From a 55-Gallon Drum to a Nine-Figure Exit: Bob Carrothers

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Welcome everyone to Doing Business with a Servants Heart Podcast. I'm your host, Steve Ramona. I'm thrilled to have you join us today. The podcast is dedicated to exploring the idea of doing business and living life with a purpose, serving others and yes, achieving success. You're going to know a lot about business and life today because my guest is unbelievable. We believe that when we approach our work and our lives with a servant's heart, we can truly make a difference. We create this show for you because we want everyone to be motivated, inspired, and educated to make an impact in your world. Whether you're an entrepreneur, community leader, or simply someone looking to bring more purpose into your daily life, this podcast is here to support and uplift you. Now, while listening to the show today, my guest, pad and paper, please have it out. I have mine out. You're gonna be one of taking notes. I want to think about I want you to think about how you're gonna serve today and what impact you'll create today. The key word there is today, not tomorrow. Today's episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, Pantheon Alliance. Picture yourself joining an elite community of thriving business owners for a variety of industries all working together to create a powerful referral marketplace. It's an incredible opportunity to expand your network and elevate your business into new heights. If you have any questions, please reach out to me and I'll get you more information. With that being said, there's a lot of coaches out there, and it's a word used a lot, and there's some great ones, and I'll just leave it at that. But when you have somebody who's been doing this for 29 years, you want to sit down and listen. Hey, Bob, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Thank you, Steve. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Oh, you're very welcome. You know, I want to talk about why do you do what you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Um, my core purpose is to help as many people in a positive way as I can before I pass on. Uh, it used to be help at least 300, and the people tell me now, well, you're way over that. So just I took the limit off.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

I love it. Yeah, there's no cap on that. You think there's a cap and then you can blow it right off. Right. So, coaching, what is one thing that you've learned over 29 years that people really make mistakes with in their business?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Oh boy, it's amazing what people can do to shoot themselves in the foot. Um it's you know, the the one thing I've seen that um comes to mind is not downsizing fast enough when you're in a when you lose a lot of sales. You have to do that, right? If you hold on to the people are just an expense and you're gonna need the cash to keep keep the company alive.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, that's that's a great point. It's it's because you're fearful. I had to do that in my business at one time, and you're right, it was scary, but you're absolutely always the best thing that I could do. Yeah, what's one thing that you know you work with groups, you we were talking before the show, that you educate. What's what's one or two things you really like that that just really gets you out of bed that you educate people about?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

What gets me out of bed is I love going to a coaching session with somebody that's really into it, you know, that appreciates what we're doing and is willing to grow and and try things. I love to work with CEOs that um learn something and they put it into use in their in their business. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning is watching these people become amazing leaders.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Can you tell us a story? Um you have thousands, I'm sure, hundreds. You got a story of the top of your head you could tell us as somebody you work with that educated and they grew up.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

I don't, you know, I would never say I educate anybody. All I do is just ask good questions. I found out a long time ago that if I'm the one that's trying to bring value to the conversation, I'm probably not bringing value to the conversation.

unknown 5:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

It's all about the person I'm coaching and listening to them with uh uh deep, deep intent, intensity so that they um they can say whatever they want to say. And I just try to ask questions that can help them think about the situation.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

And take take that a little deeper when you're asking questions. You're helping them think, but what are you also doing when you're asking the question?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Um, I've been doing this so long that I've seen so many different businesses do so many things, so many different ways that I often have a question that they hadn't thought of. You know, what if you do it this way? What if this would happen? What if you if have you thought about this? Those kind of questions um gets thought going and gets them looking at new ways to do it, new ideas. And then, you know, I'm a Vista chair, so I run those same members in a peer advisory group. So they can take those thoughts and go to the group and present it to the group and get the group's input. So listening to 13 or 14 other CEOs tell you their experiences really gives you a leg up.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And it makes it all peer too, because now the peers are talking to peers, right? So it's more ability to listen and understand and believe. Hey, this happened to me and this happened to me, so it's more synergy. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

The people I'm coaching, if if they have to come up with the ideas because that's the only way they're gonna do anything with it. If I come up with the ideas and say, hey, you should do this, I saw this, why don't you go do this? They're gonna blow me off. Frankly, they won't they won't take it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, yeah. And then I'll leave, and then you won't be able to help them, which is your whole goal.

unknown 7:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

So a lot of coaching programs out there, and we talked about Vistage. Tell us a little bit about Vistage or what it's about and its goals and mission.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, Vistage is a company that's been around for 67 years. Um, it's been in this business for that long. We have been growing steadily for that amount of time. It's just an interesting story where a guy had it in Milwaukee. He sold the license to a couple of guys from California. I guess it was the license for the United States, except for Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where he'd already sold licenses and New Mexico. So they um they went out and started talking to business owners and CEOs and and building peer groups, and then they started hiring people like me to run the groups. I we're we're not employees, we are contractors to them to do the work. And it's just grown and grown. We got to about 30,000 members, I think in the United States here. Um, and then we bought a company in Scandinavia that does the same work we do and picked up another 15,000 over there. Uh, Vistage is in 35 countries. We have roughly 45,000 members now.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

What uh you probably know other coaching programs, I'm sure you run to other coaches. What do you think? What do you think makes Vistage different than some of these other programs?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Uh we bring in outside speakers, you know, to to eight of the 12 meetings a year. And there's speakers that you would see on us giving a uh uh I can't remember, um, a speech at a convention or something. Um they're the tops, and we fly them in from around the country. They may fly into Denver to just be in my groups. I'll have them do my CEO group and my key executive group, which is direct reports to the CEOs. Right. So they go ahead. No, I was gonna say they get cutting-edge business information all the time and ideas on how they can put it in their business and why it's effective, and you know, this discussions that um will really help them grow their business.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

What do you think the vista's superpower is?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

If you could pick a superpower, it's the chairs, it's the people like me that do the work. You know, we're totally dedicated to our members in the United States. I think there's about 700 of us doing the work. Um, in Colorado, we have about 30 now, and we are dedicated to our members, we're dedicated to their success. Um most of us are past business owners, so that we have experience being in the seat. And you know, it's it's why I do the work. I want to I want to affect these businesses and these leaders in a positive way. And I've been doing it for 29 years, so I must like it.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, I don't make two people have done something 29 years and loved it and didn't love it, excuse me. So you you have a story off the top of your head of one of your clients that you work with in the success story, what happened?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, I started the the the one I'm most I wouldn't say most proud of, the one that sticks out. There's a bunch of them, is uh a guy that had a company where he made cleaning products. And he started out with an orange-based, orange oil-based cleaning product in spray bottles. And when I met him, he was working out of a little warehouse here in Denver, and he was filling these bottles out of a 55-gallon barrel drum where he had a he had a pump, and he was pumping each bottle full himself. You know, I think he had one other employee. Um, he got on the home shopping network. They loved the product, sold a bunch of it, so they kept getting more and more product from him, and he just had to um increase his capacity. So he took the steps to do that. He outsourced, he never really went into the actual manufacturing, but he outsourced the product and the bottle filling and all that, and that was his mantra just outsource everything. And he got it up and he started uh selling into Walmart because of his success on TV. He was easy to get into Walmart and Bed Bath and Beyond and Ace Hardware and all these places. Um, and then he introduced introduced a product that was a powder that you add to your wash and it cleans like crazy. He was a he was a guest at my house at a party, and we had Peter Schutz as a guest. He was a speaker in town at that time for my groups. He was the past CEO of Porsche in Germany.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

American guy. And he the guy came over, my member came over, and where he was sitting on the couch, he took a glass of red wine and poured it on my wife's white carpet in front of him. And everybody went into shock. And he said, he said, let me show you something. And he went and mixed up some of his product and water, warm water, came out and cleaned it up and got all the wine out of the carpet. It was just amazing. Peter ended up buying a case of the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Great salesman.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, so that's the guy who was there, and then he grew the company. He got bigger and bigger and bigger, and I got a call one night, I think. And he said, I just want you to know that I just sold my company for a lot of money. I mean, triple digits, 300, you know, right between 200 and 300 million dollars. And and so that's what I do the work for. It was an amazing thing to watch him. He was a brilliant marketer, a brilliant leader. Um, and that's just one of the stories.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

And what you did with him is teaching some maybe outsourcing some of these things he didn't know. Right. You said, Hey, try these things, I think this will help you. And years later, he's a 300 millionaire or 200, whatever that is, doesn't matter. Yeah, wow, that's an incredible story, Bob.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Yeah, and I it wasn't just me, it was the group. They're the ones that you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

No, and I appreciate you saying that because I always say work with a you can't work alone, work in a community or a team, right, or or a group, whatever word you call it, it's much better than trying to trying to do this stuff your life. Right. But too many entrepreneurs do that, right? They try to work alone, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Uh absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

And so if you're an entrepreneur out there, this would be a great place for them to at least look at, especially if they're a product or a service that like this gentleman with the orange soap, I'll call it that. This is where it would be a good benefit because you you guys really scale people, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Absolutely. We we enable the companies to to to grow much faster. I think during the pandemic, companies that were members uh grew at about four and a half percent, uh at a higher rate of four and a half percent than other companies grew during that time.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Wow, that's impressive because we only know what happened when COVID came in. What do you think when it comes to a business? And you don't you guys probably don't probably don't do marketing, but you know, like this guy, how can somebody see you look in the mirror and go, I need help? How would you navigate that?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Well, sometimes it's it's people that know they need help and they will get in touch with me or somebody that like me that does the work. Um and usually it's the people that apply to my group that don't need the help. They they know they've got a long way to go and they want to be much better leaders and they want to grow their companies and be very successful. As far as help, they're they're running a reasonably good business.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

What do you think the most important thing is of coaching?

SPEAKER_00 16:12

And coaching is listening. You have to be a fantastic listener.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

I I ditto that. Podcasting has taught me that. It's changed my life and audience. That's a million dollar tip. Seriously, like this gentleman with the orange. This could be a million dollar tip for you. It's hard for humans. We want to interject our ego, our our our information, and I say shut up and listen, because we can shut up, but we're are we really listening?

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah, I do not bring people with big egos into my group. Uh they disrupt everything and they think they know everything. They're the first to talk in the group, they will shoot down other people, and it's just not a good place for them. There's other there's other organizations that take them and they work well, but I just for me, no thanks.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, and that's okay because saying no is a good thing because it helps both you and them. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

That's right. And I've got a my first duty is to the members of the group I have, and I know that can destroy a group.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

How much is how important is learning for entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Oh god, you've got to be learning every day. There's always new things. Look what's what's happening with technology right now and AI. And even if you have no idea of what that is, you better find out and you better be learning and watching for new things you can put into your business and make it a tool for you. You've got to always be developing developing your soft skills. Your people are the most important thing you have, they're your biggest asset. So you have to take really good care of, you know, and you want people to want to work at your company and people that don't leave your company unless they're the wrong fit, and then you can help them make that decision.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Well, you you just scored huge points with me because I talk all the time. Everybody in the world is in the people asset business, from a pastor at a church to this coach to this guy selling orange soup.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

People assets they go up when you take care of them. Money, they go down when you don't take care of them. And there's risk management involved. Like you just said, if they're not a fit, you've got to let them go, and it affects both of them.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah, if you have high turnover in your company, it's uh it's a bad sign, but it's also a huge uh money suck. It costs a lot of money to hire a new person and train them.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Right. And that's where you can come in at vistage and your coaches, your group. I come in as new and go, guys, I'm hemorrhaging money.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

I'm hemorrhaging employees. Boom, then the group gets together and goes, here's some solutions.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Yeah, yeah. Um, well, let's look at it. Tell us what's going on, you know. Let's um how's your hiring practices in the first place? What do you do to vet your candidates? Um, how do you treat them? What what's going on? Do you have middle management that are totally un impossible to work with? Or do you have really good ones? I mean, you got to look at the whole bunch of stuff there to to come to the to knowing what your turnover is all about. But to replace people, it's it's it's the cost nowadays. Everybody's using a recruiter because it's so hard to find good people. That's a huge cost. And then after that, you got to train them. You got to onboard them first, then you got to train them. It's gonna be at least six months before they become productive. That six months is a is a money loser, and then um if they don't stay, then you got to do it all over again.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, those are wild stats and they're growing every day.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

We're coming to the end here, but we talked before the show, and I love your answer. You know, we talk about life balance, you know, life business balance. What's your take on life and business?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Life and business is you gotta if if you're the leader of the company, you gotta treat your people well, treat your uh customers well, um in your family. Life balance, you cannot be an effective leader in a company if you have a terrible home life. So in in Vistage, we work on the whole person because it's it's a very holistic thing. You cannot separate your personal life and your business life, it's impossible, you know. So that's why we work on a lot of personal stuff, too.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

That's powerful because we hear that message all the time, but people are still doing it, you know. They're they're fighting with their wife when they get home, they come to work and they're pissed. You know, we all know the scenario, so thank you for that message. That's so important. Can we have a little fun? I want to have some fun with you. Great really cool question. So, Bob, we got a restaurant set up, you're going to a restaurant, it's a table of four, and you're in one seat, you got three empty seats, dead or alive. Who would you invite? And what food would you order?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Oh, that's a great one. Um, I would love to invite um um gosh, who are my business heroes? Um, Jack Welch would be interesting just to get his take on things. Um, for your younger people, he was the CEO of G General Electric. Um General Omar Bradley. Um, I've I've had drinks with him in the past, and he's quite an amazing man. He was big in the World War II, one of the top-ranking generals. Um another one would be uh Tony Robbins would be fun.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

You know, just to see his take. Uh Simon Sinek would be cool to have him there.

unknown 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Um, a lot of the authors I think would be awesome. Um and the business leaders, you know. Uh somebody who's I can't remember the guy that ran Intel, but he might be fun.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Oh, yeah. I don't remember his name either. Yeah, that would be a good one. What an ecology group. I just found out that word. I know that word, but people are using that.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

And what would we order? Uh God, whatever they wanted to.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

What's your favorite food? Well, if you had a choice of food, what would you order?

SPEAKER_00 23:22

I would order I love pasta, so probably a big pasta dish.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Amen to that. You're speaking to an Italian. I love it. Well, this has been great. I I've got notes here. I hope you people are listening, audience are taking some notes. If they want to reach out to you, learn more about vistage, or learn about more about you, Bob, how can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Uh, my email address is bob.caruthers, and that's c a r what's in front of you, c A R R O T H E R S. Bob.caruthers at Vistage Chair, V-I-S-T-A-G-E. That's V is in Victor. And then chair, C-H-A-I-R, all one word.com.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Oh, I love it. So, audience, reach out and and leave a note on the you, he's gonna go on YouTube here by probably Monday. This is Friday. Comment on it, give him some thoughts. I good or bad, you know, I want to hear it. I know Bob would want to hear it because we've been around a while.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

It's yeah, I would love it.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah, that would be and I'll get the information to him. So if he can't see it, I'll definitely pass it on via email. Okay, I want to remind everybody my TV show every Friday at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern. Together we serve. It's on uh Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, all those TV streaming services. See this big giant head on your 70 inch TV screen. Uh, but it'll be fine. I trust me. You don't you won't get sick of my head because I won't always be there. But do that. And and me and Bob really want to thank you for watching or listening to this podcast. And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of doing business with a servant star. Have a great day.