Your Recipe For Success
Your Recipe For Success
What legacy do you want to leave behind?
Stone Age is an employee-owned company, and my legacy goal is to create a thousand millionaires through employee ownership. I strongly believe in capitalism, but I also recognize that it has taken a wrong turn, with wealth becoming too concentrated. Only a few are truly benefiting from it, while most of the people who actually build the value in a company do not. Employee ownership is a way to change that outcome. My aim is to create a billion-dollar company here that produces a thousand millionaires. That's the legacy I want to leave behind. Even though I've had a lot of success in my career, there's still unfinished business. My primary driver is not just about creating millionaires but about changing the narrative around wealth creation. I want to make it possible for those loyal to a company, who work hard every day, who are great teammates, and who share the vision and mission, to live their best life too.
What strategies can business leaders use to navigate economic downturns?
Two key points stand out. First, I asked a lot of questions. When I started, I was 28, and I had no idea how to run a business or about the industrial cleaning industry. Many people had been working there for over 20 years, and I knew I couldn't fake my way through. So, I asked questions like, "How do you think we should fix this?" and "What do you think we should do?" We had immediate successes because everyone felt involved in solving the problems. This approach has stayed with me throughout my career. As a leader, I believe in asking questions, involving people, and not being afraid to say, "I don't know. What do you think?" It builds a strong culture, boosts confidence, and makes people feel like a part of the company. Plus, you get better ideas when you ask questions.
The second point is focusing on the core during tough times. My first year as CEO was during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and I didn't know what to do. It was the first time in the company's history that we were going to have a loss, albeit a small one. We asked ourselves, "What are we really good at?" and focused on that. We cut everything else but remained dedicated to our core strengths—engineering and R&D, particularly as we were expanding internationally. We stopped everything that wasn't essential, and even though people took pay cuts and didn't get profit sharing that year, we bounced back and were 40% up the next year. This approach has served us well, even during COVID-19. Focus on what you're really good at and don't compromise on that, even if you have to cut back in other areas.
What are the downfalls of taking risks without structured planning?
I have an entrepreneurial mentality, where I believe almost anything can work if you just figure it out. I enjoy taking risks, but not everyone in the company feels the same way.
I led without a clear plan tied to the vision of where we were going, which caused us to make a lot of mistakes and spend too much money unnecessarily. If I had slowed down and taken more time to plan, things would have been different. You can have a great strategy, but if the execution is poor, the strategy fails. Over the last eight years, I've focused on improving execution. Early on, I was quick to try new things without fully thinking them through. While that approach allowed us to accomplish a lot, it was uncomfortable, led to mistakes, and made many people miserable because they didn’t have a clear plan to follow.
What decision-making framework do you utilize for business decisions?
Yes, we now have a much more disciplined process. We actually took inspiration from the book Great by Choice, which talks about a "SMaC recipe"—a set of principles that defines what makes you successful. The example of Southwest Airlines in the book really resonated with me because it offers a framework for making decisions and evaluating ideas.
We created our own version, which we call our "recipe for success." We filter our big ideas through this process to see how they fit into our framework. It's effective because everyone can understand and use it, meaning I don't have to make all the decisions myself. My team feels empowered because they know the vision, understand what we’re trying to achieve, and have a framework for decision-making. I'm a big believer in having a structured approach to making decisions, and we judge our ideas based on the five different components of our recipe for success.
What is the most important business metric?
I can't pick just one, but if I had to, it would be the pace of incoming quotes. This is pipeline-related, and it’s crucial because it gives you insight into how your lead generation is flowing. Sales is a numbers game, so if you're increasing the pace of incoming quotes, you have more opportunities to close deals. This, in turn, drives your sales revenue, EBITDA, and cash flow. So, if I had to measure just one thing, it would be the pace of incoming quotes.
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.*
