Intro: Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what’s next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world’s great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today. Now here’s Tony DUrso Tony: Welcome, I’m your host Tony DUrso. We interview world-class influencers, celebrities, and elite entrepreneurs, and I thank you for joining us. We broadcast every Friday at 1:00 PM Pacific on Voice America’s influencer’s channel, and you can listen to all of our shows on your android or apple device. Go to tonydurso.com/mobile and get the APP Tony Durso.com/mobile before we get going, here’s a big thank you to some amazing sponsors of our show. Please stay tuned for an important message from FreshBooks about grade invoice and the accounting software for your small business. More informed them just ahead. So please stay tuned. Today’s shows with Nicholas Windpassinger, and Jeffrey Hayzlett Digitize or Die and the Hero Factor. All right. Here’s some info on Nicholas Nicholas Wind passenger is the global vice president of Schneider Electrics ECO expert partner program, whose mission is to connect the technologies and expertise of the world’s leading technology providers and pioneer the future of intelligent buildings and the Internet of things. Here we go. Welcome to the show Nicholas, it’s so great to have you on Nicholas: Hi Tony, you good morning everyone. Good afternoon. Maybe if you’re another part of the world. Tony: Yes. We are connecting with you in France. One of my most favorite places in the world, actually, France is my most favorite place of the world. And you’re in Paris, which is one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been into. You know, some people or perhaps many people don’t understand the French person, and I talk about this now and then the French person is very interesting. French, believe it or not, contrary to popular opinion, if you want to say it that way, you’re the nicest people in the world. Every French person I’ve met with just, they’ll just do anything for you. It’s just an amazing culture. But you have to understand it as a culture and not just be, you know, the American style where the American maybe perhaps, you know, how much is this give me that, you know, more demanding. It’s not the way to deal with a French person, you’re a very polite person. But I just want to say I truly am appreciative to have you with us. Nicholas: Thank you very much. It’s very happy also to be a with you and uh, thanks for taking the time. Tony: Great, Now Nicholas, first things first, I’d love to know how did it all. start for you? What’s your back story? Nicholas: I’ve had the luck when I was young. My parents, they traveled a lot. So I’ve traveled with them for a quite a bit of year in fact. And a couple of years ago I settle back in France working in the, I would say IT side of the world. I’ve had this culture shock throughout my life. And it’s always, as you said, it’s, you always have to go a bit beyond the first, I would say a feeling that you could have with people with the culture, and that is really something that has driven me throughout the years is this a cultural, I would say, interest in people and cultures. And I’ve been traveling quite a bit when I was young, as was said and then as now settled in France, but working in a very international environment because the culture and, the international exposure is really what that makes me I would say wake up every morning. So, very similar to you on that part. Tony: Very interesting indeed. Now let’s take this apart a little bit. Members of our audience may not know what this is. I’d like to learn more about it. You talk about the Internet of things also; the abbreviation is IOT. So what exactly is that, Nicholas? Nicholas: It’s a buzzword to start with, and there are, I’m sure a lot of buzzwords out there that might ring a bell, like artificial intelligence. Like quantum computing, virtual reality. And so IOT is mainly a buzzword, but it has some very strong foundations. It really is about all of the things that are surrounding you that are getting more and more connected. Very Often we talk about connected cars, connected fridges, and I would say devices are getting more and more connected. People have been throughout the last 10 to 15 years, more and more connected. And IOT is just a logical evolution of our world. People and objects being more and more connected. I would say, delivering more and more data that is available out there. And there’s a huge market trend right now, a huge transformation of the market both in our personal lives but also in the industry, in the business life. And it does, I would say reshuffle the cards and it’s as much an opportunity for companies and people as a risk. And there are some drivers and barriers around that. So IOT is really an evolution, a logical evolution of people getting connected more and more often. Devices also being connected and people and devices being connected. Tony: Thank you for that. And let’s drill this down a little bit because I think just about everybody in the world just about understands the Internet. We get that you can search for things; you can find out about companies. Okay, we got that. We have smart devices more and more on the rise. My refrigerator knows when I’m running out of milk, my phone has alarms, my phone has apps. It tells me where I’m at. It tells me my location. We have all of this smart technology happening and it’s getting more and more connected. It’s almost like I think in an embryonic artificial intelligence stage or states or evolution somewhere. But I believe there’s so much more to the Internet of things. So perhaps if you could tell us what can we see in the future in terms of devices and how things work. You know, we have artificial intelligence in vehicles coming where the cars are going to drive us around. Can you take us down this road a little more? Nicholas: Yes. So if you look a bit at the estimation of connected devices in 2020, there’s going to be in billion more than 50 billion connected devices, more than approximately 30 billion connected autonomous things, 30 billion wireless connected devices. So you see that our world is getting more and more connected wired or wirelessly. And you see it in your everyday life, compare your life, Tony, with what was your life 15, 20 years ago. You didn’t have a phone; you didn’t have a connected car. Your fridge wasn’t connected. If you had to call your wife from a different state, you have to take the good old telephone wired. So you see that things are getting more digital. Your world is getting more connected. And I would say the IOT are really at this inflection point where there’s some strong drivers like low-cost sensors, low-cost devices mobile and is getting more done, more adopted, both in the I would say residential area. But also in your professional life, there’s connectivity everywhere. You know, if you have kids, but if you have teenagers, the first thing they want when they come in a hotel is wireless, you know, is the Wifi, it started out is there telephone, is there a TV is too, I have connectivity and we have huge, huge IOT investment from companies into getting their product more digital, getting their go to market, more digital. So you see that there are some strong strong drivers around this digital IOT market. And at the same time, there are some strong barriers like security. Cybersecurity is a real concern. Privacy and you met in Europe, we have the GDPR law that has been released and not so long time ago, which is really around privacy. There are implementation problems and I would say there is a route of proof of concept throughout the year that had been put in place. So it is still a barrier. And you do have what we call technological fragmentation. There are no standards around IOT. So it’s also a barrier. So you see that the market, we are really in this inflection point where there are some strong drivers at the same time, strong barriers. But things are getting more digital, people are getting more digital. Your world, our world is getting more digital and IOT is really about, it’s one of the buzzwords or what I would say one of the trends that are happening and if you have a business, and I would say if your listeners have a business, they don’t want to be the next I would say Kodak, the next Nokia. They really need to have a look into the IOT and the overall digital trends are happening. Tony: I appreciate that and I kind of get the picture of looking in the future almost like one giant artificial intelligence series, a conglomeration of computers and smart devices. It’s mind-boggling. It’s sort of like trying to picture the Internet 25 years ago and now trying to picture the future. It’s, it’s really quite not quite overwhelming but it’s intense. Nicholas: Yeah. and as you said, things are getting more connected and because they’re more connected, they send more data. Which means that and that’s why you see the Amazon, the Microsoft and the world get in Facebook, you know, getting more and more data about people, about things, about devices. So you have huge what we call data legs that are being built by those companies and even by countries of such. And the next step is really artificial intelligent, quantum computing which is you need high, I would say digital intelligence and high computing power, which is typically what quantum computing gives when you bring, I would say data legs plus artificial intelligence and high processing power. Then you’re really looking into the next century and you do realize that data is really going to be the next oil because the people that will own the data, the people that will own the artificial intelligence and the processing computing, I would say needed to make sense of this data are going to be the next Google, the next Facebook of the world. So it’s a huge trend, but it’s also what will I would say, create the next Google of the market. So it’s really interesting to see what’s happening. But more importantly, if you’re a business owner and even if your people, you really need to prepare yourself both in your personal but also in your professional career and if you have a company, it’s really important to understand those digital trends, so that you transform a risk into a real opportunity for your business. Tony: I got it. Nicholas, you’re painting a very good picture here and I really appreciate that. I am, I now begin to understand the title of your book Digitize or Die. I’m actually getting it. Those are very harsh words by the way. But I understand now that to be part of this new electronic smart device, artificial intelligence, world commerce in the future, you have to digitize now for your business to even be on the same playing field or playing field of the future. I know I probably butchered that a little bit. Perhaps you could pick it up from there and give a better explanation. Nicholas: I think you really got it right. I know that you did write also you quite a bit of book. So you know that choosing a title is always very important and challenging at the same time. Cause you always, you want to give a strong message about what the book is about and you don’t have a lot of words. And my dilemma was really about how can I explain in a title the urgency and the significance of what is happening and how critical it is for people and businesses to really look at their digital model, their operating model. Their products that go to market so that they really digitize and survive instead of dying due to the fact that maybe your competitors are going to digitize quicker than you. Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show just the head. The chat continues with Nicholas Windpassinger and Jeffrey Hayzlett Digitize or Die. And the Hero Factor. But first, it’s time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. This is the voice America Influencer’s Channel; Be inspired. 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Try It free for 30 days, no catch and no credit card required. Go to freshbooks.com/tony and enter Tony DUrso in the how did you hear about us section to get started. That’s freshbooks.com/tony and enter Tony DUrso. We Don’t Follow We Lead, Join us The Voice America Influencer’s Channel. You’re listening to the Tony DUrso Show with key influencers. We’d love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony at tonydurso.com. Now back to Tony and his guests. Tony: All right, we’re back on the Tony. Do your so show. Today’s show is with Nicholas Windpassinger at Jeffrey Hayzlett; Digitize or Die and the Hero Factor. Nicholas is recognized by the channel companies. Top mid-market IT executives list this annual list, honors, influential vendor and solution provider executives who’ve demonstrated an exceptionally strong commitment to the mid-market. The channel company recognized Nicholas as one of 100 people you don’t know, but should in the IT Channel for 2017. All right, and now back to the chat with Nicholas. Nicholas: So true about this balance between digitizing yourself, digitizer your company, digitize your people. Transform your company and don’t go down the route that some other companies have gone through. If you look at Kodak for example, the were a very analog company at that time and you saw what happened to the digital cameras and how disruptive it has been for this company. But more importantly for the people and very often digitizing and surviving for a company is also to make sure that its employees are able to grow with this company and not find themselves back on the street and signing new job. So it’s really about digitizing for the survival of the company, but more importantly, it’s to have the shelter portion of it, which is really a company is there to serve its customers, but also there to make a good living for his employees, his or her employees. So it’s really about that. The title is really, about the Internet of things is one amongst other digital trends that are happening. It’s very important as a business to understand, to educate yourself about those trends. And more importantly, how you can adopt? How you can use those trends to the benefit of your company so that you digitize and not die. Tony: I got that and your tagline on that book, Transform Your Organization and rise above the competition. I get that on surviving wherever you are in the audience, Solo, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, even corporate level executives, your organization has to move along this path in order to even stay on the playing field because the playing field is moving. The way I’m looking at it, the whole shift is into electronic and smart and artificial intelligence and so forth as we’ve already discussed, but the plain field is moving. Its sort of like the ground is moving and if you don’t move with it, you’re out. So just to stay in the game, I understand businesses have to look at how to more smartly digitize, but you make this one point in your tagline on your book and I’d really like to focus on it. Rise above the competition. What advice do you have for our business owners and the business world today to help them rise above the competition? Nicholas: Its a very good question, Tony I would say to start with digitization that the most important thing in digital transformation for your company is not the products are not the channel; the go to market or not the market it’s the people. It’s really about bringing and putting in place. What I called digital savvy organizations and, there’s a really good study out there; where they looked at the employee retention and how digitalization increased in fact, employee retention. When you looked at, for example, a digital savvy company organization, only 4% of the employees want to leave within one year, 4% on those digital savvy organizations. If you take a non-digital savvy organization or like an analog, 20% of the employees, in fact, plan to leave, leave with and within one year. So you see that digital transformation is not only about your market, it’s not only about your go to market, about your product for sure these are important. But it’s really also about making sure that you retain your employees, your talents, and being a digital company, having a digital mindset also increases your employee retention and therefore you’re able to attract more talent, young talent. You are able also to retain also your existing talent. And that’s when and how you can differentiate yourself is by company have products. But the products are made by people, the processes, but the processes are done by people, for people and machines. So it really goes back to the person, to the employees. And that’s why digital transformation is really about transforming a company. But it’s also about transforming your organization and making it more digitally savvy. If you look at, for example, what happened to Nokia, you know, a couple of years, 10 to 15 years ago, time goes by quickly in fact. One of the biggest very often you see Nokia and Apple today; Nokia was really an analog company and they completely missed I would say the intelligent digital phone. And when you really look into books the studies and the interviews, there’s a really interesting interview on the Internet about the CEO of Nokia that time and he clearly states that they had seen what’s going to happen. They had anticipated it as much as they could, but the biggest problem where their employees, their employees were more analog, non-digital and they saw Apple and what was happening and they could not shift. They had more or less the technology but they cannot shift because of the organization and because of the fact that the organization was not digital savvy enough. It’s exactly what happened also, as I was saying a bit earlier about Kodak or people very often forget that Kodak was, in fact, the first company that had I would say find the digital camera. I don’t know if it’s found the right word in English, but in fact they decided not to go digital, not to serve the digital camera wave because they had their analog model, which did bring a lot of money to them and said that they were not able to transform, not because they had not seen what was going to happen to the market is just because they were a very analog organization and they cannot transform yourself and understand that they need to transform their organization, transform their business model was longterm survival, but, short term, a lot of pain. And they didn’t want to go through this pain and they thought that they could I would say continue with the cash cap that they had. So transformation and digitizing or dying is really about getting your organization, your people, your product, more digital to survive and beat your competition. Tony: That makes great sense. I appreciate that clarification. And going in with some case studies and examples, we’ve seen so many good companies in the past, not even here today and tomorrow. Some people go, Nokia, what’s that? You know Kodak cause their so gone. And by the way, I want to make a mention that I see that you got on the honor list of top mid-market it executives. Nicholas: Yes, yes, yes I did for the book and for myself. I’ve never gone to award but they’re always good to have, you know, they’re always when they come in at this morning in fact, I just got from a business school in Paris. They took my book and they’d ask all of their students to read the book. So it’s, it’s really, it’s always good to have, you know, and I don’t go for those type of awards, but when they are given both to the book and myself or to my organization is always good. And to explain even the fact that I’m not going to the award is, all of the benefits go to two charities, the Alzheimer Association, and Foundation de France. So when they go and see ystudent, and I say, buy the book, the students will get it educated and we’ll get knowledge and at the same time when he buys the book, he knows that the money goes to charity. So I really tried to get the win-win. I would say a deal with the reader is you get educated but you know at the same time that your money goes to charity. So, it’s always an important aspect of my professional but also my personal life, of how I see things, Tony: A great noble cause of very, very cool on that. I love it. And by the way, last but not least, you’re also on the list of the top 100 people that you should know in IT. So Nicholas, now that I know you, I have 99 left to go. Nicholas: That’s very nice of you. Tony: Very cool. Nicholas Windpassinger, we talked about the Internet of things and your amazing book digitize or die. I so appreciate you spending the time clarifying and explaining this. I believe you’ve given a lot of us that, oh my God, I better hurry because the world is changing in front of us. So to everyone out there, transform your organization. Rise above the competition, get the book Digitize or Die. Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show just the head. The chat continues with Nicholas Windpassinger and Jeffrey Hayzlett Digitize or Die and the Hero Factor. But first, it’s time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. Change starts here; Change starts now; Join us Voice America Influencer’s Channel. You heard that a majority of businesses fail. Don’t be a statistic. Get my book free. The vision map. Beat the odds for your business success. Get it free at tonydurso.com/a vision and set up your own successful vision, tonydurso.com/vision. Here’s the story; Be motivated., Be Inspired. Join us today Voice America Influencers. You are listening to the Tony DUrso Show with key influencers. We’d love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony at tonydurso.com. Now back to Tony and his guest. Tony: All right, we’re back on the Tony DUrso show. Today’s show is with Nicholas Windpassinger and Jeffrey Hayzlett Digitize or Die and the Herald Factor. All right and now back to the chat with our guests. And by the way, Nicholas’s website is Nicholas Windpassinger.com Nicholas’s n I c o l a s wind W I N D passinger p a s s i n g e r.com. You can get the book there, Digitize or Die at nicholaswindpassinger.com Nicholas: And if your listeners are going on Amazon, the book is available both in paper and also in kindle. Just go Amazon in whatever country you are Digitize or Die, you’ll find the book. Are if you have a good Google. I would say our search engine; you go digitize or die. It will give you access to awhere the book is so don’t hesitate. Tony: Great, well I hope everybody reads it because we need this to just stay in the same playing field. So I really truly hope everyone gets this book and I want to thank you once more. Nicholas, if you have any updates in the future or anything more changes, please come back. I’d love to chat some more. It was great. Nicholas: Thanks Tony, it was really great. Thanks a lot to spending time with me and give me the opportunity to share the book with your audience. So, thanks a lot, Tony. New Interviewee- Jeffrey Hayzlett Tony: And now we have Jeffrey Hayzlett join us. Jeffrey is a prime time television host of C- Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett and executive perspectives on C-Suite TV and this, this podcast toast of all business with Jeffrey Hayzlett on C-Suite radio. He’s a global business celebrity speaker bestseller chairman and CEO of the C-Suite network. Here we go. Welcome to the show. Jeffrey. It’s so great to have you back again. Jeffrey: Well, it’s good to be here. It’s always good to be on your show. You know, you’re one of those guys you make an offer, you’re Italian, so you make an offer you can’t refuse you know. Tony: I love that. Well, we’re going to talk about your new book here, the hero factor, and I want to hear all about it, but first things first, Jeffrey, we have some new members of the audience as well. Love to know how did it all start for you? What’s your backstory? Jeffrey: For those who know me? I’m a big white guy from South Dakota, so you know, I, I’ve been in a lot of different businesses over the years. I bought and sold over 250 businesses in my career over, you know, 25 billion in transactions. My last big business last big job, I was in a chief marketing officer of Eastman Kodak, managing a budget, you know, like $17 billion and, involved in every aspect of marketing that you could possibly think of. And now I’m out leading what’s called the C-Suite network, which is made up of a lot of different entities. C- Suite, TV, C-Suite Radio, C-Suite Book Club, soon to be C-Suite Academy. And then, of course, we’ve got a lot of different councils and groups that are part of it. The AI Council, the Hero council or C Suite network advisers and all the different entities that we are participating in. So we’re pretty excited. And you know what hail from South Dakota, I mentioned that’s not my original home. My original home was Charleston, West Virginia, but my dad was in the military. We lived all over the world and all over the country and I had a chance of being very lucky of having my father transferred and stationed in South Dakota a couple times and that became home and fell in love and married and children and raised them and always, go back there. So that’s our home -home. And then I live in New York as well, but, but it’s really South Dakota. If you asked me where my home is, I’m going to tell you it, South Dakota Tony: And so much has changed or improved and grown and expanded with you since our last interview, just not even a year ago. I’m impressed at your success at your expansion and your book so much to talk about. I really want to get into the hero factor and find out more about it. And I understand and believe that it’s really all about leadership and that that’s the key factor here is can you give us a summary on the, on the book. Jeffrey: You know; we’re just starting because the book is just out right now. I’m just coming out and it’s a good way of describing as leadership. I don’t know if I would’ve called it a culture book or leadership, but, but I like leadership. And the reason I would say that Tony is what we do is we find that good heroes are great leaders and great leaders become great CEOs. And to be a good CEO, you’ve got to be a great leader. And there’s lots of go into that, you know, but, but let me back up to say how it got started. This is an offshoot; The hero factor. I wrote after working in the last year and a half, almost two years with a group called the hero club. Back in 1998, a guy by the name of Rob Bryan sold his company a sent communications for over $20.4 billion. and when he sold the company, he set aside a percentage of it for all of his employees and making the single largest number of millionaires over created a one day. And it just phenomenal that someone would do that. He and his wife, Terry owned a majority shares of the company. And she was the chief legal officer, by the way. Both very accomplished professionals went to Cornell. Just really just fantastic people. Know them well today. But anyway, they sold the company and set aside this money. And what would happen is people would run up to him and see him at the restaurants or seeing them in different places and say, you know, Mr. Ryan, Mrs. Ryan, you don’t know me, but you know, I’m the janitor and you know, I can send my kids to college or I’m the night watchman and I and my wife’s mother’s got cancer and I can you know, take care of her bills and you’re my hero. And he didn’t feel like a hero. But, but nonetheless, he thought, well, geez, what can I do? My Dad was a hero. He fought in World War Two, what can I do? And He, so he started to put together a group, which eventually became the Hero Club where he would teach people how to do what he was doing and the ways in which he was doing it. And it grew to about 20/25 people, but he can never get a bigger scale. And he saw what we were doing with the C-Suite network. So he decided to, you know, create the hero club, and take, take that hero club to us. And He, and that’s what he did. So he came to me and approach me and, and uh, said, hey, I want you to do this and I want you to scale it. And we saw the value in it. And as we started doing it, something’s missing. And you know, it’s great to teach people how to do what we do and be successful at running a business. But what’s missing? And it was really that culture element, that little special element that we put into it that says, you’re going to sign a pledge. And the pledge is going to say that you treat people with great dignity and respect. And what do I mean by that? Is that when you, when you do make it big, you remember what have been, even when you don’t make it big. But as you are very successful in your company is that you run it like a hero. And what’s that mean? That means you take care of your community, you take care of the people that work for you. Take care of your vendors, you take care of your suppliers, you’ll take care of your customers. And that’s really what being a hero is about. It’s about being a value based company. And so what we’ve, what will you see is this new hero factor. And the factor is the differentiation between good businesses and great businesses. And I mean this, in every sense of the word is their culture and the way in which they base it on values. And so the hero factor, the book that I’ve written is a study of various companies and how they sit on this, scale. And so you think of good to great, to me, this is the next level of that. And that’s what it’s being hailed as the next good to great. Which I mean I’m just honored by that, by that comparison is because we see a lot of different businesses on the scale, the value scale and those that have that hero factor, those that live inside of a set of values. Whatever those values are, doesn’t make a difference. But whatever those values are, if you live inside of a set of values that your employees can, can, can speak to your employees, can respond to as a result of that, then you’re seeing huge, huge differences in the kinds of companies they are versus the other companies are out there. Tony: Very impressive story, Jeffrey, and it’s just amazing how successful people that cling on to these really good values continue to propel higher and higher and success are just absolutely amazing. What’s happened in the good fortune, let’s call it, that’s happened with you and C- Suite. And I love that to Hero factor because if so many successful people, they don’t see themselves as Hero’s unless they hear from others how they’ve impacted your life, many of them are just humble and just very happy to have been successful and do what they can. So, I think it’s very interesting that you’ve actually identified that and have that book out and yes, I do believe it’s a lot about leadership because if there’s a style in the way and how you lead and, and direct people that really helps make the company. And I believe one of the factors in your book, just kind of skimming through a little bit of it, you talk about how leaders have to well communicate this very clear vision throughout the organization. I think that’s the glue that holds everything together and propels it to success. Jeffrey: Oh, without question. And, and you know, I love what you said about being humble. That’s, one of the characteristics that we see is they just do their job. You know, and I was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, starting out my career and starting out with my first business, my second business, my third business. You know, when I was, that young man doing that, I would go to the Village and Pancake House because that’s where all the business leaders would meet for breakfast in the morning. And I knew that. I knew if I went in there and I’d get to know him and I get to be part of the crowd; and I sit at the table next to the big table, the big tables, the special table. That’s where the mayor was and all the, you know, the city citizens of you know of report where. And so, and finally, I was invited to sit at the table. But those are the people that I knew that led, you know, ran Lakes Dairy or ran Stewart School of hairstyling or ran this business or this business and they took care of taking care of the symphony, the little league, making sure that employee showed up for the bikeathons and the walkathons and things like that. That’s what I’m talking about, that you don’t have to be a huge business. You don’t have to be a Zappos; you don’t have to be a 1-800-FLOWER. These are great examples of great hero companies. You can just be a good company doing, you know, doing your stuff every single day. And that’s one of the things that you find in even the book itself. I wrote, there are no endorsements on it. There’s none I decided I don’t need that; I don’t need huge forwards. I don’t need, Donald Trump I don’t need Daymond John. I don’t need all my friends that I know endorsing the book, it stands for itself because you know I’m past that. And not to say that I needed it before, but my point is walk like you’ve done it before. Act like you’ve been here before. And that’s a key portion of what I find with great hero businesses. Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show just the head. The chat continues with Nicholas Windpassinger and Jeffrey Hayzlett Digitize or Die and The Herald Factor. But first, it’s time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We don’t follow We lead. Join us The Voice of America Influencer’s Channel Hey, check out my other great interviews at Tonydurso.com or using your Android or iPhone. Get the APP at tonydurso.com/ mobile. That’s tonydurso.com/mobile for the APP. Thanks Hey guys, how would you like to be a bestselling author or sell a product or service in high volume? These are just some examples of what you can do with click funnels. Get everything you need to market, sell and deliver your products and services online without having to rely on a tech team. And I just got you a free account. Check it out at tonydurso.com/click try it completely free and build your first funnel. You could a simple drag and drop webpage editor. You can quickly build sales funnels that convert. There’s a smart shopping cart with one click upsells. There’s email and Facebook marketing automation. In fact, you get everything organized into one simple dashboard. Try a completely for free at tonydurso.com/click, tonydurso.com/click and here’s to your amazing success. This is the Voice America Influencer’s channels. Be inspired. You’re listening to the Tony DUrso Show with Key Influencers. We’d love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send in questions and comments to Tony and tonydurso.com now back to Tony and his guests. Tony: All right, we’re back on the Tony DUrso show. Today’s show is with Nicholas, Windpassinger at Jeffrey Hayzlett Digitize or Die and the Hero factor. Jeffrey is a well-traveled public speaker, the author of four selling business books, The Mirror Test, Running The Gauntlet, Think Big, Act Bigger, The Rewards of being Relentless and the Hero Factor. How great leaders transform organizations and create winning cultures. He’s one of the most compelling figures in business today and hall of fame keynote speaker and now back to the chat with Jeffrey. Jeffrey: And no one goes out to say I want to be a hero CEO nobody, I haven’t found one yet. What they do is they want to run a great business doing it for great things, for great people doing great service, great work and again value based and as a result of that they become a hero CEO and there is a differentiating fact. And so we find that there are always businesses doing business. Now here’s on the scale you have on the far upper right-hand corner of highest values, highest return of net value and highest revenues, that’s all the way up that’s the highest hero factor on that scale, right? And then as you go down and over to the left are operational excellence. These are people who are, operational excellence, what I call bottom liners, these are the Walmarts, the Gs of the world who, who are really watching that bottom line. They’ve got decent values; they’re not bad, but they’re not living up to certain kinds of values. Of being the best in the community that they could be. And, I’m not knocking them, I’m not saying one’s better than the other, that’s just what they chose to do. But where I see hero companies say, no, I’m going to invest in the community. I’m going to do this. I’m going to take care; I’m going to again pay for the little league. I’m going to pay for the symphony. I’m going to help them in this manner. And it’s not going to be an advertising decision, okay. It’s going to be because that’s what we do. That’s what good people do. And then you’ve got way down on that far bottom of the scale are those ass-ass. Or what I call loser companies that just want to rip people off. You know who they are, the Bernie Madoff’s of the world, the guy that charges for pharmaceuticals because he can, outrageous prices because he can or she can. And, just, for lack of a better word, shit companies and I just, I hate guys like gravy sucking pigs. I just don’t like companies like that, you know? And then over to the far right of that, you know, you’ve got great values, but they don’t make any money. They’re do-gooders you’ve got companies who are, you know, great, awesome. You’re going to work yourself into bankruptcy because you’re doing great, but you’re not adding to the bottom line. So they are not adding value. And by the way, if you were running your business operationally better, if you were doing the things you need to be doing well then, in the end, you’re going to actually have more money and do more good by running a great business. So, in the book itself, Tony is a great chart of being up a how to measure yourself and then, by the way, have your employees measure you as well because I think you’ll find that you know, you rate yourself here and I think your employees will rate themselves in other places. I think that’s the case for the most part. I hope I am wrong because I hope you rate them both the same way eventually, but it makes for a great discussion about how you want to run the company and what your values are. Tony: That is so refreshing, Jeffrey. I love the fact that you didn’t put any testimonials on your book because you didn’t feel you needed to. You’re not trying to sell the book, you’re not trying to sell people to be a hero. You have the communication, the statement, and it stands on its own. I absolutely find that so refreshing and your compartmentalization of people in businesses. Those that just want to go for the money, whether it’s through proper or unscrupulous means there’s no reward. There’s no satisfaction money. You can’t take it to the next life with you. There’s a point where you’ve got to give back to society and I believe so strongly that that is a key factor in the Hero Factor. I haven’t read your book the full part yet, but that is so strong because by giving back then you’ll get more, you’ll grow, your business will grow, but it’s the rewarding part and I loved your little statement there because that’s what good people do. You do it because that’s right. It’s proper. Really refreshing, I love that, I applaud that. Jeffrey: Oh, thank you. You know, I gotta tell you, I was on, I’m on a board of directors of a publicly traded company or was I resigned because of the way in which the leadership of the company was doing certain things and three of the independent board members out of the five resigned off that board. In a fairly big statement, you don’t see that very often. But my wife was asking me in the last year and a half I was on that board because I wasn’t getting paid. A publicly traded board, but the company was in trouble, wasn’t doing well. And so we, as the board, mostly led by the three of us Independent said, hey, we can’t take a salary. We’re not taking stock. We’re not doing that; if we’re asking employees to cut, we’re going to do this. This is what we’re going to do. It’s just doesn’t, didn’t seem right for us to take a fee, even though, you know, we’re within our rights to do it, even though we should be doing it; because I’m literally, I’m telling you, we’re getting sued by shareholders were getting sued by, you know this, that and the other. Cause that’s just the way it works in business today. And yet, you know, we were, and we’re spending hours upon hours on vacations, everything during her time off and with our own families. I was taken out to do these calls and she said, why are you doing this? And I said, again, I went back and I said because that’s what good people do. And I think that’s what we see. And I think what’s an enlightening and heartening and motivating and inspiring is that I see millions of these businesses like this millions. But yeah, that’s not what we see in the news. So the Hero Factors away for us to wake up, wake up, wake up business, and start to operate your business with great value. Start to operate your business as though you are a hero CEO, start to operate your business that you have a hero company. And why? Because you can in today’s environment that we’re seeing today is about, is about being divisive. This book is about being diverse and inclusive and the more diverse we are and how we serve people and the way in which we serve and who we serve and that we’re more inclusive in our nature. And what we do is we find those are two great, great traits of super, super good businesses. And so this is a great wake up call and a great manifesto for, you know, to asking yourself, looking in the mirror and are you running your business in an ethical, responsible in a valuable way. And I think that’s what we’re trying to do with the book. Tony: Very noble of you, Jeffrey. And again, it’s very refreshing to have this conversation and go over this. I just love this and I wish more business, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs, and C level executives would really get this point. I encourage everyone to get the Hero Factor. Can they get it on Amazon? Jeffrey: Absolutely. Amazon, Barnes and noble. I see it’s out now. And we’re seeing it pop up in stores are popping up in airports and uh, we’re just excited by you can anywhere you order a book and he, by the way, you can get an audio version too. I cut it, I read it myself, which I always loved to do. I love to read my own books because I get excited, I get mad at it. You’ll hear me if my boys get mad, you’ll hear me almost cry. There’s one story in there about Dave Sanderson and about when they landed, he was the last civilian off the plane on the miracle on the Hudson. And I tell the story about his experience and what happened and, it’s probably one of the most eye-opening stories in the book along with the other time where I threatened to punch a guest on my podcast in the throat. You got to read the book to find that out? There you go. Tony: My goodness, you’re volatile Jeffrey. But I love it because you’re spontaneous. You’re authentic. Amazing I love it. Jeffrey: Thank you, brother. Tony: My pleasure! And by the way, David Sanderson, I’ve interviewed him. What an inspiring story. Jeffrey: Oh! Tony: I encourage everyone to get your book to read it because I’m not going to say anything more about it. Jeffrey: Yeah. He’s such a nice guy. He’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. I love people like that. And you know, that’s the cool thing that we’re doing in our hero club with the C-Suite network is we’re surrounded in Dave’s, one of our hero club members as well. We’re just surrounded by such good men and women who have chosen to take a pledge who have chosen to do and run their businesses so much differently. And I wish I’d found the Hero Club decades ago. I didn’t. But as soon as I found it, I fell in love with it. And ever since then I’ve been trying to make it better and bigger and get a greater reach. And so we’re so glad to be able to write The Hero Factor as kind of a manifesto for that, Tony: Hats off to you and I want to hear more about your club another time.Jeffrey Bet to your book. One of your concepts is about implementing ideas that drive change. And I want to say first, isn’t that what everyone does or at least tries to do? And then you hear about this be the disruptor, be the disruptee, be disrupted. Can you kind of give us a summary of what is this concept that you want? That you’re communicating about. Jeffrey: Well, I always talk about adapt, change or die in your business. I do think people want to drive change, but it’s very difficult to do it. It’s easier for us to do the bad stuff. It’s easier for us to lower ourselves into complacency. It’s easier to give the reasons why we can’t do it, then do it. And so therefore why we think we might be doing it, we’re not moving it. And the more transparent we are, the more we hold to our promises and the more we hold again to our values, the more change that we can drive. You know we have to get better at everything we do. You have to improve, we can no longer stand back like we used to and ride it out. Everything is moving around us at breakneck speed. And, so we’ve got to be able to do the same thing inside of our businesses in order to change. Because if we don’t change, we will die. And so that’s, that’s really critical for us. And one of the key things I think you got to look in your organization as you can only move as fast as your slowest common denominator. So if you’ve got a group of people who were slowing you down, that’s as fast as you can move. And I’ll guarantee you in your organization you have those people. And so your job is to root them out and either to get them to change, which is difficult to do or you know, move in new people in order to move faster. And so that’s kind of that constant refreshing that you have to do inside of an organization. Tony: Totally agreed; and Jeffrey I see in your book that you believe this; I don’t know where it came from. I’d have to Google it, but to command is to serve and you stress having a servant’s mentality in your book. And it is so refreshing because I see the more successful people actually are interested in helping their employees, not just bark orders and tell them to do things, but actually being helpful. I see it as a big change. And, as I understand it, this is one of the points that you stress in your book. Jeffrey: Absolutely. Without question. I mean, if you want scale, you’ve got to be able to get people to do the work for you and know where they’re headed. And so that’s really I very critical. And, by the way, I’m not to the point where I want to be in our business the way we want to do it. I even, I read my own book, I’m going, oh, I suck- I suck. You know, meaning I need to improve this just as much as anyone else because you know, we always get a hold ourselves to a higher standard. And itreal important for you to be able to be that kind of leader that says, what can I do to help you do more and do better? And get, what you want out of it, to understand what your conditions of satisfaction are in the things that you do for us and the things you want to do in your career and your life. Because in understanding that, then I can help you. And by helping you, you help me. And I want to scale, I want to be huge, I want to be big. Why? Because I can, and two, because I think the world needs it. So, therefore, I need other people who can think at the same level, operate at the same level, move at the same speed, and without having to ask me how to do it all the time. So to do that, I’ve got to help them get to that level and get to be better. So what better way to do than to serve. And so, whether it’s serving customers because they’re the ones that give you the money or serving your employees who help you get the money. Okay, that’s, just a smart way to do it. Think about all the great CEOs, Tony, that you’ve interviewed and you know, they have that humility. They have that, you know, some of them we all, got a hubris of our own self by the way. Or you wouldn’t be a CEO sometimes because it’s a tough job. It’s not for the faint of heart. And especially for entrepreneurs who give up a 40 hour a week job in order to work 140 hours a week. So it’s not for the faint of heart. So you’ve got to have a little bit of ego and got to have a little bit of that. But they’re very grounded and I think that’s, that’s really important. And in the more you serve others, the grounded you get about yourself and who you are and what your capabilities are. And what you can do. Tony: Jeffrey, once again, very refreshing. Love it. And you know, I don’t see enough people really owning their company’s brand unless they’re an entrepreneur and created it. And you make a very big point of this as well as you talk about engaging the business units in the organization and make them more efficient. And I’ve been in corporate sense for a very, very long time. The employees back then never, never really grasped it, never really took, would take ownership of the brand because they felt it was someone else’s. How do you cohes that group and make that camaraderie, make that efficiency happen? Jeffrey: Well, I think the big thing is to, again, I talk about this in the book, the hero factor is can you and your employees state what your value statement is? Can you state what you are and who you are? You know, used to be, you know, Tony, you and I remember this way back, we used to walk around a little card in their pocket and it stated what the company’s values and vision and mission. At least I had a couple of those companies that we did that with. We don’t do that anymore. Well, we need to get back to that. We need to get back to drinking the Koolaid so to speak. I know some HR people probably don’t like me saying it that way, but you know, get on the bandwagon, understand what it is and you know, drink the champagne. Maybe a better word, drink the champagne. But we’ve got to get down to where we understand what that, what it is that we’re doing. What’s our promise? What is the promise that we’re delivering? So that’s what a brand is. A brand is more than a logo, a look, a feel. Those are all attributes okay. A brand is nothing but a promise delivered. So what’s your promise? And can each of your employees say what that promise is? I can tell you I got to work on that just like everybody we all do. Because that by the way, that promise is always evolving and changing. So you need to have good transparency and good conversations around that. But the first thing you got to do is be able to put it on a piece of paper or a computer screen and then you got to be able to Tattoo it on your rear end. You know, and know what it is Tony: Absolutely, unequivocally without question. Every person needs to understand that their vision, their purpose and what their long term objective is. I, I put that, I talk about that my new book division map and I, which I give away free to help people just get their world, their lives, their relationship, their career, all in order, all in sync. And you know, there’s a time in our lives were not that we’ve done it all, we’re still climbing up our own mountain of success, but it’s so rewarding to help others and bring them up. And it’s just because that’s what good people do. Jeffrey. It just feels so good to do that and I just absolutely love it. I want to thank you once again. I want to encourage everyone to go to Amazon, get the Hero Factor. You could get it on, you can get the audio, you can get the book and Jeffrey if they go to your website, hayzlett.com I’ll spell it. H.A. Y.Z.L.E.T.T.com. If they go there, they can also click through and go get your book. Jeffrey: Absolutely. Just to Google it and you can find out. This is a little thing called Google, Google it the hero factor. You’ll be able to find it or just write to me Hazlette tweet me, Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram I’ll get you the link. Tony: Excellent. Thank you so much Jeffrey Hayzlett I love talking about the Hero Factor. I don’t know if we’ve done enough justice to it, but if we get a lot of people more interested in reading that, then I will consider my job here is done. Jeffrey: Well with your show is going to be listened to by millions. So I’m, excited. Tony: Thank you. Thank you. It would be very nice to have a good turnout there. So I encourage everyone and as always, Jeffrey, when you have another update, another great book or anything else more to say, please reach out. I love interviewing you. This is an ongoing conversation, so much to say, so much to impart. So much knowledge and wisdom. I just love it. Jeffrey: Well thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure being on the show. Tony: Thank you. Thank you very much. Once again, Jeffrey Hayzlett, The Hero Factor is website is h a y z l e t t.com. Thank you again and for my amazing audience. Thanks so much for listening. Remember, success awaits those who persevere and remained steadfast despite the odds be righteous. Join me on the next episode of the Tony DUrso Show. We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s edition of the Tony DUrSo Show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 4PM Eastern time, 1PM Pacific Time on the Voice America Influencer’s channel.