Kris Safarova  00:45

Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. It is F-I-R-M-S consulting.com forward slash overall approach. And you can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. And today we have with us Bill Canady, who is the CEO of both OTC Industrial Technologies and Arrowhead Engineered Products. At OTC, he led a 43% increase in revenue and an 80% rise in earnings, with annual sales now exceeding $1 billion. At AEP, he oversees more than 3600 employees and 1.5 billion in sales. Bill is also a US Navy veteran (Thank you for your service!) and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. Welcome, Bill.

Bill Canady  01:55

Well, it’s great to be here, Kris. Thank you so much for for having having me, and you’re quite the hype person, so I’m excited.

Kris Safarova  02:01

How has your military experience shaped your leadership style?

Bill Canady  02:06

Yeah, that’s a that’s a really interesting question. Thank you for it. So yes, I was in high school, got out of high school, wasn’t sure what to go do, and I joined the Navy. So I joined the Navy, went away to boot camp and and from there, you know, it’s interesting. I you think as a kid, you know everything, but as soon as you get into the Navy, you’ll quickly learn that you have no idea what’s going on. And so the Navy, the United States Navy, made a huge difference for me. It made a man out of me. Showed me I could take orders, listen to orders, follow through, and it also showed me I could lead. So I will be forever grateful to the Navy. I honestly, I think a lot more of us would be better off if we went in ourselves.

Kris Safarova  02:51

What do you think was the most pivotal moment in your career, and how did it influence the leader you are today? And maybe it is during your military days, or maybe afterwards?

Bill Canady  03:02

Yeah, you know, that’s an interesting question from, from the idea of the most pivotal moment for me, I’ll tell you. So it’s, this is such a, such a behind the scenes answer. So I was, I was working for this company. I had been doing pretty well, and I got a new boss, and the new boss did, did not really like me, didn’t like the whole team, to be honest with you, and I recognize that at the end of the day, I was probably gonna have to go do something else. So I’m talking to my wife, and we’re sitting around, we’re actually it’s late at night, we’re having a glass of wine, and she’s asking me what I want to go do. And I turn, you know, I I love my job. I love the company I was with, but I didn’t feel this was going to, you know, I was going to be able to make it and, and she, she kind of calls me out on it. She’s like, well, what are you talking about, right? Be a man, stand up, go fight for what you care about. And, you know, that’s, that’s exactly what I did. I went back to work with a renewed sense of vigor. You know, I was, I was young at the time. I had two small children, both under the age of six years old. I had to go figure out how I was going to make this living, and I needed that job. And my wife pushing me, telling me I was better than that made all the difference. It made me realize, kind of like the Navy did, that if you, if you take ownership of what you’ve got going on, you put yourself out there, and you have no choice but do but to go and be successful, you’re going to be successful. So for me, my wife, pushing me, telling me I could do it, was probably the most pivotal, pivotal part of my career.

Kris Safarova  04:36

And I’m so glad you brought it up, because I think that some people don’t really realize how important it is to find the right life partner and what the incredibly crucial role they play in how successful you will be, how happy you will be, not just in personal life, but also professionally.

Bill Canady  04:54

Absolutely, I would not be the person who I was. If I look I got lucky. I have no idea how I got. So lucky. I feel bad for my wife. She chose me, but for me, it was a really winning combination. You know, we got married when we were in our she was 22 years old. I was 25 at the time. I had been, I had been in the Navy, as you know, and been around the world. She had never really beyond going to college. She’d never really been outside of Illinois at the time, and so we were a little bit of oil and water getting together, very different life experiences, but she really made me who I am today. Without her, I wouldn’t, wouldn’t be where I’m at, and there’s several reasons for that. It really comes down to just her support and her belief, and me my belief in her. She’s a school teacher by training, we were able to raise two wonderful kids. She gets all the credit for that, but if you choose well, and sometimes that’s just luck, because I’m not sure what makes the difference, but if you choose well, and you stick to it, it will make all the difference for you. I read this article. It was talking about like The Millionaire Next Door, right? And, and what? What was the characteristics? And I don’t remember them all, but for sure, one of them was being married to the same person for a long time. You know, it’s it. You need that support. You need that guidance, and you know it just the grounding that you get while reaching for the stars is all the difference. So choose, but choose wisely.

Kris Safarova  06:15

For someone who’s listening to us and they haven’t yet chosen, what would be your advice?

Bill Canady  06:23

You know, I remember talking with my own daughter, my my oldest daughter got married this year, and she married the love of her like they dated eight years. Met, really, the first week they were in college and and they’ve been just, just wonderful partners. I remember sharing this advice with her many years ago, and the advice was, this was, there’s, there’s no such thing as a perfect partner, right? You really have to pick what’s important to you. Some people, you know, they want someone who stays home and looks after that. Some people want someone that goes out and makes a lot of money. Some people want someone that travels, you know, things like, there’s all these different things that you can find valuable in it, whatever that is, you need to make sure that that person that you choose values the same thing, because you’re not going to agree on everything. You’re not going to take and get everything that you possibly want. But if you pick the things that are super important, focus on those critical few, and you find someone who mirrors those values, whatever they may be, be it religion, be it how you think about your family, be how you think about your career. If you can find those critical few things, it’s enough to build a life around. But if you try to find someone that’s perfect, that has everything, I don’t think you’re going to find that there. And more importantly, if you find someone whose value systems are different than yours, who values maybe you value home and security, maybe that person values money and travel that’s not going to blend well either. So pick your critical few. Find someone. Stick with them through thick and thin. It’ll make all the difference for you.

Kris Safarova  07:48

Very, very wise advice. Thank you. So let’s talk about, how are you able to find enough time in the day to manage two companies, basically $2.5 billion in sale.

Bill Canady  08:02

You know, I’m blessed in so many ways. The number one thing I’m blessed with is a great team. You know, the team is really what does it? I think of it. Every every position, every role has has the key characteristics that you need to do if you’re going to be a CEO. There’s many things you can go do, but probably the most important is your job is to set the goal. What is the what is the the area you’re going for? What is the final goal? Sometimes it’s financial goal. It’s growing a certain amount. If you’re in private equity, you probably have that. Sometimes it’s a certain value of the owners. Maybe you’re a public company and and the value that the owner has is growing the business, but really is maybe a multi generational, sometimes a public company, where you have a combination of values and mission driven off of it, whatever, whatever it is you need a team that’s going to support you with that. As the CEO, your job is to define what that is, through yourself, the board, the ownership of the company, and then is to take the team that you have around you, it’s their job to figure out the strategy to go achieve that. Now, that’s really important. I think it’s counterintuitive to a lot of people. They think, oh, you’re the CEO, you’re the person in charge, but that may be true, but if you own the strategy as well, I can almost guarantee it’s not going to be successful. The team you have, to own the strategy, and then their team has to own the execution of that. Now this works for a little bit bigger company. If you’re a solopreneur, or maybe there’s only a handful of people in your company, you may be the head visionary as well as the implementation, the operator and that person with the with the training on it, but if you have any size at all, you’re going to find you need a segregation of duty, because while one person is being the visionary, someone’s got to run the company. While someone’s running the company, someone’s got to go out and find new business and on and on and on with it. So clarity and roles, understanding what you have as a leader will make the difference for me, as a CEO, my job is to be the visionary. Set the goal of. We’re going work with the team so they’ll understand and develop that strategy and then really hold them accountable. That’s the measuring and monitoring and how you do when you run a business like that. You can run a very, very large enterprises spread out around the role world. So for me, it’s all about it’s all about the team.

Kris Safarova  10:16

Bill and what habits or practices you think helped you rise to the CEO role at two major companies?

Bill Canady  10:24

Well, it’s a handful of things, right? So personal characteristics are being a continuous learner, right? Don’t think you know everything. You for sure. Don’t. And there’s a lot of things I’m doing today, like AI Artificial Intelligence to well, you name it, they didn’t even exist 20 years ago. If you think about it, the when I started out in career. And I’m not that old, but I am a member of the X generation. We didn’t have cell phones when we first got I got my first cell phone in the 90s and the internet, even though they talk about it coming in the 60s, with dark when these others it really started coming into the 90s, the late 90s, in the early 2000s and it really took off. Well, today we have chat bots, we have AI, we have all these different tools. Continuous learning is, is the key for that for an individual second piece is you got to have fortitude and the ability to get knocked down and get yourself back up, right? That’s super important. And finally, you got to go get stuff done, right? You absolutely have to go get it done. But you take all that, and then I think the key piece of it is you need some operating model, some way of looking at the world, some type of lens or framework that you come in so you may not know the answer. In fact, I’m on and say, We never know the answer to begin with, but you need a way to approach your problems. For me that’s been using tools like 8020 and the profit growth operating system that we’ve developed over the years. It’s that approach that allows us to find out what the answers are, get the team involved, make sure they have ownership of it. So when you when you kind of peel it all back, you got to be a resilient person who’s willing to brush themselves off and keep going, be a continuous learner, and you got to have a way of approaching problems and getting your team to follow you. Those are the keys.

Kris Safarova  12:02

Bill and in terms of continuous learning, what do you use to help yourself stay on track and not fall behind?

Bill Canady  12:12

There is so much information out there today, whether you’re you know, and as I said, my officer, you can’t see it, but I’ve got a Bloomberg on and CNBC. I love having that in the background. You got the internet that constantly interrupts us from social media to x and Facebook and and Instagram. We have all those LinkedIn that we’re supposed to stay up on. Then there’s the job, the work that just do the job right, the periodicals and the groups, and it goes on and on and on with it, right? If you know what you’re focused on, if you have that framework and you’re looking at where you’re going to go, it’ll help narrow it down, because you cannot stay on top of it. Just doesn’t exist, right? You’re going to have to have a basis of knowledge. We get that through, where we go to school, at who we are together with, and reading in the industry around topics for it, getting up every day, reading the Financial Times, looking at the Wall Street Journal, looking at the New York Times, whatever your your your favorite is on it, but you’re gonna have to put those hours in to go do it. Then the second piece is just getting out there, making yourself available. Go talk to people in your company. Go out, talk to people in your industry, things like, stay involved in it. So I guess really, what I’m getting at is it takes a lot of work. There’s no easy path to it. We don’t have all the knowledge. It’s putting yourself out there, reading, reading widely. I don’t know anyone who’s successful who doesn’t read all the time, and I certainly fall into that category myself, and then listening and partnering with others, understanding what they are, and just being that continuous learners really makes all the difference.

Kris Safarova  13:41

Do you have specific regimen that you follow in terms of how much of your time dedicated each week or each day to learning?

Bill Canady  13:49

I do that’s a that’s a really great question. You know, you have to block out time we get sometimes so busy we can’t get anything done. I’m as guilty of that as anyone else is. But I get up every morning. I wake up early. I’d like to say I’m not even sure why. I just wake up. And then I like to read the news. I read the news mainly on like my iPad, my phone. I get very few printed periodicals anymore, but every day, I read the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and I like reading The Economist. And then, of course, I’ve got all the other little stuff like Google News and all that. So I just love reading the news, right? That’s my personal hobby. If nothing else, secondarily, I’ll take and go in and I’ll turn on the TV. I rarely ever have the volume on, but I love having Bloomberg and CNBC in the background. And I like it because they have these floating charts that come across it, that you don’t have to hear anything. You can just see it and catch little bits and pieces of it. And I’ve been doing this for so long now, for most of my adult life, that I have a storehouse of knowledge that everything from where I went to school and what I learned there to this, it all builds on each other. So I can I know the pieces I like to read. So like in The Wall Street Journal, I love the a head column, right? I’ve been reading it for years. It’s always got an end. Interesting thing, a take on it. I love reading the editorials. It gives me an idea of what’s happening out there. And then you’re these different little boy called bunny holes. You can fall down, like if you used to be called Twitter. Now it’s x, you know, it’s a great place to get quick news, but you can also get off track. And there’s a whole lot of people out there, maybe putting out things that are more hate and things like that, I would suggest we all avoid that, but, but read those newspapers, read those magazines. I do that every day. I just happen to like doing it. I think if you don’t like doing it, it’s going to be hard to make yourself but if you do it, it’ll make a big difference for it. And that’s a routine for me, and that generally takes about probably about 90 minutes of my day, every day that I go through with it.

Kris Safarova  15:43

Thank you so much for giving us so many details. I really appreciate it. So beyond this, are there any daily or weekly routines that have been critical to your success?

Bill Canady  15:52

There is right? And one of the questions I get asked all the time is, how do you separate your business and your professional life, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t separate my business and personal life. They are melded together. Sometimes that causes problems. My wife hates it when I’m sitting there on the phone or I step away for a call, but that’s how I manage my life, right? So my wife travels with me. Sometimes you go to meetings and things like but it’s rare. Generally, I’m out there with myself and my team that I’m that I’m out there getting in front of people. So the way that I do it is I’ll typically travel about 50% of the time. And when I travel, I have a very specific regime. So I go into my location, I go around, I say hi to everybody, shake their hand, I say a few words with them. Then later, we’ll do a town hall meeting. That town hall meeting generally takes about 90 minutes. Might take as long as two hours. The first part of that will be me talking. I’ll talk about where we’ve been, so the past. I’ll talk about where we are right now. And then, of course, I’ll talk about the future, where we’re going from that we’ll do Q and A on that stage with me. I’ll have people from HR, the local leadership team, things like that, because we’re going to answer all their questions that we can answer, and if we don’t know the answer, we’re going to go get it to them. And we don’t give them platitudes, we don’t tell them what we think they want to hear. We just give them the unvarnished truth with respect and dignity and try to answer what they can and sometimes the answer is no, right? Sometimes the answer is yes. So as a CEO and you’re standing in front of that group, you’re going to find there’s there’s times that people will ask you things that you you don’t have a good answer for, or an answer they’re not looking for. But as a human being, we do everything we can to do the right thing by that person. And at the same time, we have in our heads, as a CEO, we’ve got to do the right thing for that company. We have 10,000 employees across a couple of companies. We have them their families. They’ve got bills they got to do. They’ve got all that we have to look after this company. So what we do, we try to balance the need of the individual with the need of the company, and we do the best we can. We don’t always get that right, but by going out there and meeting with people, spending time within it, helps me understand what’s actually happening. So that’s how I do it. I do that multiple times a week with our locations. We’re in over 50 countries around the world, so I travel all the time, well, really about half the time, and the other time, I’m either in my office or out in one of our offices, doing internal meetings. Then secondly, I’ll go out and my outside meetings. I’ll meet with either investors, I’ll meet with our suppliers, and I’ll meet with our customers, and it’s really just listening, here’s what’s happening, and I’ll do the same with them, but this, but the messaging slightly different. It’s, where are we at in our partnership? Where are we going, and how can we grow together? And that’s what people are looking for. They won’t understand what’s happening in the business. What’s in it for them, right? Everyone’s favorite radio station, W, i, i, f, M, what’s in it for me? Right? And I try to answer those questions. That’s how I spend my days, typically. And then the rest of the time, like I say, is either in travel or doing reports or doing blessed to come on your podcast and spend time with you, Kris.

Kris Safarova  18:56

And I’m blessed to spend time with you, yeah. So you’re traveling a lot. They have clients who travel a lot, so they’re very senior, and they have to travel a lot. And it does get to you. It’s hard. Any advice for someone listening right now who has to travel a lot?

Bill Canady  19:11

Yeah, so getting around it. So today I do things I couldn’t have done five years ago. Five years ago, I couldn’t have had all this video conferencing. And today, any of us can do it between zoom or teams or stream yard, which is what we’re on here today, they’re so easy to communicate, so we’re always in con. When I’m home, I’m in my home office, I’m in my office I work in I can be in front of people, and my most impactful time is being the visionary for the company, sharing where we are and where we’re going, and listening to people and getting the feedback to help moderate that and help help help go through it if you’re going to travel, or maybe they said a different way. In the vast majority of these jobs, unless you only have a single location, you’re going to have to travel. It’s just a requirement of the job. And if you don’t like traveling, it’s going to be hard to do the jobs. And it’s like anything else. I tell people, you know, if you want to be successful and be CEO, you’re going to get a set of problems with it. If you want to be successful and stay home and coach your kids Little League team, you’re going to have a set of problem with that. So just pick your your problems carefully, right? Because either one, there’s no perfect in them each each side is very demanding. One side, if you value certain things, like traveling and, you know, the pay is not so bad, and and the people I work with are fantastic, but I don’t get to stay home a lot. And I, you know, I never did get to coach any of my kids team. So you have to pick what you’re going to what you’re going to live with. And this, this is a sign I went with, and I’m grateful for it. It’s helped me and my family achieve things we never thought we could achieve.

Kris Safarova  20:38

Anything you do to make sure that you stay healthy, energetic, that it doesn’t damage your health long term.

Bill Canady  20:46

You know, that’s probably the thing I’m the worst at. Yeah, I go through these periods, like when I was in my 40s, I was doing triathlons, and I did one marathon, a whole bunch of stuff, right today, mainly what I do, just because of the schedule and everything else, and I’ve kind of falling off the wagon is I like to walk a lot, spend time with, like I said, my family, where I can and and spend time. I’ve got a new grandson who I could be more excited about that. I enjoy playing golf a lot. To get out with that. So most of my exercise today is just really getting out, moving, being a part of it. The biggest issue that I have to do is watch what I eat and drink. You know, what I could do when I was in my 30s, I cannot do in my 50s, so I don’t nearly eat as much. My wife and I, we kind of laugh. We got we typically split a meal, to be honest with you. Well, maybe it used to be two cocktails. Is now maybe one, if at all, but I’ve gotten where I really enjoy a good glass of water. Brian staying hydrated. So I have to watch my health a lot closer. I just don’t have the stamina that I had when I was younger. But I’m a lot better at what I do today, and I’m a lot more thoughtful about it. And so things I used to do made it a little harder for me. I don’t do that so much anymore, and I think that’s what we all have to do to be honest with you.

Kris Safarova  21:53

Very true. So you spoke about listening, the importance of listening and speaking to customers and employees. Any advice for someone who feels they need to improve in this area?

Bill Canady  22:03

Yeah, there’s a couple pieces that I find really important. So one thing I would tell everyone is particularly like, when I come into a new organization, I have a three meeting process I go through. I call them the three L’s, the listening, learning and leveraging. So with every employee that I can, I set up a meeting, a series of three meetings, and I have an agenda that I already have put together, and it’s not agenda that we have to follow, but when people are meeting with the new CEO, they’re always wondering, who is this person? And there’s always a certain amount of maybe emotions that go with it. So I send them this and I go, here’s the kind of questions I want to know. The first meeting is really about them. Tell me about yourself, what you do, how you like being here. The second meeting is around. Tell me about the business and how that’s going, where you see we’re winning, we’re losing, things like that. And then the third was kind of the catch all meeting, which is we’ve been around a little while now. We probably spent some time outside of these meetings together. What else do you want me to know? So I put that together. So when they come in, they can, they can be prepared. I don’t have them prepare anything, written documents. Some will someone I doesn’t really matter to me. It’s what they want to do, but it allows, it gives them a road map to follow. So I do that to begin with. And I sat down, and I just asked them, really, a series of questions, what’s happening? How do you feel about that? What else is going on? And I can generally get an extraordinary amount of information. Now, with all my direct reports, I do what’s called a one on one meeting, and the cadence varies, but it’s generally at least once a month, sometimes bi weekly with people, sometimes weekly. Just depends on what’s going on, and that meeting is their meeting. We come on. I say, Well, hey, Kris, it’s good to see you today. As you know, this is your time. What would you like to talk about? And generally, that’s what we’ll go through. Now I’m not perfect at that. Sometimes I have some messaging or something I need to get out as well, but that one on one is really their meeting to talk about it. Then the third piece that I do is I travel with them, particularly folks on my team will travel together to go see these sites and things during that time is where you really get to notice them. So So those are the series of meetings. Now the hardest part is the actual Listening part. As you can tell, I like to talk, for sure and all that. Sometimes I talk too much, which I which happens for maybe all of us. But what you have to do is when you ask a question, instead of preparing your answer to whatever they’re saying and thinking about that, you actually have to just stop and listen. And if you will listen, it’ll be interesting of what, of what they’re telling you, and you’ll get so much more out of it, instead of just sitting there contemplating whatever it is you want to tell them next. I think that’s the hardest part. It’s certainly hard for me, but you seeking to understand as opposed to being understood, right? Start with that helps me a lot and be interested. Be interested, ask people about themselves, right? We all have those friends who call up and all they do is tell you about their problems. They never even ask you if you’re out here. Then other ones are like, well. Hey, Kris, what’s going on? How was your holiday? How was it? How’s the day? Whatever it is, right? Just giving people a chance to be heard, you gotta ask about people. It’s important, and you need to be sincere with it.

Kris Safarova  25:09

Very true. So you mentioned that your most important role is to be visionary. How can someone, a leader, listening to us right now, become a better visionary?

Bill Canady  25:21

Well. I think if there’s three main roles in a company, so there’s a vision, Eric, which is typically the CEO, but it doesn’t have to be that’s the person who says, this is where we’re going, right through, either, as we talked earlier about the mission, the values, or some combination thereof, they understand what the destination is like. You have to get the team together in order to go do that, you need to have a very broad view and a very high level view. Some people are charismatic, and they can do it through their talking. Some people are quiet and shy. Doesn’t really matter. Use the tools you have with it, but be inspirational. Help people get there. The second person that is simply in the company is an operator. Lot of times that role is the President role, right? The President role, or a COO, is the one that operates or runs the day to day action. Sometimes you’ll see someone to have a role, the CEO and the president, very common to have. So they are the visionary and the primary operator of the business, but that operator, their job is to make sure that that vision that the CEO has is getting implemented, that wherever we’re going, they are putting together the strategy to get there. Then the final person that is in that is what we call the profit, or the if you will, a facilitator or a trainer. It’s the person who really understands the processes, the systems of the company. And they go around and make sure people are capable of doing it. You will see them in different businesses. They’ll be in the Lean group, or they’ll be in the 8020 group. Maybe they’re in HR. They understand all the responsibilities and roles. It’s those types of people who go out and work with us to make us better, make sure that we have the tools we have necessary. So those are kind of the three primary roles we look at. And then back to your question about how to be a visionary. Well, really, it starts with you. It starts with Where are you going to take this organization? So whether you’re the CEO or you’re the product manager or you’re the vice president of sale, whatever it is, you have something you have to go accomplish. You need to get the folks around you inspired, and you need to tell them where we’re going, and then work with them to figure out the map to get you there.

Kris Safarova  27:23

So you earlier mentioned a profitable growth operating system. Tell us about it and anything you want to share about this system.

Bill Canady  27:33

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So you know, over my career, particularly in the last 20 plus years or so, I’ve developed an operating system that I call myself the profitable growth operating system. I felt like I had to name it something. So PG OS was pretty good, and basically it’s a series of just five tools that are around everything from getting the data that’s segmentation or 8020 right, it’s going to help us understand where we make money, where we don’t, and how to go after and get it’s also your growth strategy. Second one would be strategy, our strategy management process, that is the tools that you use to go out and get that strategy implemented, to help understand it, where it’s going and get it implemented. Then there’s HR or talent, that’s 1m and A merges and acquisition for your organic and inorganic growth. That’s where you’re gonna get your inorganic there. And I see, I think so I did talent segment. Oh, lean. And then finally, lean. So if I covered all five of them, and that’s your efficiency one that gets the waste out. So we’ve got to grow the business, we’re going to know where it’s at 8020 the data is going to tell us that we need great people to go execute on it. That’s our talent processes. We’re going to need inorganic growth. That’s our M A and we want to do it very efficiently. That’s going to be our lean tool set. So with that tool set, we created 8020 now those tools have been around a long time. We’ve used what we’ve learned in other places, and we’ve modified it as we’ve gone along. So during the pandemic, as I had time on my hands, like a lot of people did, I finally put together myself. A lot of people would ask for it through the years, and I wanted to really standardize and create standard work around it, so I wrote a book called The 8020 CEO. You can see it over my shoulder here, that yellow book that’s been a great book. It’s been a best seller that came out about a year ago, and it has topped the best seller list in Amazon and some other places, won a bunch of awards. From that, we developed a second book called from panic to profit. So the first book, 8020, is a little story about me, then the five tool sets, and then we have in there the four steps to get the command and control of a business. That’s your change management process. How, if you’re coming and taking your business, how you get control of it really quickly from panic to profit, which comes out in April 2025. Is published by Wiley. That book is really all about the journey you take. It’s the two year journey that you go through, getting 8020 into your business, getting that. Man in control of it and going out and making the money that the business needs. So it’s been a kind of a fun journey with it, and we’ve had a lot of fun, and we’ve really helped a lot of people in my career, we’ve we’ve developed over $3 billion of shareholder value. We’ve bought and sold hundreds of companies, and 10s of 1000s of people have been trained in the process, and finally, getting it into a forum out there has really made a big difference, and the feedback has been just tremendous for it.

Kris Safarova  30:26

Thank you for taking the time to document your knowledge, expertise, what you learned. I think that is incredibly beneficial for people, and I appreciate you doing it.

Bill Canady  30:36

Well. Thank you very much. That’s very kind of you say, Kris.

Kris Safarova  30:39

So how do you get everyone on the same page? You run two large organizations.

Bill Canady  30:44

You know, it’s an interesting process, and it is both easier than harder than you would think. So you start out. Step one is you have to get the goal as a CEO, that’s your job. Your job is to get it now. You don’t really do it by yourself, but you own it at the end of the day. And typically, with me coming in, I’m in private equity, the gold is financial, and financial isn’t all that interested a lot of times, but it does set how big the prize is going to be. And let’s say, for the sake of argument, you get there and you’re at 100 whatever 100 is, and you’re trying to get to 200 yourself and your CFO sat down and look at it from the capabilities of the business, from your balance sheet, and your your P, L, do you have the wherewithal to go get that? Once you know that’s true, you get your team together, your leadership team together. You get in a conference room. You get them to buy into the goal. They understand this is where we’re going. They understand the size of it, the hardness of it. Now this is where you get buy in. Their job is to put together the strategy that’s going to get you there. That’s the key. By them owning the strategy, you immediately have buy in as a leader. If you come in and tell people where you’re going, and you also tell them how they’re going to get there, you’ll find there is no ownership. The how, how, the how of that goal being achieved is what is critical. That’s where the buy in that team in creating that strategy, then passes it to their team, and that’s through the organization that they set up, right how they organize the company, and secondly, through the action planning. So if you’re familiar with terms like policy deployment or strategy, management, process, these different types of tools, this is how you get it across the organization. So it’s really about people taking ownership of what has to happen, having control of themselves, having control of their future. And once they have that, and they go implement it, you’ll find not only will they own it, they’re going to make it happen.

Kris Safarova  32:41

What do you do with team members who don’t seem to want to get on board?

Bill Canady  32:47

Happens more than you would think. It’s unfortunate. Sometimes it’s just they don’t want to be it. A lot of times you’ll see this, and I’ll use a couple different examples. A long term employee. You come in, you say, companies failing, it’s obvious. We have to turn it around. Here’s some ideas, and they’ll say things like, we’ve tried that before and it didn’t work. It’s not going to work now. Well, as a new leader, you’re like, something’s got to work, right? Or else this is not going to do it. But some people just can’t get past the history. There’s a whole bunch of reasons. It could be maybe they feel responsible for the history. Maybe it was just they were a victim of it, and they think it cannot be solved. Those people are going to have to find a way to get on board, or they’re gonna have to leave right? And you find that, whether it’s new people or old people, some people just can’t buy into the vision of where we’re going right. Can’t do it when you see that the thing that you can do that is best for them and their teammates is help them go do something else. Sometimes that’s a different role inside the company. Sometimes that’s outside the company, but you’re going to do them a favor by putting them someplace that they feel they can win. You might be aware like, geez, I want to win for the company, but if they don’t feel they can win for themselves, they’re not going to put the effort in. That’s the time where you help them find their way to something that makes them happy and inspires them.

Kris Safarova  34:03

Yes, you have to remember that you only have that much energy, that much time in certain situations. Just not a good fit for anyone.

Bill Canady  34:11

Yeah, I see a lot of CEOs, really a lot of leaders in general, fail when their team is just against them, right? Whether it’s in politics, whether it’s in business, whether it’s in your local church group, if everyone is against the vision that you have, you may have the best vision in the world, but it’s not going to happen. You can have a mediocre vision that people buy into, and your odds of success are extraordinary. You’re almost for sure going to do it, because everybody wants it to happen. But if you have a great vision and no buy in, it’s going to fail. You got to get people around you go buy in.

Kris Safarova  34:45

Bill. What do you think is the most underestimated lever for boosting profitability?

Bill Canady  34:50

The most underestimated level of boosting profitability is simply pricing right. The number one thing you can do, there’s a lot of that. You can cut costs. You can go get new suppliers. You can. Find productivity. The number one thing you can do, the easiest thing, is to get your pricing correct. Now you have to be careful with it, because you can pull too hard on that lever, get the pricing wrong, lose customers. But if you can understand where you’re making money and where you’re not, if you change the pricing on those that that maybe you’re not making money or maybe there’s opportunity to make more, it is the only thing you can do that is totally friction free. And what I mean by that is, whatever you raise it by, it flows all the way through the P and L to the bottom line. So if you’re selling something for $1 and you raise it to $2 that other Buck’s going to go right to the bottom line, because there’s nothing you have to do other than set the price. If you do something around purchasing or procurement, there’s a charge. It takes both in people time material, to go get it. Maybe you have to go see the vendors. Maybe you have to do first articles, or these things where you do testing and all that. Maybe you need new tooling. Maybe there’s investments you have to make in your factories. All those take time and resources, things like money, things like maybe new factories, whatever it is that will What if you raise it $2 on that, that $2 isn’t always going to come through, because it there was a cost with it. So end of the day, the most underestimated piece is just simply getting your prices right. You got to do all the other stuff as well. It just takes longer, and it’s not as impactful.

Kris Safarova  36:20

What is your advice on getting the prices right?

Bill Canady  36:23

There’s two things to really look at. So one is what the market is doing. So if you find your competitors raising prices, raise prices right along with them. As an example, you don’t need any inside knowledge on that. Just you see the market going up, you have a chance to go the second one, though, this is the more powerful. It’s a little bit more challenging. This is the heart of our operating system. Is looking at your call structure, looking at your products, your customers, and seeing where your best customers are, your best products, and consequently, the ones that are the worst customers and worst products. And by that we define, we just don’t sell very many and we’re not making very much money. We find that if you’re in that category, which typically represents less than 4% of the revenue, and generally you’re losing money in it, you can raise your prices, and the consequences are all positive, even if the customer loses. In other words, you lose the customer. The customer leaves you. Not loses, but leaves you. You at least quit losing money, that, in and of itself, will make you more profitable. So if you can identify where you’re losing money with customers who do nothing else with you, if you just stop your company instantly becomes more profitable. It’s a very low risk way to do it, and a lot of people don’t go through the exercise of doing this. Not hard to figure out, but you do got to look at the data, and that’s really what our system really teaches people, is how to take the data. It doesn’t tell you what your strategy should be, doesn’t tell you who you’re going to raise the prices or how much, but it does give you the data and gives you the ability to make a thoughtful decision.

Kris Safarova  37:56

Thank you for this. What do you think is the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far from growing to over a billion dollars in sales organizations?

Bill Canady  38:05

Well, there’s a couple things. So as I said earlier, the team is what’s important. So we won’t go back through that. But if you don’t have a team around you that buys into the vision supports without doing it, but it’s not, it’s not going to work. Nothing else you can do will solve it. The second piece is, and this is kind of an interesting one. It’s a little bit nuanced, and that is, you have to have the courage of your convictions. And what I mean by that is, go as the leader, you get all the data, and you make a decision. And here’s the hardest part, you got to get them focused on something, which means you have to say no to a lot of things. There might be 10 ideas in front of you, all of them seem equally good. You’re going to have to pick one. Maybe you can do two. You cannot do all 10. If you will get your team focused on the one or two most important things that will have a major impact that you believe will ever make the odds of success go through the roof. If, however you try to do everything, If, however, you get outside your core, trying to do things that you don’t really do. If you have a team that does not support it, failure is almost guaranteed. So as a leader, it’s getting a good team focus on the critical few things that they believe in, that you believe in, and then getting out of their way and making their job possible for them, it is the most powerful thing you can do.

Kris Safarova  39:24

What are the non negotiables for building a profitable growth system? Maybe there’s something that we haven’t yet discussed, that you want to mention.

Bill Canady  39:33

There’s a few things that are really non negotiable. So the first is the CEO, if he’s going to make it work, has to make a condition of employment. If people don’t believe they’re going to have to go through it, I promise you they will not go through it because overthink it’s just the flavor of the day. So the first thing is, it’s got to be non negotiable. It’s got to be a condition of employment that we are going to get focused where we’re making money at we’re going to do more of that the. Second piece that you have to have is you have to have your operators, the people running the business, must follow the process. They must quit doing what they were doing, right? Einstein’s theory of crazy is that keep doing the same thing, expect something different. They must focus on the things. They must use the language they must embrace the process if it’s going to have any chance of success. And they got to do it enthusiastically. And then the final piece is this knowledge must come inside. You must get it inside of your business. Typically, starting out, you’re going to use an outside consultant or someone who’s been an expert in whatever your tool is. And ours, we believe strongly in 8020 has been proven to work. We’ve won every time with it, someone has to come in and teach that team. And this is really important, right? We call that person the prophets, like Moses coming in. They have the 10 Commandments. They tell you what the 10 Commandments are and tell you how to apply them. But most importantly, that knowledge has to transfer from the consultant to your internal team. Otherwise, as soon as the consultant leaves, that knowledge is going to leave and people go back to what they were doing. So CEO, a condition of employment, operators following the process, and someone to come in and train your team on how to do it. Those are your three non negotiables.

Kris Safarova  41:14

Thank you very much. What metrics do you track fast when you assess a company’s health?

Bill Canady  41:22

You know, there’s so many metrics out there, and we a lot of times, you’ll see people tracking everything. You really only want to track the ones that are important to you and that you can do something about. So we start with first is revenue and profitability the month. The thing we’re going to move first is profitability, because we can put pricing in quicker than anything else, things like purchasing and sourcing, we’re going to do that, but that typically takes six to 18 months before you see an impact on it. You got to go, at a minimum, renegotiate contracts. Sometimes you got to find new vendors. That takes a long time. The third piece that’s going to come in is going to be your sales. So they can come sometimes you’ll have some wins right away, which are super exciting, but a lot of times, it’s going to take about 12 to 24 months before you find people willing to switch over to you. That’s why you focus on your core customers. They already know you, they already like you. They’re already buying from you. You can get them to switch products you’re buying from someone else, their B vendor to you, their a vendor quicker because of that relationship. And then the final piece is new product development that generally takes 18 to 36 months for most businesses. Some business take years develop something new. Some people take hours. A lot of things around the industrial side to come up with it and get it launched. Going to take 18 to 18 months, to 36 months for it. So that’s kind of how it lays out. That’s how you expect it to go. The more you get focused, the more you get buy in, the more you focus on those non negotiables, the quicker you’re going to get there.

Kris Safarova  42:49

What do you think one thing leaders often overlook when turning the company around?

Bill Canady  42:56

Yeah, there’s a really a couple pieces of it. The first thing is they underestimate how fast they can go. A lot of times they’ll be waiting and waiting, trying for the right time. There is no right time. The right time is NOW. I have never looked back and said, Geez, I went too fast. It’s always been just the opposite. We should have went faster, right? The second thing is, they underestimate how often they have to repeat themselves. They need to get a simple message. This is where we’re focusing. This is how we’re going to win. And they’re going to have to say it hundreds of times. You know, the magic thing is that people say you got to tell someone 20 times, that’s right. But when you have hundreds, if not 1000s, of employees, you’re going to be saying, wherever you go, you want it. So when you walk down the hallway in your company and you ask someone, what the strategist they can repeat back what you’ve been saying. That’s how you know you’re getting it. When the people out in the organization start telling you things that you’ve been saying, You’re You’re finally just scratching the surface with it, right? So one is speed. You can go faster than you think. The second one is it takes more repeating than than you than you could ever imagine. We have four very simple rules that we use. We call it the four commandments that we use to gage on how it’s how it’s actually working. And this is in no particular order, but one is, we call it be on pace. If you’re too fast, you leave people behind. If you’re too slow, you’re the bottleneck. And where we gage that is, if you have less then the second one is be data driven. And if you have less than add 20% of the information you’re just guessing, and if you have more than 80% of the information you’ve waited so long that you got passed by, so be on pace and data driven go together. The third one is no surprises, bad news, fish and relatives all stink after three days. We just went through Thanksgiving, so we’re probably familiar with that. Don’t surprise anyone. Keep everyone informed, right? Come and tell them, Don’t kill the messenger if you’re the leader. Otherwise, they won’t tell you. But no surprises. And the fourth one, I think. Is the most important, and that is, results matter. We will not be a best efforts company. We have to win some in baseball, if you hit 300 you go to Hall of Fame. In business, you get fired. You got to go. You got to win more than three out of 10 to go. We got to be in the seven or eight or nine out of 10. If we’re going to be successful, there’s a lot of people riding on us, and we have to get this right so it’s data driven, no surprises. Be on pace and results matter, or how we judge everything we do.

Kris Safarova  45:29

Now I will ask you my favorite question of all time, over the last few years, what were aha moments, realizations, maybe you can share with us two or three or one that really changed the way you look at life or the way you look at business.

Bill Canady  45:43

There’s been so many moments that have changed everything for me, right? If I start at the beginning, you know, it’s when you you know, when I went into the Navy and realized I could actually look after myself. I I met my my wife, and realized I had a life partner, and then finally, my my children and my grandson being born, you realize why you’re doing it. Also, family has been a big part of it, right? And then with my career in and of itself, just looking at that, the reason I’m in the role I am in today is people took chances on me. I had to take a chance on myself, but I needed people around me, great mentors, things like that, people who thought I could do it and they placed a bet on me and my my role was not to let them down. My role was to give everything I’ve got. So as I look back on it, it’s really been those mentors and leaders that have looked and helped me and gave me a chance to actually make the difference. I just look at where I’m at right now. You know, the private equity firm I work for is a company called Gen start, absolutely the finest company I’ve ever been a part of. Rob Rutledge, who’s my boss, one of the key partners in the firm, one of the four who are really run the firm, took a chance on me. Gave me the first company, OTC. We did well. Gave me the second firm, arrowhead, and we’ve done pretty well with that. So it is that chance that’s reason I’m sitting here here today, and that’s what I encourage leaders around is pick people around you, people who are willing to bet on themselves, put in that effort and energy with it. Take a chance on them. The reason you’re in that chair, someone took a chance on you. Pass that forward. Pay that forward. It makes all the difference for people in their lives.

Kris Safarova  47:17

Bill, if you could recommend just one habit or mindset shift for leaders who are listening to us right now, something they could implement today or this week? What would it be?

Bill Canady  47:27

Wow, that’s a really good question. You know, the one habit that I would recommend people right is really take time to stay informed. Don’t get so busy that you’re just churning things through it. Take a moment every day, whether it’s read the news, read a book or something, take some time to think about what’s going on if you need to schedule it in, if it’s get up early and have a cup of coffee, if it stay up late, whatever it is that works for you, take that moment. Take a breath. Ground yourself. Recognize where you are. Be grateful for it. Right. Number One, two, be a little aspirational. You got more in you to go right and then think those around you, your family, your employer, your boss, your employees, whoever it is that are giving you that opportunity out there each and every day. So take a few moments every day, ground yourself, understand where you are. Get a line and get back up and go get them again. It makes all the difference.

Kris Safarova  48:23

If you just only take away one idea from your recent book, what should it be?

Bill Canady  48:28

Get the data. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re not really sure what we’re going to do when we show up, right? Well, I have a process. I call that the 100 day process. It’s those four steps to get command and control we talked about earlier, right? So start with the data. It doesn’t tell you your strategy. It doesn’t tell you any of that stuff. It just tells you what’s working or not. Once you understand what’s happening, you can start making decisions. Imagine this for a woman, you’re not feeling well. You go to a doctor, you’re sitting in that room. We’ve all been there. We’re sitting there by ourselves on that little table. The door opens up. Person looks at you, goes, here you go, throw some mid pills at you, and wonders back out, are you going to take that medicine? I hope not. You want someone who actually spends some time and listen to what you are in your senses and then comes up with what you need. Maybe it was what they were going to prescribe, but you talked about it earlier. Be that great listener, understand what it is, and then use that tool set, whether it’s mine or someone else, to go diagnose the problem and help them and figure out where you’re going to go right. Make sure you’re taking the time to listen to what’s happening, and from there, you’ll know what to what to go do next with it. Otherwise, you’re just making up where you go as you go along.

Kris Safarova  49:44

Bill, is there anything else you want to share? Maybe something you wanted me to ask you, and they didn’t. And also, where can our listeners learn more about you, your work, your latest book, anything you want to share?

Bill Canady  49:55

Well, Kris, you’ve done a magnificent job today. You’re really well prepared, and I want to thank you for having me on. Here. I think I’ll just finish with this. So if you want more information about me and what I do, you can go, I have a website. It’s my name billcanady.com. And my next book coming out, I hope you want to go and give it will be available in all bookstores. Its From Panic to Profit. It’ll be in officially in bookstores, April 29. It’ll be available for pre order in January, and it publishes on April 14. So April 29 is when you can find it in a bookstore. I hope everyone gets a copy. There’s anything I can ever help anyone do. Please reach out on the website. Happy to help in any way. Thank you all, and thank you for your time.

Kris Safarova  50:38

Bill. Thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed our discussion. Thank you again for writing the books. Please keep them coming, and I would love to interview you for your future books. And really enjoyed our discussion today.

Bill Canady  50:51

Me too. I’m happy to come back anytime. So thank you so much for putting this together. It’s been fantastic.

Kris Safarova  50:57

Our guest today, again, has been Bill Canady. Check out his book, From Panic to Profit: Uncover Value, Boost Revenue, and Grow Your Business with the 80/20 Principle. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a gift we prepared for you. And you can also get another gift, McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, also free download. You can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. And firmsconsulting is F-I-R-M-S consulting.com. Thank you everyone for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.