The 80/20 CEO Author Bill Canady on the Strategy Skills podcast

Welcome to the strategy skills podcast, I'm your host Kris Safarova and our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com if you want to strengthen your strategy skills you can get the overall approach used in well-managed strategy studies it's a free download and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach and you can also get Mckenzie and BCG winning resume free download and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. And today we have with us Bill Canady who is the CEO of both OTC Industrial Technologies and Arowhead Engineered Products at OTC he led a 43% increase in revenue and an 80% rise in earnings with annual sales now exceeding $1 billion at AE he oversees more than 3,600 employees and 1.5 billion in sales Bill Canady is also a US Navy veteran thank you for your service and hold an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business welcome Bill. Well it's great to be here Kris thank you so much for for having having me and you're you're quite the hype person so I'm I'm excited how has your military experience shaped your leadership style you know that's a that's a really interesting uh question thank Thank you for it so uh yeah so I was in high school got out of high school wasn't sure what to go do and I joined the Navy so I uh joined the Navy went away to boot camp and uh and from there uh you know it's it's interesting i you think as a kid you know everything but as soon as you get into the Navy you'll quickly learn that uh you have no idea what's going on and so the Navy the United States uh Navy made a huge difference for me it made a man out of me it showed me I could take orders listen to orders follow through and it also showed me I could lead so I will be forever grateful uh to the Navy i honestly I think a lot more of us would be better off if we went in it ourselves what do you think was the most pivotal moment in your career and how did it influence the leader you are today and maybe it is during your military days or maybe afterwards yeah you know that's an interesting question uh from from the idea of the most pivotal moment for me I'll tell you so it's this is such a such a a uh a behind thescenes answer so I was I was working for this company i had been doing pretty well and I got a new boss and the new boss did did not really like me didn't like the whole team to be honest with you and I recognized that at the end of the day I was probably going to have to go do something else so I'm talking to my wife and and we're sitting around we're actually it's late at night we're having a glass of wine and she's asking me what I want to go do and I'm telling you know I I love my job i love the company I was with uh but I didn't feel this was going to you I was going to be able to make it and and she uh she kind of calls me out on it she's like "What are you talking about?" Right be be a man stand up go fight for what you care about and you know that's that's exactly what I did i I went back to work with a renewed sense of vigor you know I was I was young at the time i had two small children uh both under the age of six years old i I had to go figure out how I was going to make this living and I needed that job and my wife pushing me telling me I was better than that made all the difference it made me realize kind of like the Navy did that if you if you take uh uh ownership of what you've got going on uh you put yourself out there and you have no choice but do but to go and be successful you're going to be successful so for me my wife pushing me telling me I could do it was probably the most pivotal pivotable part of my career and I'm so glad you brought it up because I think that some people don't really realize how important it is to find the right life partner and what an incredibly crucial role they play in how successful you will be how happy you will be not just in personal life but also professionally absolutely i would not be the person I was if I look I got lucky i have no idea how I got so lucky i I feel bad for my wife she chose me but for me it was a really winning combination um you know we got married when we were in our uh she was 22 years old uh I was 25 at the time i had been I had been in the Navy as you know and been around the world she had never really beyond going to college she'd never really been outside of Illinois at the time and uh so we were a little bit of oil and water getting together very different life experiences but she really made me who I am today without her I I I wouldn't wouldn't be where I'm at and there's several reasons for that it really comes down to just her support and her belief in me uh my belief in her she's a school teacher by training we were able to raise two wonderful kids she gets all the credit for that but if you choose well and sometimes that's just luck cuz I I'm not sure what makes the difference but if you choose well and you stick to it it will make all the difference for you i I read this article and it was talking about like the millionaire next door right and and what what was the characteristics i don't remember them all but for sure one of them was being married to the same person for a long time uh you know it's uh uh it you need that support you need that guidance and you know it just the grounding that you get while reaching for the stars is is all the difference so choose but but choose wisely for someone who is listening to us and they haven't yet chosen what would be your advice you know uh I remember talking with my own daughter my my oldest daughter got married this year and she married the love of her life they dated eight years met really the first week they were in college and and they've been just just wonderful partners i remember sharing this advice with her uh many years ago and the advice was this was there's there's no such thing as a perfect partner right you really have to pick what's important to you some people uh you know they want someone who stays home and and and and looks after that some people want someone that goes out makes a lot of money some people want someone that travels uh you know things like there's all these different things that you can find valuable in it whatever that is you need to make sure that that person that you choose values the same thing because you're not going to agree on everything you're not going to take and get everything that you possibly want but if you pick the things that are super important focus on those critical few and you find someone who mirrors those values whatever they may be be it religion be it how you think about your family be it how you think about your career if you can find those critical view things it's enough to build a life around but if you try to find someone that's perfect that has everything I don't think you're going to find that there and more importantly if you find someone whose value systems are different than yours who values maybe you value uh home and security maybe that person values money and travel that's not going to blend well either so pick your critical few find someone stick with them through thick and thin it'll make all the difference for you very very wise advice thank you so let's talk about how are you able to find enough time in the day to manage two companies basically 2.5 billion in sales you know I'm I'm blessed in so many ways the number one thing I'm blessed with is a great team you know the team is really what does it I think of it every every position every role has has the key characteristics that you need to do if you're going to be a CEO there's many things you can go do but probably the most important is your job is to set the goal what is the what is the the area you're going for what is the final goal sometimes it's financial goal it's growing a certain amount if you're in private equity you probably have that sometimes it's a certain value of the owners maybe you're a public company and and the value that the owner has is growing the business but really is maybe multigenerational sometimes a public company where you have a combination of values and mission driven off of it whatever whatever it is you need a team that's going to support you with that as the CEO your job is to define what that is through yourself the board the ownership of the company and then it's to take the team that you have around you it's their job to figure out the strategy to go achieve that now that's really important i think it's counterintuitive to a lot of people they think "Oh you're the CEO you're the person in charge well that may be true but if you own the strategy as well I can almost guarantee you it's not going to be successful the team you have has have to own the strategy and then their team has to own the execution of that now this works for a little bit bigger company if you're a soloreneur or maybe there's only a handful of people in your company you may be the you know head visionary as we ll as the implementation the operator and that person with the uh with the training on it but if you have any size at all you're going to find you need a segregation of duty because while one person's being the visionary someone's got to run the company while someone's running the company someone's got to go out and find new business and on and on and on with it so clarity in roles understanding what you have as a leader will make the difference for me as a CEO my job is to be the visionary set the goal of where we're going work with the team so they'll understand and develop that strategy and then really hold them accountable that's the measuring and monitoring and I do when you run a business like that you can run a very very large enterprise that's spread out around the role uh world so for me it's all about it's all about the team bill and what habits or practices you think helped you rise to the CEO role at two major companies well it's a it's a handful of things right so personal characteristics or being a continuous learner right don't think you know everything you for sure don't and there's a lot of things I'm doing today like uh AI or artificial intelligence uh to well you name it that didn't even exist 20 years ago if you think about it the uh uh when I started out in career and I'm not that old but I am a member of the X generation we didn't even have cell phones when we first got I got my first cell phone in the 90s and the internet even though they talk about it coming in the 60s with Dark and these others it really started coming in into the 90s the late 90s in the early 2000s and it it really took off well today we have chat bots we have AI we have all these different tools continuous learning is is the key for that for an individual second piece is you got to have fortitude in the ability to to get knocked down and get yourself back up right that's super important and finally you got to go get stuff done right you absolutely have to go get it done but you take all that and then I think the key piece of it is you need some operating model some way of looking at the world some type of lens or framework that you come in so you may not know the answer in fact I'm going and and say you we never know the answer to begin with but you need a way to approach your problems for me that's been using tools like 8020 and the profit growth operating system that we've developed over the years it's that approach that allows us to find out what the answers are get the team involved make sure they have ownership of it so when you when you kind of peel it all back you got to be a resilient person who's willing to brush themselves off and keep going be a continuous learner and you got to have a way of approaching problems and getting your team to follow you those are the keys Bill and uh in terms of continuous learning what do you use to help yourself stay on track and not fall behind there is so much uh information out there today whether you're you know as I sat in my office you can't see it but I've got a Bloomberg on and CNBC i I love having that in the background you got the internet that constantly interrupts us from social media to X and Facebook and and Instagram we have all those LinkedIn that we're supposed to stay up on then there's the job the work that just do the job right the periodicals and the groups and it goes on and on and on with it right if you know what you're focused on if you have that framework and you're looking at where you're going to go it'll help narrow it down because you cannot stay on top of it just doesn't exist right you're going to have to have a basis of knowledge we get that through where we go to school at who we are together with and reading in the industry around topics for it getting up every day reading the Financial Times looking at the Wall Street Journal looking at the New York Times whatever your your your favorite is on it but you're gonna have to put those hours in to go do it then the second piece is just getting out there making yourself available go talk to people in your company go out talk to people in your industry things like stay involved in it so I guess really what I'm getting at is it takes a lot of work there's no easy path to it we don't have all the knowledge it's putting yourself out there reading reading widely i don't know anyone who's successful who doesn't read all the time and I certainly fall in that category myself and then listening and partnering with others understanding what they are and just being that continuous learners really makes all the difference do you have specific regimen that you follow in terms of how much of your time dedicated each week or each day to learning i do that's a that's a really great question you know you have to block out time we get sometimes so busy we can't get anything done i'm as guilty of that as anyone else is but I get up every morning i wake up early i'd like to say I I'm not even sure why I just wake up uh and then I like to read the news i read the news mainly on like my iPad my phone i I get very few printed periodicals anymore but every day I read the Wall Street Journal the New York Times the Financial Times and I like reading The Economist and then of course I've got all the other little stuff like Google News and all that so I just love reading the news right that's my personal hobby if nothing else secondarily I'll take and go in and I'll turn on the TV i really ever have the volume on but I love having Bloomberg and CNBC in the background and I like it because they have these floating charts that come across it that you you don't have to hear anything you can just see it and catch little bits and pieces of it and I've been doing this for so long now for most of my adult life that I have a storehouse of knowledge that everything from where I went to school and what I learned there to this it all builds on each other so I can I know the pieces I like to read so like in the Wall Street Journal I love the Ahead column right i've been reading it for years it's always got an interesting thing a take on it i love reading the editorials it gives me an idea of what's happening out there and then you these different little what I call bunny holes you can fall down like if you used to be called Twitter now it's X you know it's a great place to get quick news but you can also get off track and there's a whole lot of people out there maybe putting out things that are more hate and things like that i would suggest we all avoid that but uh but uh read those newspapers read those magazines i do that every day i just happen to like doing it i think if you don't like doing it it's going to be hard to make yourself but if you do it it'll make a big difference for it uh and that's a routine for me and that generally takes about probably about 90 minutes of my day every day that I go through with it thank you so much for giving us so many details i really appreciate it so beyond this are there any daily or weekly routines that have been critical to your success there is right and uh one of the questions I get asked all the time is how do you separate your business and your professional life i'll be honest with you I don't separate my business and personal life they are melded together sometimes that causes problems my wife hates it when I'm sitting there on the phone or I step away for a call but that's how I manage my life right so my wife travels with me sometimes we go to meetings and things like but it's rare generally I'm out there with myself and my team that I'm uh that I'm out there uh getting in front of people so the way that I do it is I'll typically travel about 50% of the time and when I travel I have a very specific regime so I go into my location I go around I say hi to everybody shake their hand I say a few words with them then later we'll do a town hall meeting that town hall meeting generally takes about 90 minutes might take as long as two hours the first part of that will be me talking i'll talk about where we've been so the past i'll talk about where we are right now and of course I'll talk about the future where we're going from that we'll do Q&A on that stage with me i'll have people from HR the local leadership team things like that because we're going to answer all their questions that we can answer and if we don't know the answer we're going to go get it to them and we don't give them platitudes we don't tell them what we think they want to hear we just give them the unvarnished truth with respect and dignity and try to answer what they can and sometimes the answer is no right sometimes the answer is yes so as a CEO and you're standing up there in front of that group you're going to find there's there's times that people will ask you things that you you don't have a good answer for or an answer they're not looking for but as a human being we do everything we can to do the right thing by that person and at the same time we have in our heads as a CEO we've got to do the right thing for that company we have 10,000 employees across a couple of companies we have them their families they've got bills they got to do they've got all that we have to look after this company so what we do we try to balance the need of the individual with the need of the company and we do the best we can we don't always get that right but by going out there and meeting with people spending time with them it helps me understand what's actually happening so that's how I do it and I do that multiple times a week with our locations we're in over 50 countries around the world so I travel all the time well really about half the time and the other time I'm either in my office or out in one of our offices doing internal meetings then secondly I'll go out and my outside meetings I'll meet with either investors I'll meet with our suppliers and I'll meet with our customers and it's really just listening here's what's happening and I'll do the same with them but this but the messaging is slightly different it's where are we at in our partnership where are we going and how can we grow together and that's what people are looking for they want to understand what's happening in the business what's in it for them right everyone's favorite radio station W I FM what's in it for me right and I try to answer those questions that's how I spend my days typically and then the rest of the time like I say is either in travel or doing reports or doing you know blessed to come on your podcast and spend time with you Kris and I'm blessed to spend time with you Bill so you're traveling a lot i have clients who travel a lot so they're very senior and they have to travel a lot and it does get to you it's hard any advice for someone listening right now who has to travel a lot you know there's no getting around it so today I do things I couldn't have done five years ago five years ago I couldn't have had all this video conferencing and today any of us can do it between Zoom or Teams or Streamyard which is what we're on here today they're so easy to communicate so we're always in contact when I'm home I'm in my home office i'm in my office I work in i can be in front of people my most impactful time is being the visionary for the company sharing where we are and where we're going and listening to people and getting the feedback to help moderate that and help help go through it if you're going to travel well maybe let me say it a different way in the vast majority of these jobs unless you only have a single location you're going to have to travel it's just a requirement of the job and if you don't like traveling it's going to be hard to do the jobs and just like anything else I tell people you know if you want to be successful and be a CEO you're going to get a set of problems with it if you want to be successful and stay home and coach your kids little league team you're going to have a set of problem with that so just pick your your problems carefully right because either one there's no perfect in them each each side's very demanding one side if you value certain things like traveling and you know the pay is not so bad and and the people I work with are fantastic uh but I don't get to stay home a lot and I you know I never did get to coach any of my kids teams so you have to pick what you're gonna what you're going to live with and this this is the side I went with and I'm grateful for it it's helped me and my family achieve things we never thought we could achieve anything you do to make sure that you stay healthy energetic that it doesn't damage your health long term you know that's probably the thing I'm the worst at yeah i go through these periods like when I was in my 40s I was doing triathlons and I did one marathon a whole bunch of stuff right uh today mainly what I do just because of the schedule and everything else and I've kind of fallen off the wagon is **I like to walk a lot spend time with like I said my family where where I can and and spend time I've got a new grandson boy I couldn't be more excited about that I enjoy playing golf a lot to get out with that so most of my exercise day is just really getting out moving being a part of it the biggest issue that I have to do is watch what I eat and drink you know what I could do when I was in my 30s I cannot do in my 50s so I don't nearly eat as much my wife and I we kind of laugh we got we typically split a meal to be honest with you and what maybe used to be two cocktails is now maybe one if at all but I've gotten where I really enjoy a good glass of water right and staying hydrated so I have to watch my health a lot closer i just don't have the stamina that I had when I was younger but I'm a lot better at what I do today and I'm a lot more thoughtful about it and so uh things I used to do made it a little harder for me I I don't do that so much anymore and I think that's what we all have to do to be honest with you very true so you spoke about listening the importance of listening and speaking to customers and employees any advice for someone who feels they need to improve in this area yeah there's a couple pieces that I find uh really important so one thing I would tell everyone is is particularly like when I come into a new organization I have a three uh meeting process I go through and I call them the three L's: the listening, learning, and leveraging. so with every employee that I can I set up a meeting a series of three meetings and I have an agenda that I already have put together and it's not agenda that we have to follow but when people are meeting with a new CEO they're always wondering who is this person and there's always a certain amount of of maybe emotions that go with it so I send them this and I go here's the kind of questions I want to know the first meeting is really about them tell me about yourself what you do how you like being here the second meeting is around tell me about the business and how that's going what you see we're winning we're losing things like that and then the third one's kind of the catch-all meeting which is we've been around a little while now we probably spent some time outside of these meetings together what else do you want me to know so I put that together so when they come in they can they can you know be prepared i don't have them prepare anything written documents some will some won't i doesn't really matter to me it's what they want to do but it allow it gives them a road map to follow so I do that to begin with and I sit down and I just ask them really a series of questions what's happening how do you feel about that what else is going on and I can generally get an extraordinary a mount of of uh of information now with all my direct reports I do what's called a one-on-one meeting and the cadence varies but it's generally at least once a month sometimes bi-weekly with people sometimes weekly just depends on what's going on and that meeting is their meeting we come on I say well hey Kris it's good to see you today as you know this is your time what would you like to talk about and generally that's what we'll go through now I'm not perfect at that sometimes I have some messaging or something I need to get out as well but that oneonone is really their meeting to talk about it then the third piece that I do is I travel with them particularly folks on my team will travel together to go see these sites and things during that time is where you really get to to notice them so so those are the series of meetings now the hardest part part is the actual listening part as you can tell I like to talk for sure and all that sometimes I talk too much which I which happens for maybe all of us but what you have to do is when you ask a question instead of preparing your answer to whatever they're saying and think about that you actually have to just stop and listen and if you will listen it'll be interesting of what of what they're telling you and you'll get so much more out of it instead of just sitting there contemplating whatever it is you want to tell them next i think that's the hardest part it's certainly hard for me but you seeking to understand as opposed to being understood right start with that helps me a lot and be interested be interested ask people about themselves right we all have those friends who call up and all they do is tell you about their problems they never even ask you if you're how you're doing then other ones are like "Well hey Kris what's going on how was your holiday how is it how's the whatever it is right just giving people a chance to be heard got to ask about people it's important and you need to be sincere with it very true so you mentioned that your most important role is to be visionary how can someone a leader listening to us right now become a better visionary well I think of there's three main roles in a company so there's a visionary which is typically the CEO but it doesn't have to be that's the person who says this is where we're going right through either as we talked earlier about the mission the values or some combination thereof they understand what the destination is like you have to get the team together in order to go do that you need to have a very broad view and a very high level view uh some people are charismatic and they can do it through their talking some people are quiet and shy doesn't really matter use the tools you have with it but be inspirational help people get there the second person that is typically in a company is an operator a lot of times that role is the president role right the president role or COO uh is the one that operates or runs the day-to-day action sometimes you'll see someone have a a role the CEO and the president very common to have so they are the visionary and the primary operator of the business but that operator their job is to make sure that that vision that the CEO has is getting implemented that wherever we're going they are putting together the strategy to get there then the final person that is in that is what we call the profit or the if you will a facilitator or a trainer it's the person who really understands the processes the systems of the company and they go around and make sure people are capable of doing it you'll see them in different businesses they'll be in the lean group or they'll be in the 8020 group maybe they're in HR they understand all the responsibilities and roles it's those types of people who go out and work with us to make us better and make sure that we have the tools we have necessary so those are kind of the three primary rules we we look at and then back to your question about how to be a visionary well really it starts with you it starts with where are you going to take this organization so whether you're the CEO or you're the product manager or you're the vice president of sale whatever it is you have something you have to go accomplish you need to get the folks around you inspired and you need to sell them where we're going and then work with them to figure out the map to get you there so you earlier mentioned a profitable growth operating system tell us about it and anything you want to share yeah thank you uh yeah so you know over my career particularly in the last 20 plus years or so uh **I've developed an operating system that I call myself uh the profitable growth operating system i felt like I had to name it something so PGOS was was pretty good and basically it's a series of just five tools that are around everything from getting the data that's segmentation or 8020 right it's going to help us understand where we make money where we don't and how to go after and get it it's also your growth strategy second one would be strategy our strategy management process that is the tools that you use to go out and get that strategy implemented to help understand it where it's going and get it implemented then there's HR or talent uh that's one uh M&A merges and acquisition for your organic and inorganic growth that's you're going to get your inorganic there uh and I see I think so I did talent segment oh lean and then finally lean so hopefully I covered all five of them and that's your efficiency one that gets the waste out so we got to grow the business we're going to know where it's at 8020 the data is going to tell us that we need great people to go execute on it that's our talent processes we're going to need inorganic growth that's our M&A and we want to do it very efficiently that's going to be uh our lean tool set so with that tool set we created 8020 now those tools have been around a long time we've used what we've learned in other places and we've modified it as we've gone along so during the pandemic as I had time on my hands like a lot of people did i finally put together myself a uh a lot of people had asked for it through the years and I wanted to really standardize and create standard work around it so I wrote a book called the 8020 CEO you can see it over my shoulder here that yellow book that's been a great book it's been a bestseller uh that came out about a year ago and it has topped the bestseller list in Amazon and some other places won a bunch of awards from that uh we developed a second book called from panic to profit so the first book 8020 is a little story about me then the five tool sets and then we have in there the four steps to get the command and control of a business that's your change management process how if you're coming to take over your business how you get control of it really quickly from Panic to Profit which comes out in April 2025 it's published by WY that book is really all about the journey you take it's the two-year journey that you go through getting 8020 uh uh into your business getting that command and control of it and going out making the money uh that the business needs so it's been kind of a fun journey with it and we've had a lot of fun and we've really helped a lot of people in my career we've we've developed over $3 billion of shareholder value we've bought and sold hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of people have been trained in the process and finally getting it into a forum out there has really made a big difference and the the feedback's been just tremendous for it thank you for taking the time to document your knowledge expertise what you learned i think that is incredibly beneficial for people and I appreciate you doing it well thank you very much that's very kind of you to say Kris so how do you get everyone on the same page you run two large organizations you know it's an interesting process and it is both easier than harder than you would think so you start out step one is you have to get the goal as a CEO uh that's your job your job is to get it now you don't really do it by yourself but you own it at the end of the day and typically with me coming in I'm in private equity the goal is financial and financial isn't all that interesting a lot of times but it does set how big the prize is going to be and let's say for the sake of argument you get there and you're at a 100 whatever 100 is and you're trying to get to 200 yourself and your CFO sit down and look at it from uh the capabilities of the business from your balance sheet and your your P&L do you have the wherewithal to go get that once you know that's true you get your team together your leadership team together you get in a conference room you get them to buy into the goal they understand this is where we're going they understand the size of it the hardness of it now this is where you get buy in their job is to put together the strategy that's going to get you there that's the key by them owning the strategy you immediately have buyin as a leader if you come in and tell people where you're going and you also tell them how they're going to get there you'll find there is no ownership the how how the how of that goal being achieved is what is critical that's where the buy in that team in creating that strategy then passes it to their team and that's through the organization that they set up right how they organize the company and secondly through the action planning so if you're familiar with terms like policy deployment or strategy management process these different types of thing tools this is how you get it across the organization so it's really about people taking ownership of what has to happen having control of themselves having control of their future and once they have that and they go implement it you'll find not only will they own it they're going to make it happen what do you do with team members who don't seem to want to get on board happens more than you would think it's unfortunate sometimes it's just they don't want to be it a lot of times you'll see this and I'll use a couple different example a long-term employee you come in you say "Company's failing it's obvious we have to turn it around here are some ideas." And they'll say things like "We've tried that before and it didn't work it's not going to work now." Well as a new leader you're like "Something's got to work right or else this is not not going to do it." But some people just can't get past the history there's a whole bunch of reasons it could be maybe they feel responsible for the history maybe it was just they were a victim of it and they think it cannot be solved those people are going to have to find a way to get on board or they're going to have to leave right and you find that whether it's new people or old people some people just can't buy into the vision of where we're going right can't do it when you see that the thing that you can do that is best for them and their team else is help them go do something else sometimes that's a different role inside the company sometimes that's outside the company but you're going to do them a favor by putting them someplace that they feel they can win yo u might be worried like "Geez I didn't win for the company." But if they don't feel they can win for themselves they're not going to put the effort in that's the time where you help them find their way to something that makes them happy and inspires them yes you have to remember that you only have that much energy that much time in certain situations just not a good fit for anyone yeah i see a lot of CEOs or really a lot of leaders in general fail when their team is just against them right whether it's in politics whether it's in business whether it's in your local church group if everyone is against the vision that you have you may have the best vision in the world but it's not going to happen you can have a mediocre vision that people buy into and your odds of success are extraordinary you're almost for sure going to do it because everybody wants it to happen but if you have a great vision and no buy in it's going to fail you got to get people around you who will buy in bill what do you think is the most under estimated lever for boosting profitability the most underestimated level for boosting profitability is simply pricing right the number one thing you can do there's a lot of you can cut cost you can go get new suppliers you can find productivity the number one thing you can do the easiest thing is to get your pricing correct now you have to be careful with it because you can pull too hard on that lever get the pricing wrong lose customers but if you can understand where you're making money and where you're not if you change the pricing on those that that maybe you're not making money or maybe there's an opportunity to make more it is the only thing you can do that is totally friction free and what I mean by that is whatever you raise it by it flows all the way through the P&L through the bottom line so if you're selling something for a dollar and you raise it to $2 that other buck's going to go right to the bottom line because there's nothing you have to do other than set the price if you do something around purchasing or procurement there's a charge it takes both in people time material to go get it maybe you have to go see the vendors maybe you have to do first articles or these things where you do tes ting and all that maybe you need new tooling maybe there's investments you have to make in your factories all those take time and resources things like money uh things like maybe new factories whatever it is that will what if you raise it $2 on that that $2 isn't always going to come through because it there was a cost with it so end of the day the most underestimated piece is just simply getting your prices right you got to do all the other stuff as well it just takes longer and is not as impactful what is your advice on getting the prices right there's two things to really look at so one is what the market is doing so if you find your competitors raising prices raise prices right along with them as an example you don't need any inside knowledge on that just if you see the market going up you have a chance to go the second one though this is the more powerful it's a little bit more challenging this is the heart of our operating system is looking at your call structure looking at your products your customers and seeing where your best customers are your best products and consequently the ones that are the worst customers and worst products and by that we define we just don't sell very many and we're not making very much money we find that if you're in that category which typically represents less than 4% of the revenue and generally you're losing money in it you can raise your prices and the consequences are all positive even if the customer loses in other words you lose the customer the customer leaves you not loses but leaves you you will at least quit losing money that in and of itself will make you more profitable so if you can identify where you're losing money with customers who do nothing else with you if you just stop your company instantly becomes more profitable it's a very lowrisisk way to do it and a lot of people don't go through the exercise of doing that it's not hard to figure out but you do got to look at the data and that's really what our system really teaches people is how to take the data it doesn't tell you what your strategy should be doesn't tell you who you're going to raise prices or how much but it does give you the data and gives you the ability to make a thoughtful decision thank yo u for this what do you think is the biggest lesson you've learned so far from growing two over billion dollars in sales organizations well there's a couple things so as I said earlier the team is what's important so we won't go back through that but if you don't have a team around you that buys into the vision supports out doing it it's not it's not going to work nothing else you can do will will solve it the second piece is and this is kind of an interesting one it's a little bit nuanced and that is you have to have the courage of your convictions and what I mean by that is go as the leader you get all the data and you make a decision and here's the hardest part you got to get them focused on something which means you have to say no to a lot of things there might be 10 ideas in front of you all of them seem equally good you're going to have to pick one maybe you can do two you cannot do all 10 if you will get your team focused on the one or two most important things that will have a major impact that you believe will have a m the odds of success go through the roof if however you try to do everything if however you get outside your core trying to do things that you don't really do if you have a team that does not support it failure is almost guaranteed so as a leader it's getting a good team focused on the critical few things that they believe in that you believe in and then getting out of their way and making their job possible for them it is the most powerful thing you can do what are the non-negotiables for building a profitable growth system maybe there's something that we haven't yet discussed that you want to mention there's a few things that are really non-negotiable so the first is the CEO if he's going to make it work has to make a condition of employment if people don't believe they're going to have to go through it I promise you they will not go through it because we think it's just the flavor of the day so the first thing is it's got to be non-negotiable it's got to be a condition of employment that we are going to get focused where we're making money at we're going to do more of that the second piece that you have to have is you have to have your operators the people running the business must follow the process they must quit doing what they were doing right einstein's theory of crazy is that keep doing the same thing expect something different they must focus on the things they must use the language they must embrace the process if it's going to have any chance of success and they got to do it enthusiastically and then the final piece is this knowledge must come inside you must get it inside of your business typically starting out you're going to use an outside consultant or someone who's been an expert in whatever your tool is and ours we believe strongly in 8020 it's been proven to work we've won every time with it someone has to come in and teach that team and this is really important right we call that person the prophets it's like Moses coming in they have the Ten Commandments they tell you what the Ten Commandments are and tell you how to apply them but most importantly that knowledge has to transfer from the consultant to your internal team otherwise as soon as the consultant leaves that uh knowledge is going to leave and people go back to what they were doing so CEO a condition of employment operators following the process and someone to come in and train your team on how to do it those are your three non-negotiables thank you very much what metrics do you track first when you assess a company's health you know there's so many metrics out there and we a lot of times you'll see people tracking everything you really only want to track the ones that are important to you and that you can do something about so we start with first is revenue and profitability the m the thing we're going to move first is profitability because we can put pricing in quicker than anything else things like purchasing and sourcing we're going to do that but that typically takes six to 18 months before you see an impact on it you got to go at the minimum renegotiate contracts sometimes you got to find new vendors that takes a long time the third piece that's going to come in is going to be your sales so they can come sometimes you'll have some wins right away which are super exciting but a lot of times it's going to take about 12 to 24 months before you find people willing to switch over to you that's why you focus on your core customers they already know you they already like you they're already buying from you you can get them to switch products you're buying from someone else their B vendor to you their A vendor uh quicker because of that relationship and then the final piece is new product development that generally takes 18 to 36 months for most businesses some business take years to develop something new some people take hours a lot of things around the industrial side to come up with it and get it launched going to take 18 to 18 months to to 36 months for it so that's kind of how it lays out that's how you expect it to go the more you get focused the more you get buy in the more you focus on those non-negotiables the quicker you're going to get there what do you think one thing leaders often overlook when turning a company around yeah there's a really a couple pieces of it the first thing is they underestimate how fast they can go a lot of times they'll be waiting and waiting trying for the right time there is no right time the right time is now i have never looked back and said "Geez I went too fast." It's always been just the opposite we should have went faster right the second thing is they underestimate how often they have to repeat themselves they need to get a simple message this is where we're focusing this is how we're going to win and they're going to have to say it hundreds of times you know the magic thing is that people say "You got to tell someone 20 times." That's right but when you have hundreds if not thousands of employees you're going to be saying it wherever you go you want it so when you walk down the hallway in your company and you ask someone what the strategy is they can repeat back what you've been saying that's how you know you're getting it when the people out in the organization start telling you things that you've been saying you're you're finally just scratching the surface with it right so one is speed you can go faster than you think the second one is it takes more repeating than than you uh than you could ever imagine we have four very simple rules that we use we called it the four commandments that we use to gauge on how it's how it's actually working and this is in no particular order but one is we call it be on pace if you're too fast you leave people behind if you're too slow you're the bottleneck and where we gauge that is if you have less uh then the second one is be uh data driven and uh if you have less than 20% of the information you're just guessing and if you have more than 80% of the information you've waited so long that you got passed by so be on pace and data driven go together the third one is no surprises bad news fish and relatives all stink after 3 days we just went through Thanksgiving so we're probably familiar with that uh don't surprise anyone keep everyone informed right come and tell them don't kill the messenger if you're the leader otherwise they won't tell you but no surprises and the fourth one I think is the most important and that is results matter we will not be a best efforts company we have to win something in baseball if you hit 300 you go to Hall of Fame in business you get fired you got to get you got to win more than three out of 10 to to go we got to be in a seven or eight or nine uh out of 10 if we're going to be successful there's a lot of people riding on us and we have to get this right so it's data driven no surprises be on pace and results matter are how we judge everything we do now I will ask you my favorite question of all time over the last few years what were aha moment realizations maybe you can share with us two or three or one that really changed the way you look at life or the way you look at business there's been so many moments that have changed everything for me right uh if I start at the beginning you know it's when you you know when I went into the Navy and and realized I could actually look after myself I I met my my wife and realized I had a life partner and then finally my my children and my grandson being born you realize why you're doing it all so family has been a big part of it right and then with my career in and of itself just looking at that the reason I'm in the role I am in today is people took chances on me i had to take a chance on myself but I needed people around me great mentors things like that people who thought I could do it and they placed a bet on me and my my role was not to let them down my role was to give everything I've got so as I look back on it it's really been those mentors and leaders that have looked and helped me and gave me a chance to to actually make the difference just look at where I'm at right now you know the private equity firm I work for is a company called Jinstart absolutely the finest company I've ever been a part of rob Rutledge who's my boss uh one of the key uh partners in the firm one of the four uh who are really run the firm took a chance on me gave me the first company OTC we did well gave me the second firm Arrow ahead and we've done pretty well with that so it is that chance that's the reason I'm sitting here today that's what I encourage leaders around is pick people around you people who are willing to bet on themselves put in that effort and energy uh with it take a chance on them the reason you're in that chair someone took a chance on you pass that forward pay that forward it makes all the difference for people in their lives bill if you could recommend just one habit or mindset shift for leaders who are listening to us right now something they could implement today or this week what would it be wow that's a really good question you know the one habit that I would recommend people right is really uh take time to stay informed don't get so busy that you're just churning things through take a moment every day whether it's read the news read a book or something like that take some time to think about what's going on if you need to schedule it in if it's get up early and have a cup of coffee if it's stay up late whatever it is that works for you take that moment take a breath ground yourself recognize where you are be grateful for it right number one two be a little aspirational you got more in you to go right and then thank those around you your family your employer your boss your employees whoever it is that are giving you that opportunity out there each and every day so take a few moments every day ground yourself understand where you are get aligned and get back up and go get them again it makes all the difference if lead us only take away one idea from your recent book what should it be get the data i mean at the end of the day we're not really sure what we're going to do when we show up right well I have a process i call that the 100 day process it's those four steps to get command and control we talked about uh earlier right so start with the data it doesn't tell you your strategy it doesn't tell you any of that stuff it just tells you what's working or not once you understand what's happening you can start making decisions imagine this for a moment you're not feeling well you go to a doctor you're sitting in that room we've all been there we're sitting there by ourselves on that little table the door opens up person looks at you goes "Here you go." Throws some pills at you and wanders back out are you going to take that medicine i hope not you want someone who actually spends some time and listen uh to what you are and your symptoms and then comes up with what you need maybe it was what they were going to prescribe but you talked about it earlier be that great listener understand what it is and then use that tool set whether it's mine or someone else to go diagnose the problem and help them and figure out where you're going to go right make sure you're taking the time to listen to what's happening and from there you'll know what to what to go do next with it otherwise you're just making up where you go uh as you go along bill is there anything else you want to share maybe something you wanted me to ask you and I didn't and also where can our listeners learn more about you your work your latest book anything you want to share well Kris you've done a magnificent job today you're really well prepared and I want to thank you for having me on here i think I'll just finish with this so if you want more information about me and what I do you can go I have a website it's my name billcanady.com b I lc an a dy.com and my next book coming out I hope everyone will go and get will be available in all bookstores is from panic to profit it'll be in officially in bookstores April 29th it'll be available for uh pre-order uh in January and it publishes on April 14th so April 29th is when you can find it in a bookstore i hope everyone gets a copy if there's anything I can ever help anyone do please reach out on the website happy to help in any way thank you all and thank you for your time bill thank you so much for being here i really enjoyed our discussion thank you again for writing the books please keep them coming and I would love to interview you for your future books and really enjoyed our discussion today me too i'm happy to come back anytime so thank you so much for putting this together it's been fantastic our guest today again has been Bill canady check out his book From Panic to Profit: Uncover Value Boost Revenue and Grow Your Business with the 80/20 Principle and our podcast sponsor today is strategy training.com if you want to strengthen your strategy skills you can get the overall approach used in well-managed strategy studies it's a gift we prepared for you and you can also get another gift McKenzie and BCG also free download you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF and firms consulting is firm consulting.com thank you everyone for tuning in and I'm looking forward to connect with you all next time.