Scaling Services Through Value and Relationships with Carl Grant III

[00:00:01] Dieser komplexe Finanzierungstalk ist ganz schön anstrengend. Ob ich mein Depot jemals angelegt kriege?

[00:00:06] Aber du hast doch schon ein Depot.

[00:00:08] Äh, nee.

[00:00:09] Doch, du hast das Vodafone Gigadepot.

[00:00:11] Ach stimmt! Und da habe ich ja selbst in der Hand, wie groß mein Depot ist.

[00:00:15] Jetzt mit dem Vodafone Gigadepot und verbrauchtes Datenvolumen in den nächsten Monat mitnehmen.

[00:00:19] Go on im zuverlässigen 5G-Netz von Vodafone. Vodafone. Together we can.

[00:00:24] You're listening to Scaling Up Services, where we speak with entrepreneurs, authors, business experts, and thought leaders to give you the knowledge and insights you need to scale your service-based business faster and easier.

[00:00:41] And now, here is your host, business coach Bruce Eckfeldt.

[00:00:45] This episode of Scaling Up Services is brought to you by Dash VA.

[00:00:49] Dash VA provides virtual assistant services for growing businesses.

[00:00:53] Everything from managing emails and schedules to top-notch research and marketing support.

[00:00:57] Dash VA has revolutionized my day-to-day operations, taking on all of the nitty-gritty so that I can focus on the tasks that really matter.

[00:01:05] And let me tell you, it's not just about getting the job done.

[00:01:07] It's about how they do it, with efficiency, dedication, and a keen understanding of my business needs.

[00:01:13] If you're an entrepreneur or small business owner, having a great virtual assistant is not just a convenience.

[00:01:18] It's your secret weapon.

[00:01:19] It allows you to focus on what you do best, growing your business.

[00:01:23] You know what they say, if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant.

[00:01:27] So if you're ready to join the virtual revolution and supercharge your productivity, visit dashva.nyc to learn more about how they can help you elevate your business.

[00:01:37] With Dash VA, it's not just about success.

[00:01:40] It's about partnering with a team that's committed to your mission.

[00:01:43] Visit dashva.nyc to learn more.

[00:01:46] Now, back to our episode.

[00:01:48] Welcome, everyone.

[00:01:49] This is Scaling Up Services.

[00:01:51] I'm Bruce Eckfeldt.

[00:01:51] I'm your host.

[00:01:52] Our guest today is Carl Grant III.

[00:01:54] He is author of How to Live the Abundant Life.

[00:01:57] He's also been a senior salesperson with several different professional services firms, many of which you'll know.

[00:02:05] We're going to cover his background, what he's learned about scaling services, and particularly on the sales, marketing, business development side.

[00:02:12] It's really interesting insights there.

[00:02:14] And where he is now in terms of helping leaders really kind of think through what success looks like, not just professionally, but personally and life overall.

[00:02:22] So excited for the conversation at many levels.

[00:02:25] A lot of experiences here that I'm excited to talk about and a lot of takeaways that I'm sure audience is going to get out of this conversation.

[00:02:33] So with all that, Carl, welcome to the program.

[00:02:36] Happy to be here, Bruce.

[00:02:37] Thanks for having me.

[00:02:38] Yeah, no, it's a pleasure.

[00:02:39] So before we dig into all of the things that you've been doing on the book side, I would love to kind of get your professional experience and hear a little bit about your journey.

[00:02:49] Tell us kind of where things start.

[00:02:51] How do you get involved in service companies?

[00:02:53] Tell us a little bit about the beginning.

[00:02:55] Yeah, so when I started out in service companies, it wasn't a thing.

[00:03:00] Like business development wasn't a thing in professional services companies.

[00:03:03] If you looked at your average accounting firm or law firm, the partners in those firms were expected to go out and win the business.

[00:03:12] Yeah.

[00:03:13] And they might have some marketing people and staff to help them put together pitch decks and things like that.

[00:03:18] But no external sales.

[00:03:21] And we don't call it sales in professional services.

[00:03:23] We call it business development because sales sounds too crass.

[00:03:26] But it's just to be clear, it's sales.

[00:03:28] And so back in 1998, I had been working in economic development for two years.

[00:03:34] I was managing the capital attraction program for the most aggressive economic development organization in the country at the time.

[00:03:41] It was the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.

[00:03:43] And it was my job to attract venture capital to that county.

[00:03:47] And during that time, I doubled the number of venture firms in that county.

[00:03:51] And when Pricewaterhouse and Coopers & Librand were thinking about merging, they agreed that they wanted to bring on me to present a united front to the marketplace.

[00:04:02] And so I moved in one week before they physically merged.

[00:04:07] It was an exciting time.

[00:04:09] And I didn't know anything about it.

[00:04:10] I mean, I married an accountant, but I didn't know anything about accounting.

[00:04:13] Other than it was a boring topic and it wasn't too exciting.

[00:04:18] But it was my job to sell audits.

[00:04:20] And I couldn't think of anything worse to have to sell.

[00:04:24] And so I learned very early on that all successful companies were going to need an audit, but nobody wanted to buy one.

[00:04:32] And so I had to go around and listen to, you know, I took two weeks and I just listened to the auditors talk to me about what they did.

[00:04:42] And it was really boring.

[00:04:43] But what was exciting, Bruce, was the companies they audited.

[00:04:47] They audited some of the biggest companies in the world and they audited most of the venture capital funds.

[00:04:53] And so I already knew that companies really like to be connected with sources of capital.

[00:04:58] But now I can also connect them with big companies.

[00:05:01] And so I decided that I was going to position myself as a connector.

[00:05:06] And that's what I did.

[00:05:07] I became what they call today a super connector.

[00:05:11] There wasn't really a notion of a super connector back then.

[00:05:14] And so by connecting would-be clients with sources of capital and prospective customers, I became one of the most popular guys in town.

[00:05:24] In fact, we just started winning work hand over fist.

[00:05:28] We had a total market share increase of 33% through those efforts.

[00:05:34] We won in a two-year span.

[00:05:37] And this might not sound like a lot, but when you think about the goals they gave me, they gave me these very low goals.

[00:05:43] I didn't know what I could do.

[00:05:45] And I doubled the goals every time.

[00:05:48] And they had to keep increasing them because I had an uncapped bonus that was 50% of my base pay.

[00:05:54] And they saw me blowing past and making 100% bonuses.

[00:05:58] And they're like, we're making this guy too much money.

[00:06:00] We won 85 new audit engagements in a two-year span.

[00:06:04] And the funny thing was, we ran out of auditors.

[00:06:07] We were importing auditors from India to staff the engagements that we were doing.

[00:06:11] And so right before I left, I had to go and tell companies that I had won to do their IPO to tell them we couldn't do their IPO.

[00:06:21] And I thought, you know, how is this going to work?

[00:06:23] So I left.

[00:06:26] I mean, I left and I joined a startup company.

[00:06:30] I was part of the management team of the first company to put video over the internet.

[00:06:33] And that was exciting.

[00:06:36] I mean, it was very exciting.

[00:06:37] That was 2000.

[00:06:38] And my job was to develop partnerships.

[00:06:41] And we had partnerships with Sony and Sensormatic and big companies.

[00:06:48] But the problem was, nobody was buying anything because we hit a recession in March of 2000.

[00:06:54] Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:54] And so the VCs pulled the plug on that one.

[00:06:58] I joined a buddy of mine, startup company called Cyber CFO.

[00:07:02] It was a services company that was morphing into an early fintech company.

[00:07:08] And through my efforts, we doubled revenues from a million to two million.

[00:07:13] It was a small company while I was there.

[00:07:16] But then 9-11 happened and we were in the middle of raising a Series B round.

[00:07:21] And our Series A investor pulled out and put the company into a tailspin.

[00:07:26] And then my wife.

[00:07:27] So what I didn't mention is I'm married and my wife and I have five children.

[00:07:31] And she said, you know, how about you don't do any more startups while I'm raising all these kids?

[00:07:36] And so I, you know, that was hard because I'm kind of an entrepreneur.

[00:07:42] And so I said, okay.

[00:07:44] And so I joined the law firm that had represented those two startup companies.

[00:07:49] And I got to know the lawyers very well when I was at PwC.

[00:07:53] I had been their biggest referral source.

[00:07:55] So I joined a law firm called Cooley.

[00:07:57] And, you know, some of your listeners will know who Cooley is.

[00:08:00] They're huge in the tech and life sciences space.

[00:08:03] When I joined them, the firm had $310 million in annual revenue.

[00:08:08] When I left them, they had over $2 billion in annual revenue.

[00:08:10] Wow.

[00:08:11] I'm not taking credit for all $1.7 billion.

[00:08:13] But I was in charge of business development.

[00:08:17] And I played a big role in leading the team that drove a lot of that revenue.

[00:08:22] And it was a really fun run.

[00:08:25] I enjoyed all 20 years.

[00:08:27] And yeah.

[00:08:28] So it was really more of the same where we were not selling legal services.

[00:08:36] We were offering to be value-added, trusted advisors in the business community.

[00:08:41] So I would have CEOs referring other CEOs to me.

[00:08:45] I'd have venture capitalists referring CEOs to me.

[00:08:48] You know, it got to the point where if I could just answer my emails, Bruce, there was gold in my emails.

[00:08:54] I just sometimes couldn't get to it because there was so much.

[00:08:58] And I did that by doing favors for people.

[00:09:01] You know, it's kind of the Dale Carnegie approach to business, right?

[00:09:07] Actually, you know, it's interesting that I mentioned Dale Carnegie.

[00:09:10] When I first started out doing this type of work, while I was getting my MBA, I actually – I was an atheist growing up.

[00:09:21] I actually became a Christian in grad school and read the Bible for the first time.

[00:09:25] And it was halfway through grad school.

[00:09:28] And I had to think to myself, how does this stuff apply in business, right?

[00:09:31] Yeah.

[00:09:32] And, you know, interestingly enough, it works.

[00:09:35] Like doing to others as you would have done unto you actually works, right?

[00:09:39] You – it's the give to receive principle.

[00:09:44] I mean you don't give to receive, but you give without expecting anything in return.

[00:09:49] That's a biblical principle.

[00:09:50] And you end up getting back tenfold what you – you know, you reap what you sow, right?

[00:09:54] Yeah.

[00:09:55] You sow good deeds and you reap well.

[00:09:58] Yeah.

[00:09:58] Right, invest in these relationships.

[00:10:00] Yeah, I'm curious.

[00:10:02] I mean this whole relationship kind of theme is clearly big in your story and kind of your background.

[00:10:08] I want to go back to a little bit of this becoming this super connector.

[00:10:11] I guess was this something you sort of sat down, you saw the situation, you're like, oh, I see the strategy here is to be a super connector.

[00:10:19] Or was this just something you naturally do that ended up, you know, working out really well in terms of the goals that you were – the work that you were – the results that you were trying to achieve?

[00:10:30] I guess I saw in doing economic development, you know, I – an economic development job is kind of a cushy job, right?

[00:10:37] It's like a quasi-government job and you're really – you're a public servant.

[00:10:41] And so I didn't have like hard commissions, you know, quotas or anything to get.

[00:10:47] And so for two years, I really got to, you know, connect companies with sources of capital.

[00:10:53] I got to, you know, try to woo companies into staying within a certain jurisdiction.

[00:10:59] I tried to get capital providers to invest in the jurisdiction and then eventually relocate there or expand there.

[00:11:06] And by doing that, I realized that I curried favor with these folks.

[00:11:09] They liked me because I was just being helpful to them.

[00:11:12] I wasn't threatening.

[00:11:12] And so because I had that two-year training, when I went into professional services, I realized that this works, right?

[00:11:19] This approach works.

[00:11:20] You know, and what doesn't work for me, if somebody tries to sell me something, like if I'm standing in a situation, a business situation, somebody's just like in my face trying to sell me insurance or whatever, you know, my natural reaction is to recoil and like try to get away from this person.

[00:11:41] Yeah.

[00:11:41] But so I never did that.

[00:11:43] I never did.

[00:11:43] And eventually they would be appreciate the things I did for them so much.

[00:11:48] They would ask me, what is it that I could do for you?

[00:11:51] Tell me how you get rewarded, you know?

[00:11:54] And when you get to the point where people feel like they owe you and they want to do something for you, that's the best position to be in.

[00:12:02] Right.

[00:12:02] I, I, I would always, when I would meet somebody, I would try to give 10 times more than I ever took.

[00:12:08] And, and I had a, I hosted a podcast called Rainmakers and I interviewed other people who were known for being really good business developers in their respective fields.

[00:12:21] And it was all across, it was banking, real estate, insurance, et cetera.

[00:12:24] And I, I, so I got to hear how they all did what they did.

[00:12:28] And I had one fellow tell me that think about every relationship as a bank account.

[00:12:35] You want to have money on deposit because if you go to your bank account, you could have 10 bank accounts, but if you don't have any money in them, you can never take a withdrawal.

[00:12:44] And so, and so I try to just make deposits wherever I go.

[00:12:48] And, and, you know, then when I'm, when I'm needing to reach out for an introduction to somebody, you know, I hope I put a, put something on deposit in the past because they're going to,

[00:12:58] but be much more likely to say, sure, I'll introduce you.

[00:13:01] And then they'll, you know, if I've done it right there, they're, when they introduce me, they're going to say really good things about me.

[00:13:07] And I appreciate that.

[00:13:08] I guess, how do you find, what are the things that you do?

[00:13:11] Cause I think, I think that's some of the challenges people have.

[00:13:13] I think people philosophically know that, you know, developing these relationships is, you know, yes, you need to put these deposits in the bank account.

[00:13:21] You need to, you know, be helpful.

[00:13:24] How do you find these opportunities to be helpful?

[00:13:29] And are there particular types of opportunities that you're more focused on and less focused on?

[00:13:33] Give us a little bit strategy here.

[00:13:34] So I actually go out and I train on this now.

[00:13:36] I have training four hours of training modules and I do coaching and, and I've, I've gone to speak to students at school.

[00:13:45] And, and it's interesting because you've got kids coming out of college or grad school and they, they feel like they don't have anything to offer.

[00:13:53] And I, I try to show them like, you do have something to offer.

[00:13:58] You, you're all interviewing for jobs right now.

[00:14:00] You might've just talked to somebody at a company that wasn't a fit for you or you weren't a fit for them or whatever, but you know that person, right?

[00:14:08] You've got colleagues that you're, you know, here, here in school with that could benefit from an introduction or a good word.

[00:14:15] Do it.

[00:14:16] Like start now, give what you have to give, you know, you have, if you, if you have advice, if you have an introduction, it doesn't need to be a lot.

[00:14:25] You just start with what you have.

[00:14:27] And over time, as your network grows, you're going to be much more valuable over time.

[00:14:33] It just so happens that, that because I've been doing it so long, I know thousands of venture capitalists.

[00:14:38] I know thousands of CEOs, right?

[00:14:41] I mean, I don't wear those contacts out.

[00:14:43] I, I, I use them very, very strategically and I'm very careful and I do double opt-in introductions.

[00:14:51] Yep.

[00:14:51] You know, I, I, I know that I'm, I've been doing this 25 years, I actually know a little bit, Bruce.

[00:14:58] And so, you know, I can sit down and I can give advice to folks.

[00:15:02] And, and, you know, my, my wife gets on my case because she says, you, you give away all your value in the first half hour.

[00:15:09] I said, I, but if I don't give it, if I don't give it away, people aren't going to know that I have it to give, you know, because I do do consulting and, and she, she's trying to get me to charge for the advice I give.

[00:15:19] I said, you can't do that out of the gate.

[00:15:20] Not everybody knows who I am.

[00:15:22] Yeah.

[00:15:23] Yeah.

[00:15:23] I think that's, you know, as a strategic coach, like that, that's essentially what I do as well.

[00:15:27] Right.

[00:15:27] It's like how to have, you know, meaningful conversation, how to, you know, help them in some way.

[00:15:33] Sometimes it's just the conversation itself, right?

[00:15:35] Giving them some questions, helping them think through some things, but yeah, the introductions and, you know, whether it's resources or people can be huge.

[00:15:43] How, I guess, how are, when you're speaking with somebody, how do you determine what they actually need?

[00:15:50] Like, are there questions that you ask or ways in which you kind of can get to some deeper level needs or things that they're, they're grappling with that you can actually address?

[00:16:00] Because sometimes I find it's like, if you just work on the surface, like that's really not what the issue is.

[00:16:05] That's not really where you can make the biggest impact.

[00:16:07] Well, so, so there, there's not that many different needs, right?

[00:16:11] I mean, they either need advice and guidance, need to hire people, they need to raise money, they need to open new markets.

[00:16:20] You know, there's, there's only so many things that folks need when you're, when you're having these types of discussions.

[00:16:26] That I'll tell you that there's one, there's one guy I went to, I went to meet with.

[00:16:30] I'll never forget it.

[00:16:31] He was CFO of a company that, that was, they weren't a public company, they were a private company.

[00:16:35] And as I looked at his profile, I couldn't figure out what, what this guy could possibly mean from me.

[00:16:42] I was thinking about my bag of tricks and I had none.

[00:16:48] I was, it was the first meeting I was going in.

[00:16:50] I was terrified.

[00:16:51] I'm going in this meeting.

[00:16:52] I'm like, how am I going to YouTube this guy?

[00:16:55] I'm going to strike out.

[00:16:55] Because they had raised a ton of money.

[00:16:57] He, he already has like a full staff.

[00:17:00] Like the company's killing it in terms of revenue.

[00:17:03] I'm like, and he's the CFO.

[00:17:05] And, you know, so I go in there and I'm, I'm like, Lord, give me something to say, you know?

[00:17:11] And I sit down with this guy and, you know, the funniest thing happened.

[00:17:15] He said, I came to this job from an investment banking job.

[00:17:20] He goes, do you know how hard I had to network to make the jump from investment banker to CFO?

[00:17:27] He said, I had to network my butt off.

[00:17:30] He goes, he goes, I really appreciate what you do.

[00:17:33] And you know what he asked me?

[00:17:34] He said, who's on your target list?

[00:17:37] And so I pulled out my, my list of targets and he wanted to help me get into other companies because, because he had already just been through all this.

[00:17:45] So he's helping me with my prospect list.

[00:17:48] He ended up hiring the firm that I was representing to do their IPO.

[00:17:51] So that was, that was the only, that's the only meeting over all the 25 years I've been doing this.

[00:17:57] And I remember just not knowing what in the world I was going to say.

[00:18:00] Well, but I'm going into a kind of trust, trusting yourself and trusting the process and knowing that, you know, if there's an opportunity there, it will reveal itself to you as you get to get into that conversation.

[00:18:09] And it did.

[00:18:10] And it did.

[00:18:10] I mean, I was like, I was happy to pull out my pipeline.

[00:18:13] You want to introduce me to these folks?

[00:18:14] Let's, let's, let's see how strong your network is.

[00:18:17] How, I guess you mentioned the sort of the extensiveness of this and the number of people you have and the number of people you've worked with.

[00:18:24] I guess, do you keep track of this somehow?

[00:18:26] Or how, how do you kind of, you know, what are the deposit sheets look like?

[00:18:30] I guess, what's your accounting, what does your ledger look like in terms of how to manage this?

[00:18:34] I don't keep score.

[00:18:36] Never have.

[00:18:37] It's, it's, it's managed chaos is what it is.

[00:18:40] Okay.

[00:18:41] To be honest with you.

[00:18:42] I mean, I, you know, when you're, when you're doing, when you're doing sales or business development, yes, you have to keep a pipeline.

[00:18:47] And I, I've always had someone to keep that for me.

[00:18:51] I'm, I'm, if there's one thing I'm really bad at, it's, it's keeping the pipeline and, and doing follow-up.

[00:18:59] I, it's, it's something I struggle with.

[00:19:01] And so I, I need, that's something I need help with.

[00:19:04] And, and I've been fortunate in the roles that I've had where I've had good folks behind me that can help me with that.

[00:19:11] And, and can prompt me when I need to, to follow up on stuff.

[00:19:15] Sometimes I'll do it just by happenstance, but, but my, my, my business development and my relationships are, are, are, they, they, the incoming is so vast that it's hard to go back and follow up on stuff that, that's already in the rear view mirror because I have so much coming at me.

[00:19:33] So yeah, that's, that's something I'm not, I'm not good at, but so I've got a, I've got a business I've set up with my son.

[00:19:39] It's called capital raise.

[00:19:41] So we, we set up a business where we took that entire investor network that I built, and we're actually using that to provide a consulting service to growth stage startup companies that are raising money.

[00:19:51] And, and he's, my son is really good at follow up and he has the same name as me.

[00:19:56] So it makes it, it makes it kind of handy because I, I loop him in, him in on opportunities.

[00:20:02] And, and if I'm dropping the ball, he's following up because he knows, you know, our revenue, you know, it, it, it's dependent on the follow up and closing deals.

[00:20:12] So yeah, well, I think, and I think that's, I think every leader that I've worked with, it's like knowing where those strengths and weaknesses are and then how do you support yourself with, you know, resources, systems, people to, to shore up those, those areas you're not so good at.

[00:20:26] So you can focus on the areas you're good at.

[00:20:27] I always, I always find that being a much better strategy than trying to get good at those things.

[00:20:31] You're not, it's like, you're better off just leveraging the things you're good at and trying to, trying to shore that up.

[00:20:36] Yeah.

[00:20:36] So for, if, if, you know, listener here, you know, leader inside, you know, service company, you know, professional services or otherwise, you know, is, you know, kind of figuring out how do they take this approach or how do they start working this approach?

[00:20:50] Like what advice would you give them or how would you kind of advise them in terms of where to start, what to focus on if they haven't really focused on this kind of relationship building, strategic kind of relationship building inside their company?

[00:21:02] Well, I would, I would say, I just wrote an article on this topic for Texas Lawyer Magazine.

[00:21:09] The leadership that you put in place for your, for this effort is, is critical.

[00:21:14] And, and I see so many organizations where they have a marketing person managing the business development assets.

[00:21:22] And those are two different, those are two different functional areas.

[00:21:25] And, and so my, my article was about how the professional services organization of the future is going to have a chief revenue officer leading the, the marketing and business development or sales operations.

[00:21:41] And, and everything is going to have metrics around it.

[00:21:45] There's going to be key performance indicators that are going to, going to show how every activity and every dollar spent relates back to revenue.

[00:21:51] Right. And so I think that's number one, right?

[00:21:55] Just, just putting somebody in place and hoping it works.

[00:21:58] It doesn't really work.

[00:21:59] When I, when I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers, I had, as, as my boss that I reported up to on a, on a matrix, a guy who ran sales for IBM.

[00:22:09] And he put in place all the disciplines that we needed to, to track what we were doing.

[00:22:14] And I was the first person hired.

[00:22:15] Then they hired a whole big team and, and, and he set it up.

[00:22:19] So we were kind of competitive with each other, which was, was kind of fun.

[00:22:22] And yeah.

[00:22:23] And so, so just having somebody who, who had the discipline of running a sales organization like that and could track everything back.

[00:22:29] And then also when you put these assets in place, realize it's a marathon, not a sprint, right?

[00:22:34] You don't want somebody going out in the marketplace and trying to close business day one.

[00:22:39] You want them sowing the seeds that I talked about.

[00:22:42] These, these things take a while.

[00:22:44] And I'm consulting with another firm, Morrison Forrester right now.

[00:22:48] And I'm on my fourth, my fourth contract with them.

[00:22:51] And, and, you know, the way it works in the law firm world is that when clients come in, they're not generating a lot of revenue out of the gate.

[00:22:59] I mean, there's a few that do litigation or, or an IPO, but most of these emerging companies, they're going to putz around for a while, you know, and, and, and, you know, just have a little bit of revenue.

[00:23:11] And then, then they're going to get, then they're going to raise money and then they're going to get to do an acquisition and, and, and somebody is going to sue them.

[00:23:17] And then over time they, they generate a lot of revenue.

[00:23:19] And so to my, to their credit, the partners in the law firm knew this and they saw that, you know, I was, I was responsible for, I think like a third of the new business that had come in the office, but, but the revenue wasn't there yet.

[00:23:33] You know?

[00:23:33] And I, I said, guys, this takes, this takes time.

[00:23:36] Like I did this for 20 years at another firm.

[00:23:38] It takes time.

[00:23:39] And just now that I'm on my, I think my fourth contract with them, we're starting to see the revenue come, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's started to kick in and it's exciting.

[00:23:49] And, and to their credit, they had patients and they had to, you know, the, the, the, the staff there really hadn't had an asset like me.

[00:23:56] They, they had like a, they have a business development team, but it's more of an internally focused.

[00:24:01] And I'm, I'm the first externally focused asset.

[00:24:04] And yeah, it's been, it's been a lot of fun.

[00:24:06] I mean, it's fun starting over like that and getting into an office that, you know, it's a brand new office, new people, you know, it's, it's, it's almost like joining a startup.

[00:24:16] Which really has, has been fun for the past, however long I've been doing that.

[00:24:20] It's been a while.

[00:24:21] Yeah.

[00:24:22] In terms of finding folks.

[00:24:23] I mean, if I'm a CEO and looking to kind of, you know, bring someone in or identify someone internally to kind of really focus and lead this effort.

[00:24:31] What would you be looking for?

[00:24:33] Are there kind of characteristics, background experiences, you know, skills, capabilities, like what, what would be the ideal profile for you in terms of who, who they should really put in charge of this?

[00:24:43] Yeah.

[00:24:43] So, so if, if I were brought in to do the placement, I'll tell you what I'd be looking for.

[00:24:48] You know, one is, is in, in the law firm world, there are very few chief revenue officers out there.

[00:24:55] So the idea of like picking one out of another firm is, is highly unlikely.

[00:24:59] It's just, it's, there's, there's a couple of them out there, but, but there's not a bunch to recruit from.

[00:25:04] So you're going to have to take somebody who's comes from a, from another industry.

[00:25:08] And, and like that guy at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he came from IBM.

[00:25:12] But the, the, the thing that was good, his name was Jeff Samuelson.

[00:25:15] I, I'm still in touch with him to this day.

[00:25:17] And, and to his credit, the guy looks great.

[00:25:20] I thought he looked old and decrepit when I did a zoom with him recently.

[00:25:23] And he, and he, he looks fabulous in retirement.

[00:25:25] But to his credit, he understood the world of professional services.

[00:25:31] And so that's, you have to have somebody who has the sales discipline and knows how to put in place all of those key performance indicators and all of those metrics to, to, to drive success and, and, and ensure revenue.

[00:25:45] But they have to know the nuances of a professional services firm.

[00:25:49] And so that could be that they, they were in a company where there was a professional services aspect to the business or that they interfaced with professional services companies and they understand how the process works.

[00:26:03] And so, you know, it's not a cookie cutter thing.

[00:26:05] This is not, you know, go hire this type of person and this is what you're going to get.

[00:26:09] You're going to have to find all of those right attributes.

[00:26:11] And if I was looking at resumes, I would look like this guy was at Oracle leading sales and he had a professional services component to the business, or they were selling to professional services organizations.

[00:26:24] One of those two would probably suffice.

[00:26:27] And then I would ask them, what do you understand about the professional services business?

[00:26:31] And, and, and then there's so much that has to do with culture.

[00:26:35] That's another thing is, is when you come into an organization, particularly a law firm, if you walk, walk into a law firm, like I have Morrison Forster where they don't have a history of external business development folks.

[00:26:48] And, and, and I'm coming in to be one of these people.

[00:26:52] I realize it's going to upset the organization.

[00:26:55] I realize that I'm going to, I'm going to rattle some people with, with the kind of work that I'm doing.

[00:27:00] You have to understand what you're doing there.

[00:27:03] Right.

[00:27:03] So, so I, if I was coming into a large law firm that had operated like this for years and I was going to put somebody at the top, who's going to put in place this organization.

[00:27:12] We might look at having, you know, some internally focused business development assets to, to help the partners with external business development.

[00:27:23] And then perhaps in, in, in an office like I am in Austin, where you have more entrepreneurial partners, you know, experiment with the external and, and, and, and have, have a use case.

[00:27:34] So they can, they can see it working in, in a test office like that.

[00:27:39] And then the other thing, when you're putting in, in place these assets, you know, what I found, and I, and I, and I operated under all three of these is you're going to have assets that are regionally focused.

[00:27:50] You're going to have assets that, that are industry focused and practice group focused.

[00:27:55] And, and it depends on how the organization is set up.

[00:27:59] You know, any one of those could work.

[00:28:01] I actually had a hybrid of all three of those.

[00:28:04] And we started out pure geographic.

[00:28:07] And then as we started to get these specialized practice groups, I had folks that were focused just on particular practice groups.

[00:28:15] I had folks that were focused on industries.

[00:28:16] Like, like I had two life sciences professionals, which that's a very specialized area.

[00:28:21] And you just can't throw anybody into that area.

[00:28:24] You have to put somebody in who's got the background and speaks the language.

[00:28:26] And so I, I, I would make sure they understand those nuances.

[00:28:31] Yeah.

[00:28:31] Yeah.

[00:28:31] Great advice.

[00:28:32] I want to make sure we talk about the book a little bit.

[00:28:34] So tell us about the book.

[00:28:35] How did it come up?

[00:28:36] So this is how to live the abundant life.

[00:28:38] Give us the story.

[00:28:39] What was this about?

[00:28:40] And what is this focused on?

[00:28:42] Well, interestingly, it, it, it turned into something that it didn't start out to be.

[00:28:46] So I started out thinking I was going to write a book and how to do professional services,

[00:28:51] business development, because literally I, I kind of created a space, right?

[00:28:55] When I remember when that guy hired me at PwC, he said, it's like, I'm leading you into a dark room.

[00:29:00] I'm not giving you a flashlight and I'm not telling you how to get out.

[00:29:03] And you're going to have to figure it out.

[00:29:04] That's what he said.

[00:29:05] And I, I thought about it and I said, you know, that sounds kind of exciting actually, you know,

[00:29:10] but as I've gone around and I've spoken at colleges and I've, I've realized nobody,

[00:29:16] like I've had students send me messages on LinkedIn.

[00:29:18] How do you do, how do you get into this?

[00:29:21] Like, how do you even, how do you learn how to do this?

[00:29:23] Like, how do you get a job like this?

[00:29:24] Cause they all thought it was interesting.

[00:29:26] And so I was going to write a book on that.

[00:29:28] And then I, as I got close to the date that we were supposed to put the outline together,

[00:29:32] I realized it's kind of a niche.

[00:29:34] Like there's that, it's not that many people going into this.

[00:29:36] I want people to read this book.

[00:29:38] Right.

[00:29:38] And so, so I got to reflecting on the fact that what makes me successful in business

[00:29:44] also makes me successful at home and makes me successful in the community.

[00:29:48] You know, it's these interpersonal skills and it's, it's really doing the opposite of

[00:29:53] what comes naturally like human nature, right?

[00:29:56] We, we all want to receive, we all want to get, like we all want to take, you know what I mean?

[00:30:02] We all want to, you know, probably sit in bed and eat potato chips all day.

[00:30:06] Like, like the stuff I advocate in the book is the opposite of what you want to do.

[00:30:10] You just teach yourself to do it.

[00:30:12] And so, so it was really how to have the abundant life in it.

[00:30:15] And you have the abundant life by doing the opposite of what comes naturally to you.

[00:30:20] And I, and I take that down from finding your purpose to maintaining a sound mind.

[00:30:25] I mean, you know, and I'm going to talk about the mind for a second.

[00:30:28] So many of us just, just entertain whatever random thought comes into our mind.

[00:30:32] However horrible it might be, however negative it might be.

[00:30:36] It's just, it's natural for us to look in the mirror and say, you know,

[00:30:41] I look fat or old or whatever, you know, I, I go through a whole chapter where I talk about only you control what goes on in your mind.

[00:30:49] Like you control the thoughts in your mind.

[00:30:51] And I give some tools for actually replacing negative thoughts and lies with good thoughts and truths.

[00:30:56] And so I talk, I talk about growing spiritually.

[00:30:59] I put a, I put a disclaimer at the beginning of the chapter.

[00:31:03] If you're not interested in this, skip the chapter, but I, but I do talk about it.

[00:31:06] Yeah.

[00:31:07] And, and I've had atheists, I've had Muslims, I've had, I've had the whole spectrum read my book.

[00:31:12] And everybody seems to like it because I'm not beating anybody over the head with it.

[00:31:16] Maintaining a healthy body.

[00:31:17] And in, I actually tamped this one back because I am a fitness fanatic.

[00:31:22] I mean, I, I walk 20,000 steps a day.

[00:31:25] I go to the gym six days a week, you know, my, my daughter who proof read the book, she said, dad, nobody's going to do that.

[00:31:32] So I took it back to the basics, like how, how to like maintain your weight and, and how to like, how to live in, in a, in a body that you're happy with.

[00:31:42] Not for anybody else, just for yourself.

[00:31:45] And, and having just gone to my 40th class reunion, I can tell you the people who have practiced this over the years were happier than the people that didn't.

[00:31:52] So pursuing personal growth, developing and maintaining personal relationships, establishing boundaries.

[00:31:59] That's a real key one, especially if you do all the other things I talk about doing.

[00:32:02] Everybody's going to want a piece of you.

[00:32:04] You gotta, you gotta set boundaries, how to be likable, how to develop character and build a legacy, how to be part of a community.

[00:32:11] And, and how, how to develop a good mindset.

[00:32:14] Those are the topics I cover in the book and something must be working with it because so far it's gotten five-star reviews on Amazon.

[00:32:22] So that's great.

[00:32:24] Carl, this has been a pleasure.

[00:32:24] If people want to find out more about you, more about the book, more about the work that you do, what's the best way to get that information?

[00:32:30] If to find me, if you put the third at the end of my name, I'm pretty Googleable.

[00:32:35] I Google well, so you can find me.

[00:32:38] I'm on LinkedIn, Carl Grant, the third.

[00:32:40] I'm on Instagram, Carl.Grant.II.

[00:32:45] And you can find the book, How to Live the Abundant Life on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

[00:32:50] And if you, if you read it and you review it, please send me a note, find me.

[00:32:55] And I love getting those messages.

[00:32:57] Carl, it's been a pleasure.

[00:32:58] Thank you for spending the time today.

[00:33:01] You've been listening to Scaling Up Services with business coach Bruce Eckfeldt.

[00:33:05] To find a full list of podcast episodes, download the tools and worksheets, and access other great content, visit the website at scalingupservices.com.

[00:33:14] And don't forget to sign up for the free newsletter at scalingupservices.com slash newsletter.

[00:33:30] This podcast is a part of the C-Suite Radio Network.

[00:33:34] For more top business podcasts, visit c-suiteradio.com.