Power To Create With Tim Redmond

Posted by John Livesay in podcast 0 comments

What makes a successful organization great? What does every organization need to bring their labors to fruition? In this episode, we hear the answers to these questions as John Livesay interviews the CEO of Redmond Growth Initiatives, Tim Redmond. Tim discusses the values and culture necessary for organizational success and why respect is given, not earned. Tune in and learn more from this powerful discussion.

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Power To Create With Tim Redmond

Our guest on the show is Tim Redmond, who is an expert in helping businesses grow. He’s the author of Power to Create. He has a great definition of wealth, “Creating value to serve.” He said, “Leadership starts with leading yourself.” Find out the one missing ingredient from teams when they are not performing at their best.

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Our guest is Tim Redmond, who for many years has been growing highly successful businesses, including his work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, growing a software company from 2 to 400 employees, and selling it to Intuit. He helped thousands of business owners gain time and financial freedom. Tim is also the author of Power to Create and a speaker throughout the world on leadership maxims that have been featured in John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Welcome to the show.

John, thanks so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this discussion.

We found out we have a mutual friend right off the get-go, Tim Sanders. He’s someone we respect and admire. I love to open the show with your story of origin. You can start from childhood, college, or wherever you want. Give us a sense of how you’ve got on your path.

I’m 1 of 11 kids. I’m one of the older ones. It’s learning cooperation in the toughest place on the Earth, which is in your own family. I have learned a lot of skills. I was very introverted as a child. I read a whole bunch of books, determined the person I wanted to be, and began to do it afraid. Even for me to get in front of anybody to speak, it was a miracle.

I had somebody in authority when I was a little baby, a cleft palate, and a number of challenges. I was not expected to live through the first week of my life. He said, “This boy will never be a public speaker.” Even being on the show is like defiance to what I consider somebody trying to curse my life. I did live under the power of that lie for many years. I’m living above that now.

I did go to college. I studied Accounting because I interviewed the seniors and the only ones that had a good-paying job were the Accounting and Marketing majors. They were applying for assistant manager at Payless Shoes and different things. If that’s what you do, that’s great. More power to you but I want to build something. I have more of an entrepreneur mindset. I put my time at Coopers & Lybrand. At that time, that’s PricewaterhouseCoopers. I started with a software company and we grew that. It was just the two of us CPAs. We wrote software for bookkeeping and taxes. You would find it fascinating.

[bctt tweet=”Learn how to lead yourself first.” username=”John_Livesay”]

When you start a company, has it been something that you know? If you would say, “My two CPAs started a company about marketing or car manufacturing.” I would be like, “That worked?” You are in your client’s shoes. That is probably why that was successful. You knew the pain points better than anyone else and exactly what to say to get people to want to even have a conversation around changing what they are doing.

We used some very innovative marketing at the time. We built this thing up to about 400 employees and sold it to Intuit QuickBooks. We had 117 employees and I affirm that these guys are the winners. We had a lot of great people here and it was a huge, successful story. I learned so many lessons on management, building out systems, and how to communicate, motivate, and create a leadership culture where the expectation from the get-go is for you to lead. The first aspect of leadership is learning to lead yourself. We had had a lot of, “Go inward before you go outward.” I’ve got tons of proverbs written about that.

After that, we sold our business. I was in a pretty good position. I started a nonprofit, traveled around, and did training on leadership and growth. I did it in a faith-based environment, a lot of churches, and business groups in South America, Central America, and all over the world. It kept coming back to me where I would do these seminars about how to grow your business, church and idea. People will say, “Can you coach me on this?” It was like, “Bite me in the butt.”

I finally turned around and realized I had been given all this advice for years, not realizing that people have a business where they charge money for this. I still remember somebody came after I did a seminar. I was up in Toronto and they said, “Do you do coaching?” I go, “I do.” “What are you charging us?” “I will give you 90 minutes a month. It’s one session for a $1,000.” I figured they would say no because I didn’t know that’s what I wanted to do. They said, “That sounds great.” I go, “Let’s do it.” That’s how I’ve got started in coaching.

How many people would have the confidence to charge that out of the get-go with no proven track record yet or proof of concept in the startup world? The key, for everyone reading, of what you said is you were not attached to the results.

I wasn’t coming from a place of desperation. In a roundabout way, I came from a place of abundance that I didn’t need that but I had a lot of value to throw out something and say, “$1,000 for 90 minutes. Am I worth that? Yes.”

Power To Create: You’ve got to have a vision for where you’re going, and it’s got to be compelling for somebody to say, “You know what? That would be so cool to be part of that.”

That’s based on your successful sale of that company. That’s the dream.

I figured they would say no but when they said yes, I go, “Let’s do it.” That honestly launched me into coaching.

We were talking about Tim Sanders earlier. When he wrote the foreword to my book, Better Selling Through Storytelling, he wrote about how there is either an abundance mindset or a scarcity mindset. Once you have a decision as to which one you are going to come from, that determines your behavior and experience in life.

The way I look at it is if you want to grow a company, you’ve got to improve your looks. It’s not how you look in the mirror but how you look at what you are looking at, and you are looking at it from a place of capability and incapability. There are only two ways, either you can do it and it’s possible or it’s impossible. Your brain is going to begin to see the way you are looking.

Let’s dive into some of your expertise. How does someone, especially in dealing with this “Great Resignation” after the pandemic, convince someone to come work for their company? You grew a company from 2 to 400 people. Maybe you didn’t have to do a lot of selling and recruiting at the time but maybe you did. You might have some tips for people who are saying, “We are competing against all these other bigger companies with better-known names to get people to come work for us.” What is it you think people are looking for over and above benefits and salaries?

The first thing you sell when you are selling a job is your vision and how compelling is your vision. Is there like a gravitational pull to say, “We are headed in this direction, do you have the guts to join us?” I am a growing coaching company and I hire a bunch of twenty-somethings. I use twenty-somethings to build a number of businesses because they are daring, almost reckless, and smart and most of them are moldable, got vision, and are fearless.

[bctt tweet=”Value differences versus just tolerating them.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I’ve got a vision to 10X our business from where we are at, which as a coaching company would be huge. On top of that, the main reason for our coaching is to train up people because I’m going to be buying the businesses I’m coaching instead of coaching these businesses. We’ve got a whole plan to do that. I said, “If you behave yourself, learn, get after it, and run a business, run one of these businesses and you will be very well rewarded. You’ve got to have a vision for where you are going and it’s got to be compelling for somebody to say, “That would be so cool to be part of that.”

It’s also true when you are trying to get a new client or customer to buy something from you. You have to be able to articulate what the vision is of what business you are in and why people would want to pick you over another competitor. Vision helps both sides of the equation or the coin of recruiting great people, which we know is key to success. Once everybody working there understands the vision and is part of it, they automatically communicate that in subtle ways, not just the marketing and salespeople but even the person answering the phone or customer service.

You are an expert on teamwork, being part of such a big family, and learning that at a young age. You seem to have identified that there’s a missing ingredient. If the team is performing mediocre, not killing it or their enthusiasm might be waning a little bit, what is this missing ingredient? If you bake a cake and you leave out yeast or something, the cake is not going to rise. We look at it and go, “What is missing?” You have heard people say that all the time, “Something is off. I don’t know what it is.” Enter Tim Redmond.

This is simple. People have paid me to hear me explain this. I like to define genius as going on the far side of complexity to make it simple that anybody can embrace it. The missing ingredient that I have seen in teams is the word respect. How do I define respect? Respect is normally thought about as, “I demand your respect.” It’s something that you want to get from somebody but in the hands and bosom of a leader, respect is more of a gift that you give.

I look at respect as valuing the differences rather than tolerating them. It’s finding that person’s unique wiring. You and I talked and I have said, “You have your whole show. You remind me of this one person.” You said, “We talk about the same thing but you have unique wiring to do your pitch in such a healthy way that I tend to embrace that.” It’s a non-salesy, consultative, and intelligent way of interacting. Respect is valuing the difference in people. There are many times when people are at war with themselves.

There’s authority, abuse, their interpretation of that, going through rough times, what they had to endure, and how they look at that. We look at respect as this powerful gift to say, “You are valuable. Your opinion counts and your contribution matters even when your skill level doesn’t measure up.” It’s a gift that you give that reciprocates some time. When you believe in somebody before, they may not even respect you.

Power To Create: If you want to grow a company, you’ve got to improve your looks—not how you look in the mirror, but how you look at what you’re looking at.

The old way of, “I’m the VP. You have to respect me because of my title,” no longer works.

When you empower somebody to say, “You are valuable.” I had a team meeting and it’s like, “When you come up with a question, I want you to have a recommendation of what you would do. I want the other coaches to coach you. If I need to weigh in, I will weigh in.” I sat back most of the meeting and didn’t have to do a whole lot because I’m hoping they felt respect from me because I respected them to come up with the answers.

You are competent. In other words, you are not giving them a fish. You are teaching them how to fish. That’s what it sounds like to me. I was giving a keynote and talking to an audience. I said, “When you are a kid, you jump in the pool, and you want your parents to watch you make a splash, that’s a need that as a child you can’t verbalize.” It’s the need to be seen, heard and appreciated.

What I hear you saying is that doesn’t go away just because we get to be adults. To the people we work and interact to possibly do business with, if you can make people feel seen, heard, and appreciated, not only do they want to work with you but they will stay loyal to you and not jump at the next offer they get because they feel like you see them as a person.

We have these interactions. The whirlwind of the business is going fast. We end up barking at people. They leave not because of a lack of benefits but because of a lack of respect and recognition. This is where you are giving that gift. It frees up and gives breath to the organization to begin to solve problems. It’s such a powerful process. It moves from a parent-child communication that people get defensive.

When the negative reaction comes along, they get this negative feeling called resentment and that leads to resistance, which leads to even revenge. To begin to stop that vicious cycle of parent and child ending up in revenge back, it’s giving them what they may not even be deserving of, which is respect. It’s a chisel that begins to work on people to bring out their best. I’ve got hundreds of people who have worked for me over the years. It’s like a life message because I have seen it work.

[bctt tweet=”We look at respect as a powerful gift that says, “You’re valuable. Your opinion counts. Your contribution matters,” even when your skill level doesn’t measure up.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I love this concept of giving people something they “don’t even deserve,” whether it’s respect or grace. Maybe that person is having a bad day and you don’t know what’s going on in their personal life. They say something insulting, rude, or something you would never do instead of jumping to the reactive mind because they are tense and angry all the time inside that they don’t have any buffer or tolerance. That’s what I see people struggling with sometimes.

It’s almost like they are looking for someone to insult them, ignore them or somehow make them angry as opposed to, “Is it that big of a deal? I don’t think so.” That’s why they say, “Someone has got a bad temper.” The slightest thing triggers them. They get cut off in traffic and you would think somebody smashed their car. It’s like, “I don’t think that was personal,” but their reaction is 0 to 100. Are you helping executives try to not be in such a fight or flight mode all the time?

It’s a huge thing. One of the most powerful leadership books I have ever read was written by the Arbinger Institute. It’s in a story or parable form and it’s called Leadership Deception. The second book they have in that is called the Anatomy of Peace. I’m wired tight, I want to win, and I have to take my own medicine. The whole premise of this book is instead of being at war with the world, you have peace. Choose the way of peace rather than war. It desensitizes that strain that’s ready to go off when people trigger it.

It’s exhausting. You wonder why you are tired at the end of the day. It’s because you are so wired tight all day long. You also have hinted at this but let’s do a deeper dive on this concept of leading from the heart. We want people to feel seen, heard and respected. We want to make sure that the things that we are saying to ourselves are kind and gentle because how can we give that out if we are not doing that to ourselves? I’m guessing you have some other insights there, too.

I’m always focused on taking action. If I don’t go off on this, I want to challenge the folks that are reading this to think about a person they may be resisting and look at that as an opportunity. Identify how you may be resisting them and drop the resistance. How can you hug and embrace them? Most people already got that person. Take action. Instead of resisting them, respect them. Respect is giving them some gift. Maybe it’s a physical gift, a hug or a powerful word.

In terms of leading from the heart, this is where our power is and where we change the outside world with our inside world. First of all, I don’t speak from a place of perfection. I speak as much out of need as out of mastery. I will own that myself. Leading from the heart is you are clearing your mind what your goal is and your relationship with people.

Power To Create: The first thing you sell when you’re selling a job is your vision.

There is no such thing as a neutral transaction, either you are tearing down or you are building up the relationship. Even the slightest little eye movement can mean a world of difference here like Daniel Goleman and his Primal Leadership. He talks about how the executives have little awareness of how they are added to or their responses, and how it sets the course for the entire organization.

It’s leading from the heart as you get clear what your goals are overall in your company and also with connecting people. The better you are able to connect with that person’s uniqueness, the more you are going to benefit from that person coming out and solving the problems they need to solve. Leading from the heart is leading with a mindset of, “I’ve got a goal of connecting so that 1 plus 1 is not 2 but it equals 11 or more.” That’s what that whole concept is about.

There’s no such thing as a neutral reaction. Many people think, “What? I didn’t say anything.” Your face did or, “All I said was no.” How many different ways are there to say no?

One guy told me I remember being in a conference down in Brazil. He and I were the only English speakers. He’s like, “Here’s my perspective. Women speak and hear in the language of emotion. Men speak and hear the language of logic.” How you say them is everything.

Let me ask your opinion on that. I am a firm believer that men and women buy emotionally and back at it with logic. Even the Tesla, the fanciest sports car or Lamborghini don’t usually talk about miles per gallon or how long you can drive the car without needing to recharge. They are going to talk about the environment or how fun it will be to drive this. It’s an emotional decision first, and then you will start doing the logic.

That’s where more my heart is. You put words to it, John. We are emotional creatures first and we back up or support our emotions with logic, which is good or bad because the power of justification can help us or hurt us. I love that thought and that’s accurate to understand that we are more felt than heard and we are going to project whatever is in our hearts. We can’t play poker so well.

[bctt tweet=”Get obsessed with the next thing for you to do and execute that with all of your heart. You’ll make more progress with a serial approach than a multitasking approach.” username=”John_Livesay”]

People see and perceive things thousands of times faster than they hear things. They pick up on things. You project how you feel. That’s why I thanked you. At the beginning of the day, I have a ritual of getting myself built up. I want to project positivity, “We can do it,” rather than being overwhelmed and beginning to conform to the challenges that I’m called to change.

I believe you might have a gift for the readers.

We work with businesses all over the country and we help the world’s growth companies. We have a full marketing service bureau that we offer and we do all this in-house like website, SEO, ad management, and all the things you need in digital marketing. Also, we help with the hiring, training, creating a cadence in the business, and the structure and how to run the meetings.

We help with all aspects of the business. To the people reading, we want to offer our Growth Plan. We bring them through their business and we analyze your local market, the regional market or whatever their reach is. We look at where they are effective and ineffective and we do an analysis. We also look at what does the next three years look like?

Based on what they give us on that, we give them at least eight concrete action steps that they can take immediately and do on their own. We will help them implement it but we give them eight concrete action items to begin moving towards that three-year revenue goal. It’s a powerful process. I normally charge $2,500 for that but give it to your folks if they want it. They’ve got to have a legitimate business.

How do they get that? Is there a website to go to?

The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict

If they want to send me an email, it’s [email protected]. They can go out to our website, RedmondGrowth.com and there’s a form to fill out and say, “John was my hero. I read his blog.” If they identify with you and say, “I want to have that Growth Plan,” our team will follow up and we will bring them through that process. I would love to do that.

It has been a delight knowing your insights and wisdom. I love the concept of respect. Is there any last thought or quote want to leave us with?

In people, there’s a hesitancy to do the next thing. What we try to do as leaders, and this is your readers, leaders or people that run businesses, is we are trying to solve too many things at one time. Get obsessed with the next thing for you to do and execute that with all of your heart. You will make more progress with a serial approach rather than a multitasking approach.

Tim, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you so much, John.

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Power To Create With Tim Redmond

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Power To Create With Tim Redmond

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