Steve DeVries, Certified Business/Executive Coach with Focal Point & founder of DeVries Enterprises

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W four CY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W four CY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin helen n believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com and now your host, Kevin.

0:47 Helena, Thanks for joining in again today, everybody. I'm Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W four cy DO. And of course we're streaming live on talk for the number four TV dot com and we're live on Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio. And of course we're available in podcasts after the live show on wherever you see, your see or hear your content. That's YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Again. The list goes on anywhere you listen to your podcast or radio content. The mission of winning business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know, is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others, to learn best practices.

1:36 Those are the how tos, the what toos, the what not tos. Also and to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by the successes of others. Those others are consultants and coaches, advisors, authors, founders and owners and entrepreneurs, people with expertise. But you know, virtually every successful person I've ever had a chance to talk to has had some form of failure in their lives and careers. So, as I said, say, every week, while we all have to get our knees skinned once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it. I've spent the better part of my career equipping businesses to grow from solopreneurs to small and medium sized companies all the way up to the fortune fifty. I've seen some of those companies win and to varying degrees. I've seen some fail I've had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the highest performing people around and with some who probably should have found other professions. And in my own businesses, I've had lots of success, but some failures too. I like to think I've learned a lot from those experiences. So yeah, you're going to hear from me, but mostly you'll hear from our guests. Those experts, consultants, coaches, advisors, authors, founders and owners and entrepreneurs. And today my guest is Steve Devrees, certified Business and executive coach with Focal Point and founder of Devirees Enterprises. Here's Steve's bio. Steve Devrees has dedicated his career to transforming organizations into high performing, future ready businesses. As a certified business and executive coach with over twenty five years of experience, he's worked with countless technology based OEMs, manufacturing companies, and service providers to

3:08 improve team performance and strategic execution. Steve specializes in equipping leaders with the tools and strategies to navigate complex challenges, whether it's developing leaders, improving financial management, or preparing for organizational succession. His hands on approach helps clients see tangible results, often within months. His clients have achieved fifty excuse me, twenty to fifty percent profitability increases in just twelve months, twenty five percent in sales growth after implementing tailored strategies, in fifty percent reductions, and leadership turnover. Steve loves mentoring and up and coming leaders to maximize their impact. He's an avid outdoors enthusiast, particularly in the New Hampshire lakes and mountains. He enjoys volunteering his time as a coach in youth sports and advising entrepreneurial students. Steve's favorite quote is success is not final, failure is not fatal. It's the courage to continue that counts Winston Churchill, man of My Own Heart. He earned his BS in Business Administration and Management at UMS Lowell, as well as his MBA in management. Steve coaches because he enjoys helping people succeed.

4:15 He finds the most meeting in supporting leaders through tough moments, when decisions feel heavy, pressures high, and clarity is hard to find. Coaching allows Steve to bring a calming, experienced presence to those situations, helping leaders think clearly enact with confidence. Clients value his perspective, steadiness and accountability. Many say they begin anticipating the questions he will ask and the standards he will hold them to, evidence that the work has become part of how they lead. Steve resides in Windham, New Hampshire, with his wife Kim, and their two children, Page and Sam. Steve. Welcome to Winning Business Radio. Thank you so much for having Kevin. I really appreciate it. You got it. I know you're busy and I appreciate it. So tell us about your family. Start with you wife, Kim.

4:57 Yeah. So, Kim and I met when we were both attending Umassilole one hundred years ago. Some people know this. Our first date was on Valentine's Day. Cool, and I knew from that moment, like that first date, I was done. We were engaged less than a year later and married about a year and a half after that. And it's been well, I will say, mostly smooth sailing of marriages ever, but smooth sailing all the way since. So this year will be year number anniversary twenty seven. Oh, congratulations. And does she work? She does. She's director of project management, and I guess the right hand person for the COO of a Boulder, Colorado based pet food company.

5:47 Very cool, very cool. Yeah, and your kids page is twenty three SAMs eighteen. Tell us about them so pages. She is off doing the adulting thing, as she likes to say. So. She lives in Boston, graduated from the University of New England a little over a year ago, and you know, yeah, it's gorgeous up there, and she she is making her way as a young adult. And my son Sam, who is a freshman at Plymouth State University, he's he's on spring break this week, living the life of luxury. Uh, one floor below me right now. I can hear him talking to his friends as we speak. That's funny, that's funny. Uh. They like the outdoors too, absolutely.

6:32 Yeah. We have a we have a boat that we we take out up on one of asaki and and you know, it's just it's lots of day trips. But you know, we'll parley that into a one week stay at a at an airbnb somewhere up there, and the whole family comes up and they bring their friends and and we have a good time, and you know, we'll we'll always do the outdoor things, the the hiking and voting and whatever comes our way. Yeah, my family and another family cross the street from us. We lived in Midfield, and the two families got together and bought a big old farmhouse on twenty Route twenty five between Plymouth and Romney and Wentworth. And so I spent a ton of time as a kid. I loved New Hampshire up there, you know.

7:13 So yeah, I mean my childhood was all like the summer vacations were all one of asaki or or there was a period of time at Newfound Lake as well. So I just I love the New Hampshire Lakes region. It's love them both. Newfound we had we had a piece of land on Newfound that my parents didn't end up developing, the end up selling it, but we were going to be there. We did swim there a lot. So all right, So you and Bill ricka Mass tell us about the town and what it was like to grow up there. Oh geez, what can I say about Bill Rica So Merrimack Valley town, you know, I mean for me, it was kind of a normal upbringing. I had my crew of friends, you know. We uh, we hung out all over town playing at a lot of basketball together, a lot of pick up sports, right, I mean football, baseball, all that good stuff, driving around, getting into a little bit of trouble here and there, right, that was all part of it. I mean bill Rica itself is I think it. For a long time it was very very much a blue collar kind of town, and I think it's morphed into more of a mix of blue collar, white collar types of professions, tons of industry there. Funny enough. So, I mean I had my first, you know, first real job there in bill Rica. And you know, when I graduated UMass Lowell, I ended up working at a business in bill Rica for nineteen years. That was not five minutes from my parents' house where I grew up. And

8:44 I couldn't get out of bill Rica for a period of time. I couldn't get out of Billrica even if I tried. It was it was kind of crazy. Just when you thought you got out, Yeah, they pulled me back in, all right? And how did you make it to wind Windams, a nice town in New Hampshire. Yeah. So, as I mentioned earlier, my wife and I met at UMass loll And so when we when we graduated, we ended up buying our first house in Loll just before just before we got married, and then sold that house and bought another house in Loll. We were trying to move back to the original neighborhood where we started. We made a mistake in terms of the location. You know that when when you hear people talk about location, location, location, they are one hundred and twenty percent right, because I lived in a in a new house on a street in a neighborhood that we didn't absolutely love and we couldn't wait to get out of there, and when the housing market crashed, we ended up we were underwater on that house. We ended up paying to get out of it.

9:49 And we were trying to move back to the neighborhood where we had started because that's where we really wanted to be and couldn't find the type of house that we wanted. We had some other family dynamics going on that were basically pointing to us to leave Loll, and we had looked on and off over the years in southern New Hampshire because we both really liked New Hampshire and so the time, you know, at that point you could buy low into into Windom, Yes, you can't really do that now, but at that time we were able to buy Low and Windom and it's been great for us. I mean, great school system, great neighborhoods. Uh, you know, met a lot of really really good friends here, so it's it's been good to us.

10:30 Nice all right. So now consider high school years, maybe early college. Who were your early influencers. Oh, I'm going to tell you about people that no one's ever heard of before unless you were you. You were in the types of businesses the the early I was very lucky. I tell people this a lot. My early influencers were actually the bosses that I worked for as a as a teenage kid. I was very fortunate to work for some really smart people, good people, people who had the patience to show me the ropes. I fell in love with business at a young age, and I knew I wanted to be in business leadership, probably when I was fifteen years old. Very first job, first w two job. Anyway, I worked at a liquor store and I worked in the back where I sorted all of the bottles and cans that people would return, you know, for the nickel. And I mean it was just a perfect job for a you know, a young high school kid, but it was it was nasty, and I was, you know, cleaning toilets for the employees and taking the trash out and doing all these things. But the guy who owned the store, his name's Vinnie Straziri. I think he's since sold the store and retired. But I was in and out of the little corner store next to the liquor store all the time as a kid, and he approached me one day and said, you need a job, and as I heard you looking, and I said, yeah, I

12:01 have been looking for a job. So he hired me, and he taught me so much about business because I would finish up my work and I would go and see him. I'd see all these papers out all over his desk, and I was always very curious about it, and i'd be asking, you know, the general ledger books and purchase orders and packing slips and all these different things, and I would be asking him questions, probably to the point where I annoyed him, but I just kind of loved how it all went together, and so that got me curious about business. And then I moved on from there. And I won't take you through my entire pre college resume, but suffice to say, each stop of the way, I met managers who really wanted to take me under their wing and teach me different things. And it built my love of business management and leadership. You know, for many years, right through college, I had all kinds of part time jobs through college. I just got lucky, you know, I got lucky in that I was exposed to so many good people. We hear about bad bosses all the time, and I see it with my clients sometimes. I see the bad bosses within their organizations and I see the impact that it has on the people that report to them.

13:12 And honestly, that's who I coach for. I coach for those people who wake up every day and slog off to work because you know, they need the paycheck, but they're miserable, and it's because they're working for a poorly run team or a poorly run company. And I want them to have a good experience as much as I want the owners of the business to do well. So and that all came from learning from these people who had been in business, and I was lucky enough to be exposed to love that. All right, we're going to take our first commercial break right here. We will be back in one minute, everybody, We're going to be back in about sixty seconds with Steve Debrees.

13:54 You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenet on W four CIO. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Best and Wealth Management is family owned for two generations. They take pride in thoughtful financial planning and wealth management with a family feel for your closely held family business. Best in Wealth Management focuses on deep planning, integrating your business planning with personal They will help put your money to work and your mind at ease. Go to Bestinwealthmanagement dot com for more information. Advisory service is offered through Commonwealth Financial Network, a registered investment advisor. Join the Best Family and let our family advise your family. That's Bestinwealthmanagement dot com for your complementary initial consultation.

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15:43 All right, we are back with Steve Davirees, certified business and executive coach with Focal Point and founder of Debrees Enterprises. Enterprises. Sorry, how did you make it to DJ Instruments? And I know looked like there are a couple iterations. It was purchased maybe twice. Yeah, So so DJ Instruments was a design and manufacturing company for custom sensors. How I found them? It's actually kind of a fun story. So you know, when you're in college, you get these job faares, right, So at UMass loll it was no different. They had the job fares. Lots of big companies looking for, you know, young graduates that they can kind of chew up and spit out and maybe wanted to stick. And I didn't want to do that. I was working for Putnam Investments at the time that I graduated and they were offering me work and I just I didn't want to be there. I could see I was just going to be a number.

16:37 I was looking for something smaller, where I felt like I could learn a lot and make a difference and not just kind of crank along as a you know, as a as a cog in the wheel. So I went to the career services office at UMass loll and I said, listen, all these all these job fare, big companies that they're not doing it for me. What else is there? There must be something? And they said, oh, yeah, there is. And you know, this was before the Internet was really you know, a big thing, so dating myself certainly. But the woman came along and handed me this thick binder boom, drops it on the table and says, these are all local companies looking to hire. Flip through this and see if anything catches your attention. So I sat in that career services office for I don't know how long, flipping one page after another, reading job descriptions. About halfway through I read this one from DJ Instruments and it was for a purchasing manager role. And I read through it and it just it spoke to me. And I said, that's it, that's the one. So I responded, I interviewed, and I got the job and I was there for nineteen years.

17:47 Wow, with progressing a responsibility. You look like you left as VP COO. Yeah. So started out in purchasing and I had one person reporting to me. I had to put all kinds of things into place. They had purchased an MRP system about a year before I got there, and they tinkered with it but never did anything. So I had to learn what an MRP system was and how to build it up, because he handed that to me as a project, as well as getting all of their inventory under control. Inventory was all over the place. There was no control. They had little index cards where they supposedly kept counts and stuff coming in and stuff going out. It wasn't controlled terribly well at all. Did well with that. I probably made a few enemies along the way for the people who liked having free access to the materials. But we got it ountder control. We started reducing our overall footprint in terms of the amount that we had in inventory and built up the MRP system. And then the owner who was my boss, asked me to take on more of an operations leadership role. So now I had all those people who I had ticked off that you know, I took all their inventory away and made them ask nicely for it. They now reported to me and did that for a couple of years. And then one day the owner called me, and his name's Mike Testa, another example of a phenomenal boss that I learned a ton from.

19:18 He called me into his office and he said, you see me parading all these people in suits in and out of here the last couple of weeks. Said yeah, what is that all about? He says, well, I've been I've been interviewing for a general manager or you know, a chief operating officer. And he said, because I can't be in the business. His wife had become very sick and he needed to be with them. Yeah, and he says, here's the deal. He says, they're all very capable, he says, but I don't trust them. I trust you. And he had been grooming me, you know, to to elevate elevate me in the in the business, and it's what I wanted. But he literally took the key to the building out of his pocket and slid it across the desk. And said, I'm going to promote you. You're in shock arch, it's your show to run. Lean on the staff because we had a very seasoned staff there. He said, lean on the staff, don't screw it up. I'll check in from time to time. And he got up and he left. Well, and I sat there with this, Yeah, I mean, it was it was. It was great that he trusted me, and it was exactly what I wanted, but it was exactly the wrong way to that. I that I wanted to get it right. It felt like I had probably earned the shot, but not at the expense of, you know, his family situation. And so I went home that night and I didn't know how to feel. And I remember the conversation with with Kim and she said, well, listen, regardless of how you got here, you're here, and so what are you going to do with it? And so I thought a lot that I don't think I slept a wink that night, and I had to go into

20:48 work the next day and address, you know, everybody and kind of let them know what was going on. And he was a very very beloved leader in the business. So you can imagine that I've got these huge shoes to fill everybody feeling, you know, the pain of what he and his family are going through. And so that was that was the first lesson that I had in becoming a leader and trying to find your own path and your own And what I learned is you can't replace those people. You have to find your own path and do things. You know, you can learn from them, but you kind of have to do things a little bit differently. You're just in your own style. And so that's when I started learning that lesson, and I was there for a long time. It was sold. He came back to the business a couple of years later and he just he wasn't going to stay in the business, so he decided to sell it, and that's when it was acquired by a much larger sensor company, dy Nisco.

21:47 At the same time, Dynisco was acquired by a Roper, which is a very large, publicly traded company. So imagine, you know, I had found my footing as the leader of this little it felt like a family business, twenty five people, and now all of a sudden, I have to deal with six or seven new bosses at Dynisco, and they have new bosses at Roper and I'm getting to learn all of them while trying to you know, steer the ship at Little DJ Instruments. So that was a really exciting, scary time in my life. But it talks you about corporate. Oh boy did it. What was interesting is is that the the guys who were all the vps and the president of Dynisco, they all had equity in that business.

22:35 So most of them, at different points in times, scattered right they left the business. There was only one gentleman that stuck around. He was the engineering leader. And it was all new leaders. From sales, to marketing, to ops to to finance. They all came in, so I had to learn all of them. And then they brought me into Roper right, and Roper was always doing these you know, Roper is a portfolio company, so they had, you know, twenty million dollar businesses, fifty two hundred million dollar businesses, and here's Little DJ Instruments. At the time, I think we're probably four or five million in revenue. And I had but I had to learn how to operate DJ Instruments as a business unit just like those larger ones, and present it just like those larger ones. So I learned how to speak corporate in that environment. But more importantly, I learned how to take what corporate expected and boil it down into something that worked for a small business.

23:36 And that's what I you know, a lot of what I do with my clients today. All right. So then you went over equipment Depot as general manager. You had another position at Pion as a GM. Talk about those two companies and roles as GM. So the Equipment Depot was was actually it was. It was under a different name at that point in time. So it was a New England Industrial truck an e T and any it was a brand forklifts yeah, sorry, a forklift dealership and so any it had built quite a reputation in New England as one of the premier forklift dealers and it was built up by a family.

24:23 Family ended up selling it to the manufacturer of the primary forklift line at the time. It was Nissan. It became Unit Carriers. I won't bore you with all the different names, but ultimately the reason that happened is because the forklift manufacturer was acquired by Mitsubishi. So someone at Mitsupichee Japan said we want to start to own the sales channel. The way that whole industry works is you know, either you own all of your factory stores like a Crown forklift, right, so it's factory and they own all this stores, or you sold through independent dealers. Mitsubishi said, we want to own some dealers and they instructed the Chicago area based factory go buy a couple of dealerships. Well, they bought one in Wisconsin out in the Madison not Madison, doesn't matter in Wisconsin, and one here in New England.

25:20 The family had been not been building the business, preparing it for the future. They weren't managing pricing, They really weren't managing anything. But they sold it and moved on, other than owning the building, of course, which maybe we'll get to that in a minute, but they moved on and that business they put it. So the factory put in some general manager who showed up at ten and left at two, and things started to slide and everybody stopped trusting each other, and so it got to the point where that twenty million dollar year business was completely upside down and they were losing big money every year.

26:00 And someone in Japan had stuck their neck out with this decision, and they were keeping the business afloat and they that's when they found me. And you know, they approached me about the job. I said, why why would you want me? I know nothing about forklifts or your industry. I come from a completely different business model. And they said, it's it's not your knowledge of forklifts and so forth that we're interested in. You understand how to run a local business unit and do it profitably while collaborating with a large, publicly traded parent company. And we think, and we think that that would be you know, exactly what we need. And so I was hired to do that turnaround.

26:43 It was the toughest three and a half years of my professional life. They told me it would take four years. We got it done in about three. But I saw a lot in that industry that I knew that I didn't want to be there over the long haul. I wanted I wanted the challenge, right. I said, if I can learn a new industry and a new business model and helped turn it around, then that's a pretty good feather in my cap. So that's what attracted me to it. I like a good challenge and I got what I was I got what I asked for. That there's no doubt about that, but I didn't. It wasn't an industry that I wanted to stay in. So that's how I ended up at Pion. So at that time, it was just before COVID had hit, and I was being recruited by two different companies, Pion being one of them. The other one was a small instrumentation company here in New Hampshire.

27:40 By all accounts of that business didn't seem terribly exciting. It hadn't grown a lot, It was just kind of steady state. It was a French owned business, and you know, it just looked like I and the president was retiring president of thirty forty years. They were looking for someone to come and take the torch and that was the safe path. And I thought, you know, coming off of this turnaround work that I had done and learning to live with my hair on fire all the time, it seemed a little bit ho hum. And while I probably could have used a little ho hum, I knew that it wouldn't be good for a long time, and so I went to Pion, which looked like it had a ton of upside. But here's what happened. COVID hit and so Pinon was a small business. There was you know, fifteen or twenty people and they had a small division in the UK. The last thing I did before leaving New England Industrial Truck was to sign off on furloughs.

28:43 I couldn't keep the technicians working any longer. Nobody's business was open. I brought them all in the house and because we had just relocated the business to save some money, I brought them all in house, kept them working for a couple of weeks upfitting the place, and then I had to There was left no more work left for them, so I have to sign off. So I go to Pion and I can see a ton of operational needs and but you can't. There's nobody coming into work right. And if you do go into work, you're wearing a mask. Everybody's got social distancing and sadly they're they're chief scientists passed away due to COVID man. So now imagine you're the new general manager. You're there working with the owners.

29:32 I would say that one owner wanted me there and the other one that didn't. It was a husband and wife owner owner set. Even though it was a tough dynamic, but again I had it's pretty cocky and I hadn't had any major major I had one major setback. I think of my minor setback in my career up to that point, and so I thought, I can, I can do this right, I will win, I will win them over and and do this, and I can sees so much opportunity. Well, between the social distancing and losing of a key employee, a beloved employee, nobody really knew what was going on with the world, right, and so here I am trying to gain traction in an environment where everybody's feeling loss. I had never even met the gentleman who passed away, and so it became apparent pretty quickly that this was not going to be for the long haul.

30:28 And so a lot of property, you know, capital with them too, right. Sure, yeah, there was there was that concern. It was the you know, it was a small business, so and it was capital equipment. So nobody was signing off on one hundred hundred and fifty thousand dollars apex. At that point in time. There was a services component to the pion business, but again those services were catering to people in laboratories, and the laboratories weren't open. Nothing was happening. So at ninety days, you know, there were a lot of dynamics going on that I didn't like, and I'm not I don't really want to get into it here, but suffice to say it wasn't feeling like the right fit.

31:11 And on my ninety day review, I had a list of things basically that it needed to change if if it was going to make sense for me to stay. And they had already arrived at that conclusion, like, we don't know what's going on in the world, but we know that we can't afford you to stick around here while we can't really have any of the change that you came here to do in the first place. So we parted of ways. It was just you know, a COVID casualty, if you will. Yeah, I probably would have been fine if I had gone the boring path right with that other. Operatiy had there been no COVID, But who knew. I mean, right, there's no way we wouldn't write right right, we're going to take our we're going to take our second break.

31:53 Right there, we'll come right back to the to the end of that talk about excelums and then right into focal point right after the break. We right back. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Hallane on W four CY Radio. That's W four CWY dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Best in Wealth Management is family owned for two generations. They take pride in thoughtful financial planning and wealth management with a family feel for your closely held family business. Best in Wealth Management focuses on deep planning, integrating your business planning with personal They will help put your money to work and your mind at ease. Go to Bestinwealthmanagement dot com for more information. Advisory services offered through Commonwealth Financial Network a registered investment advisor. Join the best Family and let our family advise your family. That's Bestinwealthmanagement dot com for your complementary initial consultation.

33:00 The yp dot com website is your local search engine. If you're looking for a good restaurant, it can help you find the right one nearby with ratings and reviews. Or if your car breaks down, you can use the YP app to find the closest repair shop. Or maybe you're just looking for something to do on a Friday night. While it has great local coupons for all sorts of things in your area, no matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something, YP Local Search can help you find it. So go to yp dot com or download the app to search local, find local, and save local. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helene.

33:52 All right, we're back with Steve Debrees, certified business and executive coach with Focal Point and founder of Debrees Enterprises. Wrap up. Sorry for the abrupt change there or the abrupt exit there. I just looked at the clock. Wrap up that story and we'll get into uh exelums and focal points. Well, I think the wrap up is, you know, I was a bit of a COVID casualty, right there was there was nothing that I could do at that particular point in time at the start of COVID that met the charter of of why I was brought in in the first place, which was to help the the owners of the business back away and to take the business, you know, into sort of its next generation of what whatever it was going to be, right, it just didn't It didn't work out, and these things happened from time to time. It's it's not anybody's fault. Nobody saw COVID coming.

34:43 So I was out of work that summer, which was actually okay because yeah, yeah, nobody was working. I had just bought my boat, and so you know, I spent a lot of time during the week just kind of hanging our steel. He's on an off site. Yeah yeah, No, Steve was checking for job opportunities and then high tailing it up to the lake for a few months. But I got an opportunity as CEO at Excellence, which is another very small analytical instrumentation business, really really unique scientific equipment, and so it felt kind of like going back to the minor leagues, like it compared to where I had been and the money that I had been making. It felt from a career wise, like a little bit of a setback in some respects, but in other respects, I saw tons and tons of opportunity. Right, they didn't have any kind of an ERP system, and you know, they were growing. There wasn't a whole lot of organization going on. It was. It was being run by a scientist who founded the business, and an engineer who was trying to be both ops and engineering. His name is Mark Osgood Mark and I have become good friends.

36:00 Was a vice president of sales there by the name of Dave Kwaievski. And Dave actually had been at Pion prior to Excellence, and he's the He had heard about me and put my name into the Excellence owner's ears about coming in as a as a COO. So I arrived there, I see all kinds of opportunity, but the owner didn't really want to move as quickly as we needed in any capacity. And so Mark and Dave and I the those two week the were the best things that came out of that opportunity. We became friends and and the transition over to focal point. So it got to the point where we were all so frustrated about being there, and it was a little bit different from Mark because he had been there for the for the longest.

36:45 But we were all talking about what was next, and we were all thinking entrepreneurially, which was interesting. And it was Dave that said to me, you know, I've been talking with franchise consultants and I kind of looked at him and I was like, franchise, what are you gonna buy dunkin Donuts? Like what are we talk? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, what do we want to you know, employee minimum wage people and do all that? Like that's not what I'm used to. And so he said, no, no, no, there's a bunch of like solopreneur kind of like white collar businesses out there. He says, you want to talk with this guy? So I said sure. I talked with him and he said, boy, you know, you'd be a really good fit at focal Point. I said, focal Point? What's that? And so he told me a little bit about it, and I said, okay, fine, I listened and I kind of stuck a pin in it. A couple of weeks later, Dave comes in. He says, hey, I talked with another franchise consultant. I really like this guy.

37:37 You ought to have another conversation with him. I said fine. So that conversation went very much like the first conversation, and the guy basically said, I could give you a list of franchises that I think you'd be good for. He says, but I'm telling you right now, for you, focal Point is going to be the best fit. So I said, Okay, fine, connect me with somebody from Focal Point, and I what I heard and it. I loved it so much as scared me after a little bit, because it was all the best parts of what I've done as an executive throughout my career in terms of helping people get where they want to go, helping businesses were, you know, become the best version of themselves without a lot of the without a lot of the nonsense. And so I got very excited very quickly, and I talked with a lot of different Vocal Point coaches and Wow, this this could be really great. But then I started getting nervous, and so as I continue to have these discovery conversations, I approached it like today's the day I'm going to figure out why this is a bad idea and the only bad the only thing that I could find at the end of all of my exploration was whether or not I was willing to bet on myself to do the business development.

38:52 I was going to say that. Yet one stepback that I had that I mentioned earlier that I didn't talk about was when I was at DJ Instruments and we owned by Dynisco. The business was running so well they said, we don't need you to be a general manager. We need you to be a business development guy. Right, you've got this little machine that's a cash register. You're just cranking out money. We want more of it, naturally, And I didn't want to be a business development person. I wanted to be a general manager. And so I spent a year kicking and screaming about that, pissing off the executives at Dynisco and Roper about that. But I learned something from that experience, and so back to focal point and that decision point, I said, well, I haven't seen anything from a traditional general manager type role open up. I've always wanted to have my own business, never knew what it would look like, and now here's this idea of what it could look like. And there's this great, seemingly great organization with the same types of business values and cultural values that I value. And so if I'm ever going to try this, it felt like the right time to do it. And so I, you know, built out the you know, the financial plan to make sure that we could afford for me to stop having an income and took the plunge into entrepreneurship.

40:16 Excellent, Yeah, to me. I mean, I know a fair amount about focal Point, just because I've met a number of you guys through provisors, and Yeah, it takes the best of what you're doing and you get to do it over and over. Right. Yeah, I love it. I absolutely love it. I feel like I was you know, I've I've coached people for a long time in different ways, especially as I got later in my career. I found myself being able to use a lot of what I've been exposed to and learned, and especially some of the tough lessons. And I enjoyed, you know, coaching people, you know, younger people up. I enjoyed, you know, helping people who are at later stages in their career, you know, get to another level. Anything that I could do to align the businesses goals with the personal and professional goals of the people in that organization, that's what really gets my juices flowing. And when you can do it right, you build something really powerful.

41:09 So you like working with technology based OEM's original quitment manufacturers, other manufacturing B to B service providers, and non not for profits. That's an interesting blend. So the not for profit sort of happened by accident and it's and it's kind of a personal story. So when I bought into Focal Point, which is a franchise you have to pay into it, I was sitting on some money that I inherited from my dad. And when I was dealing with my dad's a state, I saw the number of checks that he was writing to different nonprofit organizations, all like help animals, help people, that sort of thing. He was very giving in that way, and I said, you know what, if I'm going to start this business and use some of his money to do it, I'm going to honor what he was doing. And so I will always make room for a nonprofit organization that could benefit from leadership development, and I'll and I'll do a short pro bono program ninety days typically. And I mentioned that one day in a networking meeting and a woman approached me. She says, I know the perfect organization that could use some of your help, and she introduced me, and we worked for ninety days together and then they wanted to keep going. And they've been a client with me for over three years. And I've coached a lot of people in that organization. So I don't necessarily target it, but I'll never.

42:34 Say no, I love that legacy. And so the leaders of these organizations say I'm taking this out of your off your website. They're often frustrated and overwhelmed. Right. The problems that you see a lot are shrinking margins, communication breakdowns, everybody's not on the same page, sales are stagnant, leadership team not aligned. Talk about out how you help them? I'll use just a phrase, get unstuck. So I, first of all, I listen, Yeah right, I ask a lot of questions and I listen, and oftentimes the problems look and sound similar, but there's obviously nuanced to all of it, and sometimes you're dealing with a lot of history there. So how do I get them unstuck?

43:23 I use my experience first and foremost. I listen to what they have to say, and I understand, what is it that you actually want this to be like in a perfect world, if you could draw this out, what would that look like? Most of the time they have a pretty good answer, but sometimes they don't, and I have to give them the benefit of my experience to say, this is what it would look like, and that could be from any of those aspects that you mentioned. And so then we start, we go to work, and I start teaching them about themselves. I start teaching them about what could be with their teams. Sometimes I'll work directly with my client and some of the people on their team.

44:04 But everyone is a little bit different, and so you know, Focal Point has great content. But I meet every client where they are, right, Right. If I'm working with the owner of a of a two million dollar business, I'm not trying to turn them into, you know, the owner of one hundred million dollar business. It's two very different mind frames, right, And so you have to understand where they are. And sometimes they know their numbers really well and sometimes they don't. And so how they get unstuck is by learning, right, I think that's that's probably the easiest way for me to put it. They haven't had the benefit of the experience that I've had, so they haven't learned how to be effective business leaders or good managers, or understand the financials anything along those lines.

44:52 Small and can be insular, right, That's all they see is what they've done and seen themselves, versus the breadth of as you can bring from other businesses. Right. So you know, you get that small business owner operator and they don't know how to delegate. Right. They've had to do everything themselves for so long, and they're afraid to let go of the rope on anything, and that stunts the business's growth. It stunts the growth of the people and the organization, and so that becomes that manifests itself in turnover. Right, people get tired of being there because there's no opportunity, they move on, right, And so that's one way I help them get unstuck. I might teach a small business owner how to actually delegate and how to manage effectively. Right, if it's a bigger business, maybe you've got a leader in there that's just kind of gotten you know, I'm thinking ten fifteen to twenty million. Right, they've been owner operator for so long. They've done a good job building it, but they don't understand how to think like a CEO. They're still thinking like owner operator and they're.

45:53 Too They made and we've probably made a bunch of money, right, so there's not a ton of pain probably, right. Yeah, until until the pain shows up because they've hit their ceiling. And now, you know, you don't just hit the ceiling and stop. Usually hit the ceiling and bounce back. Yeah, they realize, Oh, I've never planned for an exit, right, Or I don't you know, I don't know what the next chapter is going to look like. Or yeah, sadly to your point, they or somebody else gets sick. Yeah, it's it could be any of it, right, How to transition to the next generation, how to get the most out of your business when you when you sell it, Or I've still got fifteen or twenty years left and I've grown this thing as far as I can, and I don't know what to do with that anymore. I'm spread too thin. I don't know how to build a leadership team. I don't even know where to begin. And so you have to, you know, in any of those cases, you have to understand where they're at and help them get to whatever that next level looks like. And sometimes they don't know what it looks like, and so that's where you start.

46:53 So you help them build organization. Perhaps it might be that senior team. You know a client now going through it, Yeah, what. Type of You know, it's a manufacturing company, and so you know this this owner, he's second generation, bought the business from his dad, has done a good job building it up, moved the business into a brand new facility that he had built out and it got stuck. And now it's starting to slide backwards a little bit. And he's got a lot of longtime loyal employees. But the problem is is that they he wants to get that business, you know, more than two x where it is today, and the people who have gotten him to where it is today, you know, he's loyal to them. So what do you do right? And he doesn't understand that You've got to bring in fresh minds, more horsepower, people who understand what it means to go from a ten million dollar business to a twenty five million dollar business. And most of the people in there right now it's maximum, like even a ten million dollar business is beyond where they're comfortable and operating. And so you have to bring in some new levels of expertise the owner financial professional.

48:08 There's a well so for actually they do have a fractional CFO. I love the fractional fractional fractional CFOs, fractional you know VPS of HR sales marketing right for a bit. This is the perfect size business to the to to leverage fractional expertise. And so that's kind of the direction I'm starting to take them. How do your clients find you? Oh, usually it's word of mouth. Right, just about everybody has been word of mouth in some way, shape or form. Somebody that I know, somebody that I've just. Met, has been good for you up until now. Yeah, absolutely, Provisors has given me a couple of opportunities.

48:49 Provisers has been great because I've learned a ton from others, and I've met people who you know, are willing to help, not just professionally, but personally. You know, I don't know if we have enough time, but I could share. We actually have to wrap up. I know then I'm gonna let you wrap it up, all right, So let me ask this best way to contact you? Your website is there. It'll come back in a second. Why should someone who's listening or watching reach out. Because they're frustrated with their current situation. They know that there's a better way, but they don't know how to find that better way. Right, If you're running a business and you know that it should be easier, a little bit easier, it should be a little bit better, and you're just not quite sure how to make that happen.

49:36 That's why you call me excellent. So the website is Stevedavrees dot focalpoint dot com. There it is again, Steve S D e ve E Devrees d V D E v r I E s dot focal Point Coaching dot com. S Devrees at Focalpointcoaching dot com. Reach out and talk to Steve if you think you might need some help. And thank you so much. Appreciate the time, and it's been good to have you Kevin. It's been an absolute pleasure. I appreciate you and what you do. Thank you very much, and thanks everybody for listening and watching. We appreciate you. This is the show about business and often business challenges. If you've got concerns about the sales effectiveness of your company, whether your sales team is you or very small, or it's very large, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business Radio. Drop me a note at one of my many email addresses, Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com.

50:27 Our company is Winning and Corporated. We're part of Sandler Training. We develop salespeople and sales teams into high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. Listen, We're not for everybody, but maybe we should have a conversation. Thank you to producer and engineer one. Thank you one for another job well done. Be sure to join us next Monday, March twenty third. My returning guest will be best selling author and salary coach founder John Gates to introduce the Crossroads, a proven faith aligned path to help Christian corporate leaders launch their first consulting business. Until then, this is Kevin Hallena. You have been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode, The podcast is available on Talk for Podcasting and iHeartRadio.

51:14 For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on W four CY Radio W four cy dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Halenan and Winning Business Radio