18

all that, the reality of it was as though is that we had a I

Unknown: 00:04:23

needed. I owed it to our team. I owed it to like our network, who

Unknown: 00:04:26

wanted to help in a way. So we needed to put a framework

Unknown: 00:04:30

together. So literally, within three days after John passed, I

Unknown: 00:04:34

forced myself to sit down and do what I've done for 10 other

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companies. Is right out of a recovery plan, what will be our

Unknown: 00:04:42

plan? So what I needed to be able to do is, like, even though

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our network wanted to help, we weren't able to, like, harness

Unknown: 00:04:48

that help. Like, well intentioned chaos is still

Unknown: 00:04:51

chaos. And so this allowed us to frame in like, what is our plan

Unknown: 00:04:56

for the company, because, and we had a very by that by the end.

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Of that weekend, some of a partner of mine wrote, we sat

Unknown: 00:05:04

down with Shaw Leah, one of our other team members, who mapped

Unknown: 00:05:07

out what the next year would look like for how we're going to

Unknown: 00:05:10

transform the pathology from where it was to where. So within

Unknown: 00:05:13

one week's time frame, we had the framework already built

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that's going to look like to the point where, at John's funeral,

Unknown: 00:05:19

we actually were able to meet with, you know, a Lister

Unknown: 00:05:22

networks who came into our funeral wanted to can hear from

Unknown: 00:05:25

us. So we, we literally had a time where we could help them.

Unknown: 00:05:29

This is our plan, and how they can help us go from that point

Unknown: 00:05:33

on. So that's what we did.

Ian Altman: 00:05:35

And then you're, I mean, at that point, I got to

Ian Altman: 00:05:37

believe there's a pivot where you're going from. You're kind

Ian Altman: 00:05:40

of shifting from survival reactive mode to strategic

Ian Altman: 00:05:45

rebuilding mode. And so in the middle of that loss and chaos,

Ian Altman: 00:05:50

you built this whole framework. And I think it'd be helpful for

Ian Altman: 00:05:54

people to kind of unpack what that looks like, because it's

Ian Altman: 00:05:58

really a valuable lesson that you've got in this where you

Ian Altman: 00:06:02

built this framework that helps people in any type of crisis

Ian Altman: 00:06:05

situation to build that clarity. So the name of the book is, is

Ian Altman: 00:06:10

perfect for that. So can you talk about kind of the main

Ian Altman: 00:06:13

pillars of that framework? Yeah, so,

Unknown: 00:06:16

and this is, go back to all the companies we partner

Unknown: 00:06:18

with, including, I was the board chair of a

Unknown: 00:06:20

university as well, using thought pattern when we had to

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transform that. Transforming a university is complex as it is,

Unknown: 00:06:27

just because everything happens so ridiculously slow, same

Unknown: 00:06:30

framework exists. So the structure of what this looks

Unknown: 00:06:34

like is there's four key elements. Is start with a clear

Unknown: 00:06:38

purpose statement. And this is not like a mission statement.

Unknown: 00:06:42

This is a rally. This is sort of like, like, re anchoring

Unknown: 00:06:46

everything that you're going to be doing to transform your

Unknown: 00:06:48

company for us, ours is simple. We help leaders love on their

Unknown: 00:06:51

relationships, because we believe everything rises on and

Unknown: 00:06:54

falls on relationships, and why relationships take you a

Unknown: 00:06:57

marketing can, and that's been central to everything that

Unknown: 00:07:00

John's been doing, and not what our company has been using. Way

Unknown: 00:07:04

before giftology was actually a thing, right, going all the way

Unknown: 00:07:06

back to our days, right? And so that's what that's that sets the

Unknown: 00:07:11

direction right now, how you actually manage through that is

Unknown: 00:07:17

there's, there's three key elements after your clear

Unknown: 00:07:21

purpose statement, a go forward operating plan. Go forward,

Unknown: 00:07:25

financial plan and go forward. Team can plan. But the key of

Unknown: 00:07:29

this Ian, is that it all has to fit on one page, because we're

Unknown: 00:07:33

simplifying everything down to the highest and most strategic

Unknown: 00:07:37

priorities in all three of those buckets. And so that's, that's

Unknown: 00:07:41

the framework of what we walk through. It's like, what is that

Unknown: 00:07:44

going to look like? And I offered it in the book too. I

Unknown: 00:07:46

gave though. This is, this is there are, like, uncovering of

Unknown: 00:07:50

what we felt like were our realities. And then this, this

Unknown: 00:07:54

is our actual one page plan that we set forth in the primary

Unknown: 00:07:59

element of that centers around your operating plan and the way

Unknown: 00:08:03

we think about that, and the way I do that, as for every company

Unknown: 00:08:06

that we partnered with as a founder in crisis, I center it

Unknown: 00:08:11

on, like, your key economic drivers of, like, that's what

Unknown: 00:08:14

you're operating and it's kind of the what and the who of what,

Unknown: 00:08:17

of what you do. And so I have a very simple formula. I put it

Unknown: 00:08:20

into the here too. It sort of anchors it. It's like, what are

Unknown: 00:08:24

your customers have to pay you for? Shows you what. There's a

Unknown: 00:08:27

market for it. And then of those products and services, what's

Unknown: 00:08:30

the most profitable has Predictable Revenue and scalable

Unknown: 00:08:33

cost centers. Because I know for a recovery to be successful, you

Unknown: 00:08:38

have to have consistent earnings and or predictable revenue. The

Unknown: 00:08:41

scalable cost centers provided a pathway of predictable revenue.

Unknown: 00:08:45

So I sort of anchored everything on that. So for giftologies,

Unknown: 00:08:48

example, we had, we had started working on programmatic side of

Unknown: 00:08:53

like, what the next version of giftology was going to be,

Unknown: 00:08:56

because it wasn't. It's not, it's not about the gifting and

Unknown: 00:08:59

people Johnny, I mean, to hear John say, it's not about the

Unknown: 00:09:02

gifts, it's about the relationship. And we needed

Unknown: 00:09:05

that. We needed to bridge that gap. And so we've been we spent

Unknown: 00:09:08

like years working on like messaging to really, truly

Unknown: 00:09:10

understand, like, how we could get that message across. Well.

Unknown: 00:09:14

So we had built some foundational things prior to

Unknown: 00:09:17

this, and our team, Sarah Hardwick and Mike Monroe

Unknown: 00:09:21

specifically were working on this programmatic side prior to

Unknown: 00:09:24

John passing, and it was literally called John not

Unknown: 00:09:27

needed, which is unbelievably difficult to think about, but on

Unknown: 00:09:31

anchor point. And so that that program, programmatic side,

Unknown: 00:09:35

because we know when John passed, we lost 70% of most

Unknown: 00:09:38

software. So my my goal was, is like, in the operating plan, how

Unknown: 00:09:42

do we what's the march to replace that without putting

Unknown: 00:09:45

pressure on the team to replace it tomorrow? Like we need to

Unknown: 00:09:48

have the march. So we, we on that side. We just needed 600

Unknown: 00:09:52

people, clients joining our program and that. And we had,

Unknown: 00:09:55

before that, even we started, we had 800 people in the in the

Unknown: 00:09:58

free version of it, that were like, this is. Great. So we knew

Unknown: 00:10:01

that the market existed. So for the first part of my my model,

Unknown: 00:10:05

and then, so what we that's, that's, that's what became

Unknown: 00:10:08

mission 600 so our primary operating priority, of the four

Unknown: 00:10:12

or five things that we had listed, there's not 20 things, I

Unknown: 00:10:16

would say we're operating plan has to be three to five Max,

Unknown: 00:10:20

right? That's your priority. So mission 600 was ours.

Ian Altman: 00:10:23

And what I love rod is that you say it's all going

Ian Altman: 00:10:25

to fit on one page, so this purpose statement, and then you

Ian Altman: 00:10:29

know this, go forward on, on operations, finance and team,

Ian Altman: 00:10:33

it's all going to fit on one page. Because too often I see my

Ian Altman: 00:10:36

clients like, here's this plan we have, and it's like, 17

Ian Altman: 00:10:38

pages. I'm like, Dude, no one's gonna read it. Let's let alone

Ian Altman: 00:10:41

do it. But getting it all to one page, and I'm assuming you don't

Ian Altman: 00:10:44

mean in four point type, so right?

Unknown: 00:10:49

It forces you to like, what is the most important

Unknown: 00:10:52

things, because not every work. And so right now, these are what

Unknown: 00:10:55

it is. And so from the operating side, it was three to five.

Unknown: 00:10:57

Typically, for the finance plan, you're talking two to three. And

Unknown: 00:11:00

then for the team, plan is two to three. And that's sort of how

Unknown: 00:11:04

it sort of plays out. That and but that that simplification, it

Unknown: 00:11:09

requires you to really operate. I always say it's like operating

Unknown: 00:11:12

in the macro versus the micro, like you have to be able to

Unknown: 00:11:15

speak of the big picture when you're in these situations.

Unknown: 00:11:19

Otherwise everything becomes noise. And here's the thing, the

Unknown: 00:11:21

reality of it is, is it's easy to fall back into like doing,

Unknown: 00:11:25

because like, there's, there's so many things to like you have

Unknown: 00:11:28

to address and do, but you like, you're not going to transform

Unknown: 00:11:31

your company by doing. So you have to, like, be able to step

Unknown: 00:11:34

out of it and say, what are the major things that I need to

Unknown: 00:11:37

focus my energy on and have my team focused on as we continue

Unknown: 00:11:40

to serve and support our client base and make that transition

Unknown: 00:11:44

happen. So that's that's why it's on page.

Ian Altman: 00:11:47

Of course, one of the things you talk about is is

Ian Altman: 00:11:49

separating what's in your control from what's not in your

Ian Altman: 00:11:52

control. And I imagine that's got to be especially challenging

Ian Altman: 00:11:56

for people when emotions and urgency are high as you were

Ian Altman: 00:11:59

going through. And so when you're in that kind of you know

Ian Altman: 00:12:05

that crisis mode. What's the discipline that you follow as

Ian Altman: 00:12:09

you're making calm, clear decisions? Or is it just coming

Ian Altman: 00:12:13

back to this framework? If you want to get top results for your

Ian Altman: 00:12:16

team, take a look at the same side selling Academy. Just visit

Ian Altman: 00:12:21

same side selling.com to learn more.

Unknown: 00:12:24

The framework is your anchor. That anchors you. But I

Unknown: 00:12:28

will say, like in the book, I talk about it too, it's like you

Unknown: 00:12:30

have to be able to lead yourself first, an emotional framework

Unknown: 00:12:36

deal with that you can't

Unknown: 00:12:37

deal with it. And it's not just about like your team's coming.

Unknown: 00:12:41

You your team are in our case, we had a broader network of

Unknown: 00:12:46

1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people that wanted to help. So

Unknown: 00:12:50

it's not just about like, like your emotional response. So if

Unknown: 00:12:54

you panic, your organization will spiral. And so if you're

Unknown: 00:12:57

not able to like frame yourself and be able to lead yourself

Unknown: 00:13:01

first. You're not going to be successful in this whole thing.

Unknown: 00:13:03

So I talked about how to do that in the book. And for me, I have

Unknown: 00:13:05

a personal habit of running. It's kind of an obsession. At

Unknown: 00:13:09

this point I've had it Mr. I haven't missed a week of runs in

Unknown: 00:13:12

over 15 years. Now. It's like then and so. But for me, it's

Unknown: 00:13:15

actually not just the physical benefits also, like, the only

Unknown: 00:13:18

time I'm completely alone in my thoughts, like, I have time for

Unknown: 00:13:21

prayer. I have time for like, addressing some thing I'm

Unknown: 00:13:24

concerned about. It's like that time allows me to, like, really

Unknown: 00:13:28

center myself. And then the other thing that we we talk

Unknown: 00:13:31

about openly and within the team is like, we face brutal facts

Unknown: 00:13:34

and reality, like we don't, like, acting like something

Unknown: 00:13:37

doesn't exist isn't going to help anybody, and pretending

Unknown: 00:13:41

some miraculous things going to happen isn't help anybody,

Unknown: 00:13:44

either. It's like, you can start with those two anchor points,

Unknown: 00:13:47

then you can, sort of like, work yourself through the emotional

Unknown: 00:13:50

side of it.

Unknown: 00:13:51

Particular case, like, I

Unknown: 00:13:53

have to say, was probably like, by far the most challenging,

Unknown: 00:13:56

just because of my deep personal relationship with them, and

Unknown: 00:13:59

trying to reconcile that side of it at the same time as that was

Unknown: 00:14:04

exceedingly challenging for me.

Ian Altman: 00:14:06

Oh, yeah, you know, it's just like, I don't know how

Ian Altman: 00:14:09

many times talking to people on your team, like, how's the team

Ian Altman: 00:14:12

doing? How's rod doing? It's like, you know, yeah, of course,

Ian Altman: 00:14:15

I want to know how Lindsay was doing and other kids doing and

Ian Altman: 00:14:18

all that. But it's like, more man, like, this is like, because

Ian Altman: 00:14:21

everyone guess what, it's okay. We're dealing with this grief,

Ian Altman: 00:14:24

and we have to keep going, and we have to grow, and we have to

Ian Altman: 00:14:27

honor John's legacy, all at the same time, while you're also

Ian Altman: 00:14:31

dealing with this. I don't know if you know this. My listeners

Ian Altman: 00:14:33

probably heard me tell this story a bunch of times, but the

Ian Altman: 00:14:37

way that John and I met was over the years as a speaker, I get a

Ian Altman: 00:14:42

lot of gifts from people, and there were three gifts that

Ian Altman: 00:14:45

stood out over and over, and the first time I got something, wow,

Ian Altman: 00:14:48

this is really cool. That's really interesting, that's made

Ian Altman: 00:14:51

a huge impression, and it's personalized to me and my wife,

Ian Altman: 00:14:54

not to anyone else. Hey, I gotta ask, where'd you get this? Oh,

Ian Altman: 00:14:58

this group, giftology. And John. Ian ruling, whatever. Okay, it's

Ian Altman: 00:15:01

interesting. And then, like, few months later, I get this other

Ian Altman: 00:15:04

gift, totally different gift, personalize this and that for me

Ian Altman: 00:15:07

and my wife, I'm like, that's really interesting, because all

Ian Altman: 00:15:11

these other gifts I've totally forgotten about, they make no

Ian Altman: 00:15:13

impression. This is second thing that has, Hey, where'd you get

Ian Altman: 00:15:16

this? Oh, I don't know. Let me check with my team. And then,

Ian Altman: 00:15:19

like, they come back, some guy, John ruling, giftology,

Ian Altman: 00:15:23

interesting. By the time we get the third one, I was like, Hey,

Ian Altman: 00:15:26

did you get this from giftology? And John ruling, Yeah, how'd you

Ian Altman: 00:15:29

know? Just a hunch. And it was like, I reached out to John. I'm

Ian Altman: 00:15:32

like, dude, like, this is when I'm speaking. I'm covering these

Ian Altman: 00:15:36

stories, and I'm sharing your story because it made a big

Ian Altman: 00:15:39

difference. And you know, there's so many things that it's

Ian Altman: 00:15:43

funny, my clients will say to me, they'll be like, yeah, and

Ian Altman: 00:15:46

as Ian tells us, you don't want to give a gift during the

Ian Altman: 00:15:49

holidays when everyone else does, I'm like, no, no, as John

Ian Altman: 00:15:52

said, like you heard it from me, but it was like, that was, that

Ian Altman: 00:15:55

was John's message. And then with my clients, it's like,

Ian Altman: 00:15:59

we'll send a gift. And more than half of them, I believe, reach

Ian Altman: 00:16:04

out to you guys and like, Okay, we need to do a program like

Ian Altman: 00:16:07

this for our clients. And it's just they see how it makes them

Ian Altman: 00:16:12

feel, and they're like, Okay. And it's funny, because I'm sure

Ian Altman: 00:16:15

you guys face this as a business, where people come to

Ian Altman: 00:16:18

you and like, what's the ROI for this? Like, can you can you

Ian Altman: 00:16:21

measure it tangibly? It's like, okay, I can't tell you what's

Ian Altman: 00:16:26

the specific ROI. I can tell you that when we do this, we tend to

Ian Altman: 00:16:30

get a lot more referrals and repeat business, yeah. Like, is

Ian Altman: 00:16:34

it just because of that? No, but what it does our clients say,

Ian Altman: 00:16:37

Wow, these guys really appreciate us. And what I find

Ian Altman: 00:16:41

funny is we'll send a gift to somebody, and then six months

Ian Altman: 00:16:46

later, the guy will call up, and I'm like, Oh, hey, what inspired

Ian Altman: 00:16:48

you to call? He goes, Oh, my wife was using that thing you

Ian Altman: 00:16:52

sent us. And said, Hey, if you talk to Ian Altman lately, and

Ian Altman: 00:16:58

it's like, Where'd that come from? And it's things like that

Ian Altman: 00:17:02

John taught, and using what you guys teach at giftology is so

Ian Altman: 00:17:06

valuable. So yeah, what I'm curious about is, how did you

Ian Altman: 00:17:11

talk to your team during this period, and what did you find

Ian Altman: 00:17:15

worked and what didn't work? Because obviously you can't just

Ian Altman: 00:17:18

say, Hey guys, John's not here to do this. So here, like, like

Ian Altman: 00:17:21

you said before, you can't just shift all the pressure to them.

Ian Altman: 00:17:24

They feel enough pressure as it is. So how'd you talk to them?

Ian Altman: 00:17:27

What worked and what didn't?

Unknown: 00:17:29

You know? Like I said, we're I was honest. Like, hey,

Unknown: 00:17:31

listen, I know. Like, the first the very first day after

Unknown: 00:17:35

he passed, we had a meeting that day, and then the very next

Unknown: 00:17:37

meeting, we had another meeting. I'm like, I know you're

Unknown: 00:17:39

expecting me to have a plan, because that's who I am. Not

Unknown: 00:17:42

there yet, I was just super honest with them. But the

Unknown: 00:17:45

reality of it is, is that, like coming back to them on day three

Unknown: 00:17:50

with the framework of like, I don't know how everything is

Unknown: 00:17:53

going to look, but here's what I do. Know it's like the market

Unknown: 00:17:57

needs what we have to offer and offer it. And so, you know,

Unknown: 00:18:02

steadfast in that. You know, over the last since that

Unknown: 00:18:05

timeframe, though, we set the direction in the guard girls

Unknown: 00:18:08

based on the one page plan that you can read here, and we've

Unknown: 00:18:10

been able to recalibrate giftology. Because the reality

Unknown: 00:18:14

of it is, is like, there's no way you can replace a John

Unknown: 00:18:17

ruling. It's irreplaceable. But we had unbelievable talent in in

Unknown: 00:18:23

a lot of really positive things happening within the company

Unknown: 00:18:27

that we leaned on heavily and became our future and part of

Unknown: 00:18:30

that whole thing. So what we talk about openly in the company

Unknown: 00:18:34

is like we're honoring John's legacy by transforming into what

Unknown: 00:18:39

we can become, and not preserving what we was right

Unknown: 00:18:42

this transition, like what we were able to do, we mapped out

Unknown: 00:18:45

this was part of our overall plan. Anyway. John was going to

Unknown: 00:18:50

be the leading voice in this transition. He wasn't here to do

Unknown: 00:18:53

it, but we condensed three years worth of plans into one year of

Unknown: 00:18:57

execution. This team did it so they're amazing. That's but

Unknown: 00:19:04

that's what it takes, because we simplified our approach, right?

Unknown: 00:19:07

And the other thing I'll tell you is, like Lindsay, John,

Unknown: 00:19:10

spouse and I are 100% behind this. And so the one way you can

Unknown: 00:19:15

show it as leaders, as you push your money where your mouth is,

Unknown: 00:19:18

so if you go to our financial plan, so we have mission 600 but

Unknown: 00:19:22

the question was, how do you fund that plan? Well, in our

Unknown: 00:19:25

financial plan is like, what I quickly realized is like, if

Unknown: 00:19:28

Lindsay, if John and I's income wouldn't be encumbered on the

Unknown: 00:19:31

company, then for we would keep our whole team intact, and we'd

Unknown: 00:19:35

remain profitable as we transform. So we made that

Unknown: 00:19:39

commitment so for two years. So, like, we're giving our team the

Unknown: 00:19:43

runway. If you want to inspire your team, you put your money

Unknown: 00:19:47

where your mouth is. Say, I'm betting on you.

Ian Altman: 00:19:50

Yeah, you know what? It's interesting. My prior

Ian Altman: 00:19:52

business post, 911 we had we thought we were highly

Ian Altman: 00:19:56

diversified in our business, and it turns out we were. We were

Ian Altman: 00:20:00

diversified in insurance, financial services, banking, all

Ian Altman: 00:20:05

financial services. It's like, in our mind, we had three

Ian Altman: 00:20:07

different markets. It was all financial services. Post 911 it

Ian Altman: 00:20:11

was like we just got crushed. And as we were rebuilding, I

Ian Altman: 00:20:17

remember we weren't probably a flaw at the time. We weren't as

Ian Altman: 00:20:21

transparent as you guys are, and so I don't think our team even

Ian Altman: 00:20:24

realized it for a while. But at one point someone said, well,

Ian Altman: 00:20:27

like, we haven't had raises or anything. I said, Look, you

Ian Altman: 00:20:30

know, Bob and I, we're the two owners the company. We haven't

Ian Altman: 00:20:33

paid ourselves because we didn't want you guys to feel this. And

Ian Altman: 00:20:36

all of a sudden the team was like, oh, like, we had no idea,

Ian Altman: 00:20:40

okay. And just that kind of inspired people, which was a

Ian Altman: 00:20:43

clue to me that I should have said something earlier. And of

Ian Altman: 00:20:45

course, we rebuilt it, it grew, and then we ended up building a

Ian Altman: 00:20:48

much larger organization over a couple years. But it was a it

Ian Altman: 00:20:53

was a big learning experience, and I think that the personal

Ian Altman: 00:20:57

touch that you guys have, the relationship with your team,

Ian Altman: 00:21:00

this clarity that you provided under crisis, I think, obviously

Ian Altman: 00:21:05

inspired your team. I've never got the sense in talking to

Ian Altman: 00:21:09

people on your team that people felt, oh, like there's no way

Ian Altman: 00:21:13

forward. I think they always felt like, No, we got to honor

Ian Altman: 00:21:15

John's legacy, and here's the way we're going to do it. And

Ian Altman: 00:21:18

you know, and I think that you know, knowing John, John would

Ian Altman: 00:21:22

be extremely proud of what you've done, what the team's

Ian Altman: 00:21:25

doing, and would feel really honored in doing so. And I think

Ian Altman: 00:21:29

he'd be pissed that he's not here to celebrate it with us,

Ian Altman: 00:21:32

but, but, you know, but he'd be proud of what everyone's done.

Ian Altman: 00:21:37

It's

Unknown: 00:21:37

heartbreaking too, for that same reason, because he

Unknown: 00:21:39

would be super excited about the direction that we've taken the

Unknown: 00:21:43

brand and the speed at which we've done it. But the the

Unknown: 00:21:46

point, like, what you mentioned is not unusual, though, because

Unknown: 00:21:48

we're talking about a situation where our situation is dramatic

Unknown: 00:21:52

event, like, there's, like, everybody's aware, right? So,

Unknown: 00:21:56

but like, what you talked about is a different type of crisis,

Unknown: 00:22:00

but it's still a crisis, right? So I talk about there's four

Unknown: 00:22:03

types of crisis in the book that we talked about, because in my

Unknown: 00:22:06

at least, from my experience, like there's four crisis, there

Unknown: 00:22:08

might be more, but from my experiences, and some of those

Unknown: 00:22:11

are those types of things where it's like, like a fire I call it

Unknown: 00:22:14

is like when you lose somebody like John and 70% of your

Unknown: 00:22:18

revenue. But there's others like slow leaks, where you know

Unknown: 00:22:21

things just are eroding, but you don't address them. Or there's

Unknown: 00:22:24

like leadership challenges where you know those are really hard

Unknown: 00:22:27

because people have to be humble. What people don't know

Unknown: 00:22:29

about John is John was so successful in world class

Unknown: 00:22:32

talent, but unbelievably humble and so

Unknown: 00:22:37

but I've experienced the exact opposite too, right? And so

Unknown: 00:22:41

there's other leadership challenges

Unknown: 00:22:42

that are really difficult, because you have to have that

Unknown: 00:22:45

humility in order for to make that change happen. And then

Unknown: 00:22:48

there's others, like hamster, I call it chronic

Unknown: 00:22:50

underperformance, like, I've been partnered with so many

Unknown: 00:22:52

companies with chronic underperformance crisis, where

Unknown: 00:22:55

it's like they were, in some cases, they were in business for

Unknown: 00:22:57

over 20 years, when they're just sort of existed, right? But the

Unknown: 00:23:02

same framework we use for giftology, we use for all these

Unknown: 00:23:05

companies, isn't it helps you, like this, jump out of that

Unknown: 00:23:09

crisis into the next phase as you move forward. So it doesn't

Unknown: 00:23:12

matter what, what sort of situation you're talking about,

Unknown: 00:23:15

it still works, right? And so in our case, that's it's just more

Unknown: 00:23:20

apparent and obvious, and everybody can see it.

Ian Altman: 00:23:23

Yeah, and it's interesting, because I have

Ian Altman: 00:23:25

clients who they'll be facing, and I think every organization

Ian Altman: 00:23:28

gets this where you feel like whatever you're facing is the

Ian Altman: 00:23:31

biggest thing possible that you couldn't imagine. And the beauty

Ian Altman: 00:23:36

of of what you've done and what you've written about is that,

Ian Altman: 00:23:39

you know, I think that by most standards, what you faced is

Ian Altman: 00:23:45

about as big of a gut punch as someone can have. And you came

Ian Altman: 00:23:49

up with a resilient path to provide that clarity and end up

Ian Altman: 00:23:52

with, you know, coming out on the other end in a really good

Ian Altman: 00:23:55

spot. And I think that when people struggle with things

Ian Altman: 00:23:59

like, I'll get clients like, oh, you know, we lost this account,

Ian Altman: 00:24:02

man. Like, and they'll, like, fall into what, you know, what

Ian Altman: 00:24:05

is probably clinically defined as depression. I'm like, Dude,

Ian Altman: 00:24:09

you got a $20 million business that's thrown off profit, and

Ian Altman: 00:24:12

you just lost a major account. And that's upsetting. But in the

Ian Altman: 00:24:16

grand scheme of things, you got a really successful business.

Ian Altman: 00:24:19

You're doing great like put it in perspective. And I think

Ian Altman: 00:24:22

coming back to that notion of what's your purpose, what's your

Ian Altman: 00:24:28

go forward play, that framework, those pillars of what's my go go

Ian Altman: 00:24:32

forward, playing operationally, financially and with a team, get

Ian Altman: 00:24:36

it down to one page. I think that's such a powerful message

Ian Altman: 00:24:39

for people, that no matter where they are, no matter what crisis

Ian Altman: 00:24:42

they feel they're in, if that got you through this, then using

Ian Altman: 00:24:47

that same model for other people's businesses and with all

Ian Altman: 00:24:51

the different businesses that you've helped, I think it's a

Ian Altman: 00:24:53

very valuable tool. So Ron, where's the best place for

Ian Altman: 00:24:57

people to get the book and to learn more about. What you guys

Ian Altman: 00:25:00

do on a giftology

Unknown: 00:25:02

so the book can get on Amazon, or you can go to

Unknown: 00:25:05

business on the brink.com.

Ian Altman: 00:25:06

Okay, so business on the brink.com or Amazon, the

Ian Altman: 00:25:09

book is called From Crisis to clarity. Correct,

Unknown: 00:25:13

yep, correct, yep. Giftology group.com Yeah.

Ian Altman: 00:25:16

Giftology group.com and of course, you know most of

Ian Altman: 00:25:19

the people on this podcast, obviously, people are our

Ian Altman: 00:25:21

clients on the receiving end of stuff that comes from giftology.

Ian Altman: 00:25:25

And I can't tell you rod the operation side of it and how you

Ian Altman: 00:25:28

executed that so your and the the amazing people on your team.

Ian Altman: 00:25:32

And I just want to share a couple stories where we close so

Ian Altman: 00:25:35

that people can appreciate the stuff that that you guys do. I

Ian Altman: 00:25:40

can't tell you, over the last whatever decade or so, how many

Ian Altman: 00:25:43

times I have said to someone on your team, oh, let's send this

Ian Altman: 00:25:47

to so and so, and your team says, Hey, that's a great idea.

Ian Altman: 00:25:50

Ian, in fact, it's such a great idea that you sent that to them

Ian Altman: 00:25:53

18 months ago. Here's what we suggest instead. And I'm like,

Ian Altman: 00:25:57

How do you know that? Like, I lost track of what we sent to

Ian Altman: 00:26:01

this person. Or I'll say, hey, I want to send this to somebody.

Ian Altman: 00:26:04

It's a new client. They're like, we're happy to send that. It's

Ian Altman: 00:26:07

not a new client. You send them something six months ago, and

Ian Altman: 00:26:09

like, Oh, I forgot. Like, that's why we want you to have this

Ian Altman: 00:26:12

structure and this process. And I'm like, Yeah, I know. And so

Ian Altman: 00:26:16

they always cover that. People often say to me, they're like,

Ian Altman: 00:26:19

man, like the note you guys write is, like, so thoughtful,

Ian Altman: 00:26:22

and like, so like, the handwriting is perfect. I'm

Ian Altman: 00:26:25

like, a It's not my handwriting. And two, the people at giftology

Ian Altman: 00:26:29

crafted that note, because I will usually say, here's the

Ian Altman: 00:26:32

note I want to send. And one of your gift one of your giftology

Ian Altman: 00:26:36

experts will be like, Hey, Ian, that's a lovely note. What do

Ian Altman: 00:26:39

you think about this instead, like that's way better. And now

Ian Altman: 00:26:43

I will often just say, here's the note, here's the gist of

Ian Altman: 00:26:47

what I want to send. What should it say? And your team comes back

Ian Altman: 00:26:50

with something that's way better than I would have ever written,

Ian Altman: 00:26:53

and

Unknown: 00:26:55

they're so gifted in what they do. But the center of

Unknown: 00:26:57

what you talked about, if the operational system has been

Unknown: 00:27:01

designed because of one reason, and that's because we're

Unknown: 00:27:04

handling people's most important relationships, and we know

Unknown: 00:27:07

that's currency, right? And so we have to deliver excellence

Unknown: 00:27:11

every single time. And so we built structures and sure that

Unknown: 00:27:15

we can deliver excellence because we know the critical

Unknown: 00:27:17

nature of it. And so it ties back to that mission that we

Unknown: 00:27:20

talked about earlier, prior to this ever happening for us

Unknown: 00:27:23

organization. This isn't new, like we had that same focus for

Unknown: 00:27:28

18 plus years now,

Ian Altman: 00:27:30

yeah, and you guys have been body from crisis to

Ian Altman: 00:27:32

clarity. I mean, it's, it's plain and simple as that, and

Ian Altman: 00:27:35

just execution wise, you know, you don't see a difference from

Ian Altman: 00:27:41

the business side. And I'm sure with all the things that you

Ian Altman: 00:27:43

guys have had to deal with internally, it would be easy for

Ian Altman: 00:27:47

all those challenges to be surfaced to the customer. And as

Ian Altman: 00:27:50

customers, we don't see it. And certainly, my clients who

Ian Altman: 00:27:52

receive gifts don't see it. And to your point, it's not about

Ian Altman: 00:27:56

the gift, it's it's kind of funny. People often say to me,

Ian Altman: 00:28:00

they're like, You know what I mean, that the item was great,

Ian Altman: 00:28:04

but the way it was packaged, and the note and all the thought

Ian Altman: 00:28:07

that went into it, that's what really stood out. And I think

Ian Altman: 00:28:10

that that's something that John embodied and that you have

Ian Altman: 00:28:14

instilled in the organization, and it's something that you know

Ian Altman: 00:28:18

my clients, who also use giftology, often say to me,

Ian Altman: 00:28:21

like, Man, I had no idea how big an impact this would have. And

Ian Altman: 00:28:26

the nice thing about having you on is that people get to see the

Ian Altman: 00:28:29

operations and the leadership behind it. That makes all that

Ian Altman: 00:28:33

stuff seem automatic and easy. So it's really been an honor to

Ian Altman: 00:28:36

have you here, Rod and to learn from you. Been a lot of fun. I

Ian Altman: 00:28:41

appreciate it all right, cool. Thanks so much. Yeah, take care.

Ian Altman: 00:28:45

Now you.