Pillars of Business Growth

Episode 908: Pillars of Business Growth, with H. John Oechsle

The pillars of business growth, a discussion with John Oechsle. Learn about growing your company using the pillars of business growth.

John Oechsle joined Swiftpage (www.act.com) in July 2012 and currently serves as Chief Executive Officer. He will be our special guest for today to teach us about the pillars of business growth and more. 

John came to Swiftpage with an over 30 year track record of building highly profitable and sustainable revenue growth for emerging companies and established global leaders.

Prior to joining Swiftpage, John served as the Executive Vice President of Strategy and Product for DigitalGlobe. During his tenure, he was instrumental in shaping the future of the company and driving revenue growth through the launch of a number of very successful product lines. Prior to DigitalGlobe, John was the Senior Vice President of Technology and Content as well as Chief Information Officer for IHS Inc. Before that he was the Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Information Management Worldwide for Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, a Johnson & Johnson company, where he was responsible for all technology and e-business. Earlier in his career, John served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Land America Financial Group, Inc., and Director of Global Information Management for Kellogg Company. John holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in computer science from Rutgers University and is a graduate of the Tuck Executive Program at the Amos Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College.

John is an advocate for technology and education in Colorado and has been an active contributor and served as 2007 Chairman of the Colorado Technology Association (CTA). John supports Open World Learning, an organization that uses the power of technology and peer teaching to develop leadership and ignite a love of learning among children. John also supports Kidstek, an organization dedicated to making technology accessible to youth. John has been recognized several times for his involvement in the industry. In 2006 and in 2009, John was awarded the Technology Executive of the Year, and the Titan of Technology awards by the CTA. John was also awarded the Bob Newman Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Community by the CTA in 2011 and the Nancy J. Sauer Philanthropy award in 2016. In 2015, John was appointed to the Business Experiential Learning Commission (BEL) by the Governor of Colorado and continues to serve on that commission today.

While not at Swiftpage, John juggles his time being a husband, father, and grandfather and spends the time he has left playing golf, skiing and boating.

What you will learn from this episode about the pillars of business growth:

• What transformative projects John and his team at Swiftpage have been working on since his prior appearance on Onward Nation in episode #780
• Why Swiftpage’s business strategy of “owning the conversion and retention space for the small- and mid-sized business market” is key to their growth
• Why Swiftpage believes the four digital pillars of business growth are presence, traffic, conversion/retention, and optimization tools, and how John defines each pillar
• How Swiftpage determines whether it would be more effective to build a “component” themselves or acquire it through M&A, and how John defines a component
• How niching down, keeping a clear focus on the fifteen-seat company and smaller, and serving their customers has helped Swiftpage evolve and grow successfully
• Why John looks for three distinct qualities and characteristics in the A-players in his team: talent, an insatiable appetite to win, and putting mission before self
• Why a good leader’s role is to mentor and nurture talent, tell a clear story, bring credibility, and build a talented and effective team
• What qualities a leader needs to be an effective mentor to other business leaders outside their company
• Why having the courage to pursue your goals, the passion to push yourself, and the tenacity to keep going are the keys to success
• How you could use the pillars of business growth for your own benefit and experience the results

Resources:

• Twitter: @hjoech
• Email: [email protected]
• Apart from the pillars of business growth, check out these different stages

Additional Resources:

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Add these other business strategies with the pillars of business growth and win against your competitors

 

 

Pillars of Business Growth: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success on the pillars of business growth from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

 

Good morning, Onward Nation. I’m Stephen Woessner. But before I introduce you to our encore guests today, and let me tell you, I was so very excited when John said yes to coming back for an encore because there’s been so much that has been happening at Swift Page. Now, you may remember John as our incredible guest back in episode 780 of Onward Nation.

 

In leading through and walking us through the transformation that has been taking place at Swift page. We covered all of that during 780, and now we have this really unique opportunity to now look back on the last 18 months, as well as what is coming up forward thinking, what is on the horizon for some of the fall launches that are coming up, or the fall launches coming up in fall of 2019, and be able to slice that apart because we’re in launch period right now as this episode is airing.

 

So we’re going to walk through some of those big topics that are as part of that launch. We’re going to talk about that tactically. We’re also going to talk about that from a user base. We’re also going to talk about that strategically and the two year roadmap, and why he and his team think about the progress of the business in that two year horizon and how they’re really looking at the small to midsize business market, and specifically the conversion and retention space in the strategy about how they’re going to have the ownership of that market.

 

So this is going to be one of those strategic, tactical conversations Onward Nation that I’m so very excited for you to be a part of. This second opportunity to have John’s insights and wisdom as part of Onward Nation. So without further ado, welcome back to Onward Nation. John. 

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: John Oechsle’s Introduction

 

Steve, and thanks so much for having me.

 

It’s, last time we had such a blast. I can’t wait to do it again today. Goodness, I am very excited for this conversation too. And thank you again, sir, for saying yes. And so let’s just jump right into the thick of it, because as this episode is airing, I know it’s a very exciting time for Swift Page.

 

You’re in the midst of your fall 2019 launch. So give us give us a couple of kind of high level, give us 30,000ft view. What are some of the big pillars of the launch. And then we’ll break all of those down. Yeah, sure. So you know, before I jump directly into the the actual pieces of the fall launch, let’s take a half a step back, as you mentioned, as we were kind of getting started here today is that, you know, when we last episode, we talked a lot about the transformation of the company and the three distinct eras that we went through of transformation, conversion and growth.

 

And we’re smack dab in the middle of the growth era. And when you’re trying to really grow a company, the most important thing that you need to have is a very well defined, detailed strategy. And we feel that we really have that. And in our strategy, if you just boil it down to the elevator pitch is pretty simple.

 

We will own the conversion and retention space for the SMP market. And everybody says, oh that’s great. What is conversion retention? What does that mean? We might have mentioned this last time, but I’ll just reiterate that when you look at the S&P market, we believe that there are four distinct pillars, digital pillars that a company needs in order to grow.

 

We call them presence traffic conversion, retention and optimization tools. So presence is very, you know, everybody knows that that’s, you know, websites, Facebook pages, landing pages, etc. traffic is SEO. It drives traffic to that presence and that creates leads. And then conversion. Retention is all about converting those leads to customers retaining them and growing them. And then optimization tools are things like financial software, HR software, etc..

 

So those are the four pillars of a company. As those four pillars are working, you know, the likelihood of them growing is a lot higher than if they didn’t have that. So, you know, we said we’re going to own conversion retention. We were kind of dabbling in it in the beginning. And now, as you know, as we’ve as we’ve launched, things like, the gross, etc., we’re really, kind of taking, a firm look at that conversion retention.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: Enterprise Resource Planning

 

So what is conversion retention? And Stephen, bear with me for just a second, because I’m going to tell you how old of a guy I am, right. But way back in the early days, a bunch of people got together and they said, hey, if we group these technologies applications together, we can do a portion of the business.

 

And that was called MRP. And that was in the late 60s, early 70s. And then they said, hey, if we add some more stuff to that, we can run even more of the business. And then that became MRP too, right? And then they said, hey, if we add all this stuff into it, we can run, you know, almost all the business.

 

And then they called it ERP or enterprise resource planning and that series of decades. Right. That through the 70s, the 80s and into the 90s. But what they missed was the customer and the customer relationship, etc.. So then in the early 90s, you see these customer relationship management, you know, Tom Siebel came out, Benioff came out all these players, you know, came out and started focusing on software to manage the relationship with this customer.

 

So CRM is kind of going through that exact same evolution as MRP. MRP and ERP did. And so first there was just, you know, CRM, let’s just do some stuff and then they say, well, what if we add some more stuff to that, you know, like marketing automation? Well then all of a sudden now CRM too. And what about sales automation, service management, etc.?

 

Well then all of a sudden you have SRM, right? And that’s not what it’s going to call. We call that conversion retention. What conversion retention is, is taking all the pieces surrounding that relationship and journey that you have with the customer and putting them into a single platform. Right. So we say CRM is the anchor. And then there’s marketing automation.

 

There’s sales automation and service management. Those are the four big buckets. And there’s probably, you know, 10 or 12 other small little pieces that also fit into that. So when we say we’re going to own conversion retention for the SMB, it is really about looking at getting all of those components into a single platform that the SMB can use to run and grow their business.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: The CRM and Marketing Automation

 

So that’s kind of what we do. So now what you take a look at is, okay, that’s not something that you’re going to do in one quarter or two quarters. This is a journey that you’re on. And that’s why you take a look at what we do is take out a rolling two year look at this platform that we’re creating.

 

And what are the pieces that we put in, through those, through rolling two years in two major releases throughout the year and then a bunch of small, you know, releases and purpose built apps, in between all that. And that’s how we come up with that. So when you talk about the fall 2019 launch, we already have two components of the conversion retention platform, and that is CRM and marketing automation.

 

Since the last time we’ve spoken, we did an acquisition. We acquired a company called Carvana, which had a product called Inbox Guru. We took that. We completely integrated it into our CRM platform and rebranded Inbox View to Act marketing Automation. But more importantly, the entire platform now is called the Act Grow Suite. And the Growth suite, really is about having full featured CRM and full featured marketing automation in one platform.

 

That is really simple to use for the SMB. And so, you know that that’s where that growth suite is. And that’s when we take a look at, you know, the spring launch that happened in 2019, as well as the fall launch, is the continuing evolution of adding more and more to both of those pieces in the Act growth suite.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: Focusing on SMBs

 

So, you know, that’s, you know, pretty exciting and you can tell I’m pretty, pretty excited about it. Passionate about because I think for the SMB, there really isn’t a platform that has both full featured CRM and marketing automation completely integrated in one single platform. We’ve got some really good marketing automation players out there, and you got some really good CRM players out there, but you only really have one platform that has both of those pieces in one.

 

So why the small business market? Why the SMEs? You know, that was really our heritage, right? So, when Swift Page was founded way back in 2001 by Bob Ogden and some other founders, you know, that they were really, as a small email marketing company focused on the SMB. And we just kind of took that heritage.

 

Now, when we look at it, why are we focused on the SMB? Because I think it is such an underserved market right now. You know, there’s a lot of players that are focused on the middle sized businesses in the enterprise businesses, and those guys, those tools and platforms, etc. they always will try and come down and say like, hey, you know, small business, you can use it, but they’re not designed for the small business in mind.

 

So I think you’ve got this huge underserved market that, we believe, we’re going to just, you know, can take control of and own for that conversion and retention space. Yeah. Love it in our pre-interview chat Onward Nation. You know, John and I, when we were in the green room before I hit the record button, we were talking about the strategy around owning that conversion and retention space, whether it’s do we build it or do we buy and and so, John, take us into that strategy because you already mentioned one acquisition.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: The Bullseye Diagram

 

So how do you and your team decide, okay, are we going to build this like or what’s the development strategy here from a dev perspective. Or are we going to go out and look for a strategic transaction and acquisition. And maybe that shortens the curve, you know, what have you. So can you walk us through that process of decision making?

 

Yeah. And start again. It starts with a very, very, you know, well-defined business strategy. Right. So we know we want to own conversion retention. We know what all the components are of conversion, retention. You lay all those out and we actually lay it out in a bullseye. It’s kind of funny. It is kind of a bull’s eye diagram.

 

So you have the center, and those are the hottest components that we feel that we have to go after next. Then you have that next outer ring, and then you have the, a third outside ring, on that and the targets and, pieces that you put in those outside rings are things that you want to get to, and you just need to identify them so that if something comes available, whether through an acquisition or you get some more resources or whatever, you can say, like, well, this is an opportunistic thing, maybe we should take that piece now from an outer ring and stick it into a into that center, center bullseye. 

 

But once you have that kind of laid out, you know, all the pieces, and then you basically take a look and you say, okay, what’s the next thing? Do we go, sales, automation and, you know, first and you say, okay, if that’s where you really want to get to, how quickly do we want to get to the market on it?

 

How difficult would that be to build? Or are there players that are out there that can really do two things. One, enhance our portfolio and our platform, but then also bring more customers to the stage as well. And if the answer to that is yes, and you say that’s probably a better idea to acquire that, then to spend the next couple of years trying to build that, and this, missing market opportunity.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: Components of the Bullseye Diagram

 

So you have those kinds of discussions where, you know, and we basically do that twice a year. We do that in January and we do that in August, where we sit down and really look at the strategy of business, make sure that the strategy hasn’t changed. By the way, if your strategy changes every year, you probably don’t have a good strategy.

 

So your strategy shouldn’t change. It’s the execution and the sequence of the execution steps that you may move around a little bit but, you know, you kind of take a look at that in January and then in August, and you start making those, discrete, strategic discussions and then on a quarterly basis, you just do check ins and make sure that you’re on track.

 

Got it. Okay. So let me go back to the components piece in the bull’s eye. Love that sort of mental image. So when you mentioned components are the components, would those be like product features that you know, that your worldwide user base would want to have? Like what is a component per se?

 

Yeah, I would almost call it like a module. Right. So think of marketing automation as a component. Right. So a module of sales automation is another big module service management is another big module. So you know those are the big modules. And then within those you know, there may be, you know, submodules like in service management, there’s probably, you know, more like, you know, service ticketing and those type of thing to field service management to, you know, other pieces and sales automation or maybe, pipeline management, opportunity management.

 

There could be, like I said before CPQ invoicing, there could even be payment systems that hook into. And so all that. So you start breaking it down into each of those. It would be nice if you could always buy one. Like we got pretty lucky on the Cubana acquisition because we brought the entire marketing automation piece in there, but I would say probably about 90% the rest, I think we can rapidly build on top of that.

 

So it’s, you know, that gives us a good platform to build from. But when you start looking at sales automation and marketing automation, there’s probably not one acquisition that you’re going to make. It probably could be, you know, a series of smaller acquisitions that you bring together and then some, you know, some, organic development on top of that as well.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: The Conversion Retention in The SMB Market

 

There’s a great lesson here Onward Nation too. Well, there’s multiple great lessons here in the early on in this conversation with John. But the one that we’re talking about right now really is about niching down. Now granted, the SMB market is a large chunk. There’s many small to mid-sized businesses. But the fact that John and his team are so focused on owning that space and owning a portion of that space, right.

 

So the conversion retention space in the SMB market, and that’s what they’re focused on. And he talked about really not necessarily the danger, although I guess that is really the danger of trying to go too high. And then and then more enterprise software solutions are then trying to go low to capture some of that SMB market.

 

And then what ends up happening is you serve nobody really well, right, John? Correct. Yeah. I mean, so that’s really what we do is we sat down and we said we want to own the one to 10 to 15 seat space. And that’s it’s, you know, it’s passed through those words there for a second. There’s a lot of people who say like, oh, you want to own a 1 to 10 person company?

 

No, we want to own the one to 10 to 15, seat, space. And so that means, you know, you could be a 150 person company, and maybe you only have, you know, five sales people and three marketing people, or you have ten salespeople and five marketing people or something. That’s our sweet spot, as opposed to going in and saying, you know, we want to go to the enterprise and get a thousand seats or whatever, that like somebody else plays, play that in that world, we want to own that, you know, 10 to 15 seat deal.

 

And that’s really our focus. And so everything we do, we keep that in mind and we say, okay, well, what kind of companies and what kind of segments and personas are we really dealing with? And that’s, you know, that’s how we really focus on, you know, what are the components, what’s the priorities, etc..

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: The Mantra of Your Company

 

I think the big thing that we really have in our mind every time we do something and it’s a mantra you have, we have all over the company, posters everybody’s talking about it is that the software has to work for you. You shouldn’t have to work for the software, right? SMB right. So, yeah, I mean, you think about it, right?

 

So if you’re a big enterprise company, you probably have data scientists, you probably have an IT function, you probably have all this kind of stuff that can help you, you know, and you’re working for the software. If you’re an SMB, you’re focused on growing your business, getting more customers, you know, sometimes making sure that, you know, you’re collecting on receivable, so you have enough money for payroll, you know, so there’s all these other kind of stuff that you have in your mind.

 

You don’t want to have to go in and say like, oh my God, I got to spend two hours now setting all this stuff up in the software so that I can get, you know, two things out, right? It’s completely different. You want to be able to spend ten minutes in the software and in those ten minutes, the software learns and comes back and starts working for you, and doing stuff for you and recommending next steps and those types of things.

 

So that’s the mantra. Everything that we do has to be driving towards that type of a philosophy. So Onward, hearing John say that is why looping back to something that he shared with me in the green room, why I think that is so smart is because now, sure. Does it go without saying that we should have our focus on our customers?

 

But we’ve all been customers of companies where that wasn’t the case. They are so focused on growth or earnings per share or the quarterly numbers or whatever. We felt just like a monetized customer base. But when John and I were talking about their rolling two year roadmap, the one of the very first things that he mentioned about the roadmap was, look, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of users worldwide.

 

And so what are we going to do over the next couple of years to take care of them, to make sure that the launches that we roll out are serving them, which is what you just heard him, you know, pay homage to. Again, there’s all about the customers. So John, I think that a really critical component of the rolling two year plan is that you guys are constantly reevaluating the plan, but you have the customer at the epicenter of all of that.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: Continue To Evolve Your Business

 

No, you’re absolutely right. And so again, we’re blessed to have this phenomenal, loyal, customer base, around the world, close to 400,000 people and, all around the world that wake up every day and trust, act, and react grossly to run their business and grow their business. And so, you know, and I use the word trust because they do trust us.

 

And so that we have to make sure that we don’t do silly things to lose that trust. Right. And one of the silly things you could do is, you know, make a massive change to do the application. And then one morning they wake up and they’re like, oh my God, the whole thing has changed. And I don’t know where everything is at and how to get my work done or whatever.

 

Yeah, you have to really. It’s a really fine line. And like I said earlier, it’s a tightrope that we’re walking if you want to have that speed. You want to be able to continue to evolve and evolve quickly because the market is evolving quickly. Technology is evolving quickly. You need to take advantage of that. But then you have to balance that with you can inflict certain too much change where if you think about it, conversion retention people are running their business on this platform.

 

You cannot mess up their business. Right. And so, you just have to keep that in mind, going, going forward. It is digging in. Yeah. We have lots of lots of heated discussions. So let’s say inside of our company, we got to go faster. We got to do this. And we’re like, yes, we do.

 

But you know, if we do that, we’re going to kill everybody over here. And, so it’s, you know, we have to make sure that we do that balance correctly. So let’s think about those conversations. Because as you’re going through those, the transformation and now you’re in the growth and and and so forth in so that obviously requires some very talented people who work as a team.

 

Let’s think about that. If we’re going to use the term players because, you know, we hear that often, right? You know, as a business owner or a business leader, you need to have players within your team, in your organization. So John, if you’re thinking about defining a player, how do you define a player?

 

Yeah. Three distinct qualities that we look at first and foremost. Got to have talent. Right. Because if you don’t have talent you’re probably not good for the organization. Right. And that could be whether you have financial talent, if you’re working in our finance organization or technical talent, if you are a technology or industry, a talent of understanding or you know that, say so, you know, you have to have talent.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth:  The Distinct Qualities

 

So that’s the number one characteristic that we look for. The second characteristic that we look for is you have to have this insatiable appetite to win. It is not just you just want to participate. Right. Well, we always say there are no participation trophies. If you work with a page, you have to want to win.

 

And if you don’t win, you want to hate that feeling so bad that you say, I never want to do that again, right? So you have to have that, you know, talent and that, you know, that hunger to win. And then the third thing that we look at, look for is what we call mission before self, right?

 

You have to buy into what we’re doing. The purpose. Our purpose is, is very, very simple why we exist. And that is to fuel small business growth. And so, you know, that’s the mission. And if you can put that mission before self, which means that, you know, if I use the sports analogy sometimes you have great people that have Super town, you know, super talented wide receiver.

 

The NFL draft was just a couple of days ago. So, you know, you think about it. Great talent. Maybe really, really wants to win. But, you know, maybe I’m more into it for  my stats. Right? I want to get so many yards per game. I want to catch too many catches.

 

And if I don’t get that, man, I’m not a happy player. I’m not like, those are the kind of people you don’t want, right? So you want people that come in and say, like, okay, I know where we’re going and I will do anything, okay? Yeah, I’m in finance, but you need me over here. I’ll be over there if you need me.

 

It’s the mission before. So those are your A players. Because if you have those three characteristics you can take that and and really mold that into a really well oiled team. And anyway that, that’s, that’s how we define a player okay. So that’s awesome. So now you’ve got the team in place.

 

You’ve got a team full of eight players. Give us some strategies here out of your or some tools out of your toolbox or how would you recommend that Onward Nation business owners be a better mentor. Like, what can they do on a day to day basis to be the best mentor they possibly can be to their A players who spend a lot of time recruiting the players, finding the talent, making sure that they put mission before self.

 

And in these three components, now they have them on their team. How do they mentor them every day? How should they? Good, good question. And really interesting where it is interesting work because we call that coaching. And you know, so there’s, there’s two, two different ways when I think of mentorship, there’s mentorship inside of your company, which again, I call that coaching. And then there’s mentorship outside of your company. And we’ll break that down into two different things. We’ll talk about them separately. So let’s talk about each of your companies. 

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: Characteristics of a Good Leader

 

So now at that point you’re talking about leadership. And how can you be a good leader and a good leader.

 

Mentors and coaches and grows and evolves. Talent nurtures talent. And so what we look for and what you really need to do again, is go down 2 to 3 very characteristics. Number one is you have to be able to tell a story. We call that vision. Right. So if you can’t depict a vision or a story or or whatever in really simple, easy to understand and motivating terms, you know, it’s going to be really hard for you to mentor our coach or lead anybody because people have to understand, where are we going?

 

Why are we going there? How are we going to get there, what are we doing? You know, etc. you have to be able to tell that story crisp, clear, easy to understand and in a way that’s, you know, fun, and kind of appeasing to people as opposed to saying like, oh, he has a vision.

 

It’s up on our wall, you know, whatever. So that’s the first thing. And then once you have that, then the next piece is what we say is you have to prove that you’ve been there, done that. We call that credibility. You have to have credibility. You got to be able to say, hey guys, listen, it’s crazy, I know, but you know what?

 

We did this before boom, boom, boom. And you know, we’ll do it again. And don’t worry about it. We can make it happen. You know, let’s just do it this way. That gives you credibility. You know a great thing. I’m an old quarterback. I played quarterback up through two colleges. Right? So if you walked into the huddle and you have no, you have like, no timeouts is better, and you got to drive down the field.

 

You got to walk into the huddle and say, listen, boys, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to do it. You know, we’ve done this before a thousand times. Let’s just make it happen. As opposed to walking into the huddle and saying, oh my God, I’ve got no timeouts. You know, what are we going to do, etc. very, very different. Right? 

 

So that’s the same thing from a mentoring and a coaching standpoint. Think about what your employees are going through. Sit down, tell them, say, hey, I’ve been there and done that. Or if you have and say, hey, I haven’t been there. You haven’t been there. Let’s do this together. Let’s figure out how to do this together.

 

So again, it’s that credibility. And then the third piece is what we call being able to build or rebuild a team. And it’s all about people, right. You need to be able to take a look at your A players and say do I have those eight players grouped together correctly. Or and which means am I using the talent correctly or do I have them all over the place running around like crazy, and not all moving in the same direction.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: A Viewpoint on Mentorship

 

So, you know, be a good coach, mentor, leader, whatever. Think of those three things. Tell a story, vision. Been there, done that. Credibility. Build a rebuild a team, people. And that’s how you can continue to grow people and then pass that along to your team as well. So that internal external mentorship is an interesting one, because I don’t know, about you or the listeners with, with an organization is, you know, a lot of people will come and say, I want, you know, I want you to be my mentor.

 

I want you to, you know, I want to be like you own. And it’s like, you know, for first of all, being a mentor takes a lot of time. So, you need to make sure if you want to be a mentor, that you have the time to do the worst thing you can do is say, yeah, I’ll be your mentor and then never be there for some.

 

Then the second piece that I always look at when I talk to folks about being a mentor, I say it very first thing is you got to say, what do you want from me? What do you want out of me? How can I help? Because if you just want to get together and talk, yeah, we can do that.

 

But if there’s what specifically are you trying to accomplish and where you think I can? You know, you got to be real honest. If you don’t think you can help them, I don’t think I can help you, but here’s somebody else that I think can. Or if you say, okay, I think I can help you, here are the ways that I’m going to help.

 

So, anyway, those are, that’s how I look at mentorship, slash coaching, leadership, etc. this has been such a great conversation, and I know that we need to come in for a landing here because we’re getting short on time. But I’m so grateful that you would take time out of your compressed schedule to come on to the show a second time.

 

And where we can cover strategy is for the, you know, conversion, retention space and how you’re building that out and in the big pillars within the fall launch and how you’re serving the huge user base worldwide. And now to end it with these great mentorship lessons. Awesome. So I know we covered a lot, but before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, John, maybe.

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: Final Advice from John

 

Is there any final advice you’d like to share? Anything you think we might have missed? And then please tell us the best way to connect with you. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things is that I live my life by it, and I try to teach everybody else to do it as well as live your life with courage, passion and tenacity.

 

Right. So have the courage to really do what you want to do. Have the courage to be a good person. Have a person be that. Have the courage to be a good husband and father, a good, you know, boss or whatever. But have courage, and go after what you need. Now, once you do that, go after it with passion.

 

Don’t just say like, oh, I’m going to do this or whatever. You got to have passion and you gotta keep that passion all the time. Now, when you’re doing that, you know you’re going to run into setbacks, hurdles, whatever you want to call. And that’s where tenacity comes in. You have to have the tenacity to, to keep on going.

 

If you do that courage, passion and tenacity, you’re going to be successful, no matter what. 

 

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Pillars of Business Growth: How to Connect with John

 

And if you want to get in contact with me, you know, @hjoech is my Twitter handle, you know, [email protected] is my, there’s my email. I absolutely love to have conversations with people.

 

Feel free to reach out to me. Okay. Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and listen to John’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do. The key is to take what he so generously shared with you today. Take it. Apply it into your business right away and accelerate your results.

 

And John, we all had the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And I am grateful again that you said yes, to come on to the show a second time to help us build and scale and move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much, my friend. Thanks for having me. It’s, as usual. It’s been a blast. I love coming on this show. 

 

This episode is complete, so head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

Read about how to incorporate the pillars of business growth with the different stages