094 jeremy kingsley leadership principles to grow your business by EntrepreneursRadioShow

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Episode 94: Jeremy Kingsley In this episode Travis talks to successful author, speaker, and entrepreneur Jeremy Kingsley. Over the years, Jeremy has reached out and inspired millions of people to their success through his speaking events, books, and mentoring. Early on in his career he has gained valuable experience through apprenticeship and received mentoring from top business leaders. And he shares his insights and experience gained through the years with all the entrepreneurs that are willing to learn from him. Travis and Jeremy share a wealth of ideas and concepts that would surely benefit business owners and employees alike. One of Jeremy‟s secrets to success is getting a mentor early on in your career to provide you with unbiased advice on how to handle and where to take your business in order to achieve success. He also gave tips on the importance of being passionate in your business and surrounding yourself with people that can challenge you and help you grow. He‟s also pointed out the importance of loyalty, communication, integrity as part of the core qualities that is to be the foundation of your business. These and so much more are in store in this episode of the Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show.

Leadership Principles to Grow Your Business Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins welcome to episode number 94 of the Entrepreneur's Radio Show, a production of rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com. Today, I'm going to introduce you to Jeremy Kingsley. Now, Jeremy is a rock star as virtually every guest that comes on the show. Jeremy is a best-selling author and one of the most sought out keynote speakers in the world. Since 1996, he has spoken to over 500,000 people at live events, and given over 2,000 keynote speeches. Now, you may have seen Jeremy on television or online. He's been featured on CNBC, CBS, Fox, Fox Business, Forbes, Wall Street Business, and lots, and lots of more large media outlets. His latest book entitled Inspired People Produce Results was published by McGraw-Hill, and is available in bookstores, and on Amazon. In this episode, Jeremy will share his top 7 tips for becoming an inspirational leader within your business. Now before we get started I want to remind you that there's two ways that you can take these interviews on the go with you while you're working out, or driving, or taking care of your chores. You can either use iTunes or Stitcher. Stitcher is a great solution for people with Android, or non-iPhones. And all you have to do is go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com and click on the

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

iTunes or the Stitcher button on the menu, and it will take you straight there. In that way you won't have to try to fumble around with their clunky search tools and find our program. Now that we've got all of that stuff out of the way, let's go ahead and get down to business, what do you say? Without further ado, welcome to the show Jeremy. Jeremy: Hey, thanks for having me. Travis: You bet, I'm excited. Hey, do you mind giving us the back-story of how you found success and what brought you to today? Jeremy: I'll tell you what's been exciting for me the last 19 years is when I had the opportunity coming in to a graduate school, I was 22-23 years old. And I had the opportunity to be mentored by a couple of older gentlemen. One was the president of my Alma mater and one was an older gentleman that I had run across at a special event. And I approached them about meeting with me once a month to go over some things in my life where they saw certain skill sets, certain gifts, hopefully some talent, if they could guide me into some issues with career. And that was the beginning really of how everything kind of took off. Travis: I love to hear that. It's rare that people ever say that they started out with a mentor. What gave you that insight, that's brilliant by the way. What gave you that insight? Jeremy: Well, when I was in college I ended up emcee in a certain conference that our university put on. And the speaker for that conference was an alumni who was 4 or 5 years older than me and so we had to a lot of working together throughout the 3 or 4 days and the more time I spent with him, I noticed that were was some things in him that I thought, "Wow, I wonder if I got older would I be able to do some of the same things? Would I be as talented, as gifted, as professional as he was?" So in those 4 days I tried to take advantage to give him as much time as I could . And I remember hearing some things from my father, from some other teachers growing up, always attach yourself to people who are good at something that you think you might want to excel in later. So some of those voices kind of came back in from those memories, we ended up talking and I did an internship with that particular speaker for a year. And then 19 years later I've been speaking ever since Travis: I love that. I guess so hard headed that I wanted to blaze my own trails and do my own thing. And so embarrassingly I did not seek a mentor until 15 years into being an entrepreneur. How crazy is that? And then once I finally did get one, things started launching like a rocket, right? You move to the learning curve much faster.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Jeremy: I think it's similar to me with sports. My dad was a coach growing up and I played basketball and he was a basketball coach. And it was kind of interesting when he would tell me things about the game of basketball that I didn't know or I didn't understand. And all of a sudden I noticed that I was playing better, I was playing smarter, I was being more efficient, I was playing within kind of where my skill set was. And then later, and I really love my dad, I appreciate all that he done for me. He would start to kind of bring principles from the sports over into life. And that's where it kind of started to blossom if you will. Some of the seeds that he had try to put in me, hey, you‟re going to be around a coach if we use that term maybe more than a mentor in the sports illustration. You're going to want to kind of have a coach your whole life. Because if you think about it, it kind of makes sense. If someone has a certain amount of skill but you know if you get around another person that has more years, more experience, they can pour more in to you. They can take that skill to the next level. Now why would not want that? Travis: Right Jeremy: So it did kind of make sense from the logic standpoint. Travis: Yeah, I wish I had thought it out. I've always tried to listen to elders but I wish I would have latched on to that concept and took it-- my path is my path. But having a mentor, they have the ability to look way down the trail much further than where you are right now and tell you things that are coming that you just don't have the ability to see early on, right? Jeremy: Exactly, the foresight to me is what stands out, what you just said. I think people in business should always try to get connected to a high level executive. It takes a little bit. You have to have some passion, you have to kind of push a little bit and persevere because it can be hard to get to that person. But when you do, that's when you kind of want to pop the question. Not the will to marry me but will you mentor me. Travis: Right. Jeremy: And most executives that I've come across in my years in speaking in different corporate groups, they actually get excited when they are approached, because it shows them something special about an employee. It shows the passion, it shows kind of this breadth that they want to get after, that they're teachable, and they want to keep improving themselves. They normally like that. And you can meet once a month, maybe twice a month, something like that. You work around their schedule. It can be a great way to excel up the corporate ladder.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: Right. So, 19 years ago you find this guy and basically he mentors you for the first year. Do you turn speaking into a business? How are you making money from doing this? Is that the business or is the speaking bringing business into whatever you‟re doing? Jeremy: Yeah, the first year was tough because as an intern I was travelling with him. I was having to work some other jobs to provide money for airfare, and hotels, and meals, and things like that. I was also working on my master‟s degree at the same time. So it‟s a pretty busy time for me. But as that year kept on going on, a lot of that people who had brought in my mentor, "Hey, next year were going to bring Jeremy back. Let's have him come back next year and speak for us." Well, then the calendar started to fill up. Of course the honorariums went up. Then I was able to quit the other jobs that I was doing and focus completely on speaking and then it's kind of interesting. We start to get into this world, you want to start having other resources. So I started writing. Basically books help bring speaking engagements, and help sell books. So it's kind of cyclical. If you have those two things and you're doing well you can really make a career out of it. Travis: So take me down that path, what were the books that you were writing? And so, all of these are complete different skills sets that have a pretty steep learning curve, the speaking, getting a book out there. Even starting, owning, and operating a business has a pretty steep learning curve, right? Jeremy: It is quite a learning curve. And when I mentor right now different speakers who are up and coming we have to take it really slow, because I learned something early on. When I was doing some of the events when I was in my 20's, sometimes I will get some feedback afterwards. They'd say, "You don't really have any books or any other resources. We really liked your presentation, but we wish we have some more things to take home with us." And I said, "Well, I appreciate that." And then I talked to my board of directors and a few other people that I respect, and I said, "I'm not a great writer, I don't feel like." And one of my English professors way back said, "Jeremy, your gift in writing is for the ear, not for the eye." Travis: Right Jeremy: And I said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, you write speeches, and that's really where your gift lies in creating something that someone will listen to." But that's a whole different skill set than writing for someone who would just reading something in a quiet place. So I learned through that experience that I would be to find some people to help me make that transition. So, the first book that I ever wrote was called One Step Closer. And what I did was I found someone who's really gifted in English. I took 10 of my speeches, "So let's just see what

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happens if we wrote these down word for word and could we make a book out of it. So that's what we do, we just transcribe them, and then I have this guy who is very proficient in English, kind of go a few and make some changes. He says, "You know, this doesn't read quite right. It sounds right when you say it." And when we got through that process, I said, "Okay, so it is possible for me to write a book, we just had to use my speeches and learn how to transform them over to something that's very readable." But I'll tell you what, it was a challenge. And even getting published-- a lot of people heard me tell the story. It took me 6 years, and I had over 60 rejections before I first got published. It's easy stat to remember, 6 years and 60. And I'll tell you what, it was discouraging, it took a lot of perseverance. When I would get rejection letters, people saying this doesn't fit, publisher saying we don't know if we have a place for you, all those similar letters kept coming back. I kept thinking this is right, I know I need it, I know the material is good, I just need to catch that break. But a lot of people don't know how competitive the publishing world is. Travis: So when was this, this had to be in the 90's right? Jeremy: Exactly, this was late 90's, and at that time most people were trying to learn that the average American book sells less than 200 copies. Most people don't know that. Travis: Right. In fact, I attended an event and they told us that a success is if you sell 5,000 copies. Jeremy: Exactly. That's pretty normal right there. If you can sell 5,000, that's going to make you kind of land in the arena of a successful author. It should take care of a lot of the payments that needed to be taken care of. So, it's kind of discouraging for a lot of people when they go out to start selling their book. The 1 maybe 2 years, they'd maybe sold 300, 400 copies, and that's where it can be a little discouraging. But when I usually encourage a lot of the younger group coming up to do, especially the millennials is, if you self-publish a book, and you can get out there and really push it yourself. And now, in the age of social media-- we didn't have all this when I first got started with Twitter, and Facebook, and all those things. You could probably sell 5,000, and that's what starts to open doors. Because when you get to that magic number, around 5,000, that's when you probably will have enough on your resume to get an agent. When you get a literary agent that opens all kinds of doors that were always closed previously. Travis: Yeah. Now the problem is, and of course you're an expert on this and I'm not, but the 5,000 is really just about opening doors, it's really not even about food on the table, right?

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Jeremy: Exactly. Right there is about building your resume and you got to know right off the bat, this isn't going to be a big money making situation. But it will help down the road as those other opportunities come because when you send in your resume to a big publisher. My last book that I just published this past year Inspired People Produce Results. That was with my McGraw-Hill, and their major New York firm. And it took a long time for me to have the resume where they would look at someone like me because I had to work through the process. And I publish a few different books, get my numbers up there. Of course there is content, and there's a title, and there's a hook, and all of those types of things, and endorsements. But that's where you have to say, "Am I really in it? Am I really going to work this hard? Am I going to persevere? Am I going to find the things that I have to do that I know will pay-off later?" Because right now, and you know this, is we have exception of that instant we want it now. And sometimes you have to remember that some things have a longer wait until the pay-off comes. Travis: Right. And so, I've seen a big misconception. A lot of people think that a book makes a business, and really, I'm going to simplify it, at least from my perspective. The stuff that you're talking about, selling things, your book, your products, your courses, those are really what makes a business. And so speaking, you have things in the back of the room that people are interested in. And then of course you can put it on multiple channels through social media and all those other places to where you can start selling those things in volume. That's where you really start getting some traction and start making money off of that. And then I guess, I would assume that those are front-end type things and back-end you probably have services, or consulting, or other things that drive businesses. Is that a fair analysis of maybe what you do as a business owner? Jeremy: Yeah, that's pretty close right there. You want to take what you offer and you divide it in the certain budget arenas, like for instance if you are making a good living off of your speaking things. When you say, "Okay, here's what my salary is going to be. I bring in extra amount per year for speaking. Until all of a sudden we have some consulting, we've got some online courses that we can offer, we've got some electric and social media issues we can put out there, we have some audio things people can buy, of course we got the paperback books. Those things start to bring in money that open up the budget for you to keep pursuing more to have new strategies to say "Where can I go now?" For me it's more about even pushing internationally. So right now, there's a lot of the different income that our business brings in, we're setting up more strategies. I'm doing an initiative right now for Australia. And so, it's those types of things when you think through what comes in? How much in each area of revenue? Where can I place the extra revenue, as long as we're staying balance, to put it in an area that could really push us to grow maybe in a new place geographically, or in some new ideas for product? Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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Travis: Alright. So do you have an ascension model? So maybe a $10 book, $37 audio, and I'm just ranting here just making things up, maybe a $500 program, 2,000, 5,000, 25,000. You have an ascension model that you put in your business like that? Jeremy: Yeah, I do. And what I've tried to do is get other speakers who have been around much longer than me. Now there's two in particular that I look up to quite a bit, one is Ken Blanchard. Travis: I'm with you on that. Jeremy: Yeah, he's been speaking a long time. His organization has been very, very kind to us. And I think early on when we showed some initiative and we tried to ask in a humble way for some help, and a lot of his people did reach out. They said, "Hey, we like what you're doing, we like the messages, we believe in you. We are willing to spend some time with you." So I've flown out there, met with them, of course I've tried to get some phone calls with some of the people that work there, ask them question, continuing on. As Ken built up his brand if you will, I would like to keep learning how to expand my brain. And of course, a lot of people, when you think about Ken, you know that helps. So he's getting a little older now, he's been around for quite a long time. Who's going to take the mantle from him? And that's always been one of my goals is, because Ken and I believe in a lot of the same principles that help businesses. And I would say they're timeless principles, not time-bound but timeless that revolve around people who can do that. So, I'm excited to be connected with them and just continue to try to grow the brand. Andy Andrews is another one that I like to listen to. He's had some great books, he's a great speaker, and when you think about him as a story-teller and anyone that's been around for a while-- if you've gone to his website, they are so creative in how they set-up their products, what they offer, and I would even say how they do it. And I would recommend people in business in general, just go to andyandrews.com and you'll notice right away his brand, you'll notice his products, you'll see how they lay things out, very, very professional. So, I try to connect with some of their top business people as well with Andy's organization. And you keep asking a question, it kind of goes back to what we're talking to earlier with the mentoring. And I don't have an official mentor relationship with Andy or Ken, but I do have a relationship with people within their organization that are willing to help, that I can ask questions to. And man, it's been really beneficial for me. Travis: Yeah. I've yet to read anything by Ken Blanchard that I didn't really like. Now, I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know Andy Andrew.

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Jeremy: Andy would be, he's probably in his 50's. He's been a story teller for a long time. He wrote a New York Times bestseller The Traveler's Gift where he wrote a fictional story about what would happen if he could've met what he considered some of the greatest leaders of all time. He kind of made it a fictionalized version. It was really interesting. Like he wrote about when he was meeting with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Solomon, and different JFK. It was really interesting. So, I've really started to pay attention, put in a few extra calls, and you'll kind of watch how they run their organization because it's very well-branded, it's very sleek, it's unique, it's crisp, and I think what they lay out is something that a lot of business people could learn from their models. Travis: Yeah. Now Ken's got a pretty big organization, right? Jeremy: Yeah. The Ken Blanchard Company, they have multiple speakers, they have multiple seminars, they have tons and tons of things that they put out that you can purchase. Of course, he's the number one leadership author on Amazon of all-time. The One Minute Manager being kind of his famous book. But the key for him, and I think this is where we've gotten away from some of the things that he taught way back 70's, 80's, 90's is the businesses excel because of people. And I think sometimes we get so caught up in the machine side of it. It's always the technology, and then newest gadget, and how quick can we get orders, and all those things. And those do play a part, but I think one thing that Ken has always been write on is don't let the smaller parts become the bigger part, and don't let the bigger part become the smallest. And he's always taught this about people. And people are your customers, people are your employees. So whatever it takes to make them, your employees very successful. Whatever it takes to make the people, or your customers get the most joy, the most satisfaction, the best that they can get from your products, you have to focus on them. To me that's what I'm teaching still now, forcing some different and new creative ways because I'm a little bit younger. So it comes across a little bit different maybe in our presentations, but it's the same base. And we notice that a lot of companies are going back and saying, you know what, we've gotten away from this, we've got to get back to it. Let's put some things in tour place to make sure that we're people focused. Travis: Right. So, let's go back over the 19 year period. What was the pivot point that really accelerated the success of your business and the trajectory of your business. When was it and what was it that caused it? Jeremy: Man, that's a tough question because it kept growing a little bit by little bit. I would say every 2-3 years we would notice when we do kind of our statistics at the end of the year. How many of that did we have? What kind of income did we bring it? What kind of products that we

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make? And they kind of kept on going because word of mouth was spreading so fast. I was dealing 40-50, sometimes even close to 60 events a year, and we were getting another 40-50 calls probably between 2004 and 2010. We were averaging around 100+ calls and request per year, which is probably 50 more than I can actually do. Travis: Right. Jeremy: I try to keep a pretty safe calendar. My wife and I have 2 children, I don't want them to not have a dad, and I don't want her not to have a husband. She tries to keep the calendar to control you or you can control the calendar, right? So we notice that as the business kept doing better we had to become a little bit more picky with which events we should take. But as the books started to come out there was no doubt that there was a spike. When the books started to come out and hit the shelf, there was this spike. And I believe that the first year we connected with Ken there was another spike. I think his endorsement around my second book, along with some of the training I was receiving from some of his assistants, no doubt that within those couple of years probably the spike for us there. Travis: Right. So, do you remember the time frame that was where you're 3, 5, 6 years into it, or 8, 10 years into it, what? Jeremy: Yeah, I would say that, that probably was, let me think. That would have been the 8th or 9th year when we saw significant spikes. Travis: Right. And so, now take me down the path of Inspired People Produce Results. So, one of the things that I do when I coach businesses. A lot of people have teams, they're dysfunctional, right? The teams are not working together, in fact, their incentives motivate them to not necessarily work together, right? And so, a team that is dysfunctional has a very tough time being productive and just really moving the business to that next level. And I found if we took like a small team as an example. 3 or 4 people that are in it 100%, giving it their all, versus 8 that are not in it 100%. The smaller team can out produce the other team by far by eliminating the stakes, by eliminating dissatisfied clients, all kinds of stuff. And there's some strategies behind that. Is that along the lines of what you're talking about with inspired People Produce Results? Jeremy: It is, because what I've noticed and I've started to take notes, travelling around this country and outside this country. Sort of taking notes on groups that were doing well, and the leadership and kind of the leadership style of these different companies that were successful. Because everybody knows right now that in the world of business is faster paced than it's ever

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been. Budgets are being slashed, the competition is fierce, and the finance people are all scrutinizing over the profitability. They'll point fingers probably more than they ever have. So there's a lot of stress in this whole issue of being successful. So, when I started looking at leaders and asking them, so what is it that makes you different than a competitor. How come your 1 or 2 steps ahead? It's interesting, it's kind of like what you just said, it's the people-because we have synergy. And it's okay, well that makes sense. I know that if you have 2 horses doing the right thing, it's not as twice as good as having one horse, it's actually more than twice as good. If they are on the same page, they're pushing in the right direction with the same amount of energy. Synergy is kind of interesting. So what I started to notice is there are 8 or 9 different things that these leaders would bring up, and they kept bringing them up. And I said, "Wow, so this is something that a number of companies have in common." So I wrote them down and I ended up talking to McGraw-Hill and they said, "Let me ask you a question. I've got this book. Here's the information that I have." And we talk about loyalty, we talk about being patient, we talk about communication, we talk about passion. And I just started going through the list, I said, "Look at the company that use these things." And I wrote some of the stories out for them, and I said, "That is making them kind of have a step above their competitors. It's not because they've got the newest equipment, the newest gadget, it goes back to the leader has setup new people. You setup in an environment, and you setup certain expectations that they all move quick and sufficient, proficient in the right direction. What are you guys thinking?" And I would ask people, I said, "Do you leaders inspire you, do they help grow a passion in you?" And they'd say absolutely. And that's the difference because if you think about it, some of the companies that struggle, you go and you see their workers. And they're coming in, they're punching in, they don't want to be there, they got a bad attitude, there's apathy written all over their face, they don't really care. They're just going to try to maybe get some work done, get their paycheck, and get out of there. Then you go to a company that thrives and you start to see people who, they talk to each other, they laugh together, they eat lunch together, there's some smiles and some excitement in the environment, they get along, they work together in teams. You go, "Wow, look how much more productive that group is than group A." And at the end of the day what is it really about? It's about results. And that's where Inspired People Produce Results came from. Travis: Right. And the interesting thing is people secretly want to be held accountable, and they want to be led. Even employees that are doing all the wrong things, it's because a structure has not been put in place and they have not been inspired to follow those directions. So, I couldn't agree with you more. Jeremy: It was interesting because when I reached out for endorsements, once we talk with McGraw-Hill, they gave us the green light. They said, "Okay, this book's a go. Who should we Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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reach out to? So let's look at some different companies that we think believe in these principles." So, we reached out to Whirlpool and David Binkley, he's the senior Vice President in Human Resource. He said absolutely, you're dead on. That's exactly what we want to teach. We've reached out to the CEO at PF Chang's. And when we talked to Rick there he says this is exactly what we believe. And of course, they're in the food business so you think about customer service, do you really want employees that are passionate, excited, and glad to be there especially in a business like that. Of course. And he jumped on, Mickey Pants CEO from non brand jumped on it. And then of course Ken Blanchard did. So we felt we were very grateful that we noticed some of these very respective people, Fortune 500 guys were saying, "Yeah, let's get this out there." They gave us endorsements. We believe something kind of deep. And I know some people might think this is a little too much, but to me and to my board of directors in top organization it's not. And if we can make a difference in companies, and they really start to get this, it will make their company more successful. If their company is more successful it helps the local economy, it helps the state economy, hopefully it will help the national economy. And this is something for us that we believe in. We believe it generally makes the difference. Travis: I agree with you 100%. The small businesses are the engine. And when I say small, not little bitty, all businesses. There's small businesses, there's even at $500 million. But we're the engine that drives so many things on a local level, right? And a national level. Jeremy: Exactly. And that's what's kind of great about my job is. When I get the opportunity to go into a business, and I'll put on a little leadership seminar, and we'll talk about professional development we will talk about passion, we will talk about what it means to setup this type of environment. And one thing that's kind of stuck out recently and I don't know if you've seen this or some of your guest, if you guys have talked about this. But it was millennials are coming up as a major percent of the workforce. You kind of have to be creative with that group. And I've been talking with a lot of leaders about the hiring process. And what does that look like now versus maybe 10-15 years ago? Because you start to hear a lot of complaints. Well, this particular person didn't work out because they were too needy, or they didn't pay attention enough, or they were a little lazy, or they were asking for raises and they only been here 3 weeks. Travis: Right. Jeremy: Here's some of these stories-- now don't get me wrong, I don't want to put a big paintbrush over the whole millennial group, because I'm a Gen X-er. There's tons of millennials that are great hard workers, very creative, I would love to have them on my team. But, just like

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other generations there is a group there where there's some struggles. So, we've been talking a lot about-- you know in the last 10 years we've talked about strengths so much. There's just tons of books about make sure you're within your strength, work within your strength. And I of course agree with those things but there's one danger, if you think about pendulum like on a clock where it's one over to one side, almost too far that there's a danger. There's in a resume, someone could have a number of strengths listed. But if they don't have a passion, that lies within that strength, what happens if you hire that person? You're going to ask them to carry out something that maybe they have a skill set for but they just don't really care about it. Well then you've hired a strong, miserable person. That's not really going to help you. You might get some work done but you're not going to get to the next level. So in the interview process, trying to train some of the leaders to say-- Okay, you're looking at a resume, you've got the person in front of you. You speak some of the skill sets, you see one that will fit your small business well for the position that you're hiring for. You need to ask them, hey, of these three skills here, which one of these stands out to you, which ones are you most enjoy doing? Now which one of these skills, when you kind of wake up, you're excited about it, you kind of want to get to work. You might go over and do some overtime. You might go the extra mile because you do enjoy this. That answer right there is very important to the small business, whether any business in the hiring process. Very important question, what skill set connects most with your passion? Travis: I find with the younger generation that they want to be excelled through the ranks sooner than they should be. Jeremy: Very true. Travis: They want the VP position right away. Jeremy: Well, and you know, I think what's happened is that's a cultural issue that we kind of blame the younger generation for but it might be more our fault, maybe as parents, as community centers. I've got 2 boys right now, and the one who is in middle school, when he was younger, when he would play on a sports team for the county every kid gets a trophy. And it didn't matter if they earned it or not, they just got a trophy because they are on the team. Travis: I didn't like that by the way. Jeremy: Yeah. And it wasn't like that when I grew up, and I grew up in the 70's and 80's. We had earned the trophy. So what happened is that mentality is kind of creeps up now into those who are in their 20's and they start to think while I'm on the team where's my trophy?

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Travis: Right. Jeremy: And now the boss has to come in and say, "Well, you don't get a trophy for just being on the team, you have to earn that." And it's interesting. That comes back I believe in the interview process as well. Great leaders who are great interviewers will let that out right at the beginning. And they'll just say, "Hey, I want you to know something. We do give raises here, we do give promotion, we want people to excel. But we don't just hand them out, you're going to have to show us something. You're going to have to earn your way up that ladder where I'm just going to give it to you." They set it very clear early on in the interview process. Travis: Right. I completely agree with you. Let me pull back a little bit. And so, Inspired People Produce Results. What's the top 5 things that a business owner should focus on to get a group of inspired people? Jeremy: Well, first. The leader has to evaluate his or her own passion. Do they have a passion? If they're coming in and they're always higher, they're always worn down, if their attitude is kind of on a lower level. Maybe they see you complaining, they see you kind of on that downward spiral not feeling that excitement that you should have. It's hard to explain, the passion is often contagious. But being lethargic and lazy is as well. Travis: Right. Jeremy: So lots of times leaders have to remember what you exude is probably going to happen with your people. So you want to make sure that they see you're passionate. You do have an excitement, you are thankful and excited to see what can happen within the business and where it can go. So that's the first thing, is all you think about is your own passion. The second is about surrounding yourself with people that can help take you to the next level, kind of going back to the idea with mentoring. If you can find someone within your business field that has a little more experience, a little more life experience, a little more professional experience. Someone that can also ask you tough questions. It's one thing that I've always appreciated is the phrase „don't take it personal‟. I want people to be able to say, "Jeremy, let me ask you about this." And they might give me a hard question, it might make me feel uncomfortable. But at the end of the day I go, "Man, I appreciated that question because it pushed me a little bit it made me kind of out of my comfort zone because there might be some things that are beneficial that I'm not aware of or that I'm not doing that I need to be doing," right? And then I would say for 3, 4, and 5 which actually we could probably go down to like 9. Travis: Give me as many as you want.

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Jeremy: Well, yeah I lay out these principles in the book and I say here's how we kind of need to start. Once you start to think about the passion and making sure that you have the excitement, let's ask about purpose, let's ask a question in there. Is there a purpose to what we do? And when you're working with the younger group like you we were talking the millennials, that's a pretty important thing for them. They want to know if there's a purpose behind what they do. Why does this company exist? What good do we actually have for the community? Are we serving the community in some way that we think is beneficial? Hopefully, there's purpose there. Then I like to talk about loyalty. What does it mean to stay somewhere for a long period of time. I'm very concerned about how quickly a large number of the workforce has been changing jobs. They'll go somewhere for 6 months, and all of a sudden during the break time they're on the computer posting their resume on monster.com. They're looking up, these other websites and I'm like, "Well, you've been here 6 months why would you already be looking for another job?" That doesn't show loyalty to the boss, which is going to make it harder for you to get a raise or promoted. And on the flipside, the people who are in the upper level positions, they do need to make sure that they are taking notice. When people are doing a good job-- One thing that I believe in, and my wife and I and our organization, we will like to give gifts. Kind for special jobs that we think someone went over and above. And we might send some sort of special gift basket from the Popcorn Factory, or some kind of gift card for some steak house in that community, or whatever it is. I know Ken Blanchard used to say, "I want to catch people doing something right." And we want to kind of build our loyalty by letting them know, "Hey, we noticed that. Your hard work did not go unnoticed. We appreciate your loyalty; we're going to reciprocate that by giving you just a little special gift." So loyalty is another one. I think communication is something that has become tough. With all the social media, with the Facebook, the Twitter, how everyone does the text messaging and things like that, I think those are great within the right context. But what sometimes happens is when there's a problem and there needs to be a solution. It could be a problem between 2 workers, it could be a problem with an order where someone miscommunicated, that's not something you want to try to do over social media or a text message. We have to keep teaching people what it means to communicate face-to-face. And when you do communicate face-to-face to be teachable, to be humble, make sure you hear both sides of the story before you make conclusions. Because you might not have all the information you need. And that's another piece of the puzzle that as the millennials are coming up, I'm trying to teach leaders, "Hey, if you want to throw in a special communication course, especially face-to-face, it's not email, it's not a text. We're going to talk, and you're going to look at me, and I'm going to look at you. And we're going to have a conversation to make sure we understand, so nothing falls in the cracks." That's kind of an important one. And in the book I talk a little more about the culture, making sure that it's a place that serves people and doesn't drain them. I talk about being patient with people. And actually in Copyright ÂŠ 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneurâ&#x20AC;&#x;s Radio Show

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the last chapter, the entire chapter is based on integrity. And the reason I did that, I purposely put chapter 10 as integrity is something that inspires people because we've seen over the number of years here, from Bernie Madoff to all of these other guys that have been crooked in different organizations, and they've gotten caught, and they've embarrassed the company, they've embarrassed themselves, they've lost all credibility. I lined integrity to be the last chapter in the book because to me you could be patient, you could communicate well, you could put up a great environment, you can do a lot of these other things. But if you don't have integrity, all those things are going to fall apart. Travis: Right. Jeremy: You really have to be someone of character. Say what you mean, mean what you say. Don't deceive people. If there's something that needs to be said, don't try to beat around the bush, or paint a picture that's not real accurate. People really do appreciate it when you're honest. And that comes from both sides, from the employee and the employer. The organizations that I've noticed that have done really well, say, since the recession, that's been a big issue that we try to be really honest with each other. We like to have integrity so no one feels like they've ever been tricked, or duped, or something that's happened in a way that's going to lose trust, which actually turns out into you losing loyalty, and we don't want to do that. Travis: Right. I completely agree. So let me go back and make sure that I've done a good job of taking notes here and add a little color to this, okay? Jeremy: Sure. Travis: So number 1, the leader needs to deliver a level of passion. I completely agree with that. How can you expect people to deliver a level of passion, and quality, customer service, great experience if you're not bringing it yourself, right? Jeremy: Exactly. Travis: Whatever it is, people are quite often reflect what they see. And so, you can't have closed door meetings and flag all the customers and then expect them to go out there, and say nice things, and be nice to the clients. You're going to have difficult clients at times, deal with them and move on, but you still need to focus on delivering a high level of energy and passion. And so, I completely agree with you on that. And I love the number 2, surround yourself with people that can help you quickly grow, people that challenge you. It's so dangerous to get

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surrounded by people that just want to tell you yes, and that's what happens with people on your payroll, right? Jeremy: Exactly. If you get surrounded by people who are afraid to ask a hard question, at some point in time you're going to realize how far behind you are because you are never challenged to look at new areas that'll take you to the next level. Travis: Right. I found that people that live with you and people that are on your payroll are not ideal people to ask you tough questions because they normally can't. Jeremy: Exactly. You don't want to put someone who's in that position, and you put them in a tough spot. Because they think they should say something but then they're a little nervous because, well, what if the boss wants to fire me because I kind of gave some push back. Travis: Right. Jeremy: It's great to have people-- I always say, within your field of business, not necessarily within your business per se. Now, you might have 1 or 2, but you probably want to have 2 or 3 that are in a similar profession as you that you can talk candid to each other outside of the office. Travis: Now, I would challenge you on that. And there's more than one way to do things. What I have found is people that instruct someone from an industry and they're in the same industry, it becomes a very incestuous type of recommendations, where everybody is doing and saying the same thing. And a lot of times industries are really innovated when somebody comes from an outside-- it's normally a kid that discovers the cure for one type of cancer, not somebody in a laboratory. It's normally someone in an another industry that thinks in a complete different way. So what do you have to say about that when you say they should be in the industry? Jeremy: Yeah, to me it's kind of a both end, you don't want to have some group of 3 and 4 and none of them are in your industry. But I don't think you want 3 or 4 where all of them are, and here's why. In my little circle, I've got 2 or 3 people that are professional communicators. And if I'm speaking in the area where they live geographically, I'll ask them to come and actually break down my speech, do a review of it. We'll go out to dinner; I'd like to see what thoughts they have because I'm doing something in their area of expertise. I know them well enough in their character. They grow comfortable, and grow comfortable with them giving me constructive criticism.

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Travis: Right. Jeremy: Now, people that are outside the business, they still might have some ideas that I want to listen to because sometimes their eyes tease things in different angles that I might not see. On my board of directors I have a guy that retired from Dell, and he was just under Michael Dell, he was really high up. He's not a professional communicator, but he's a strategic planner, and he's a genius within that level of organizing groups for strategic plans. So he has been very valuable to us as we grow and do more branding. So, to, it's kind of a both end, and it kind of depends on the context of what the material is that we're going to talk over. Travis: Yeah, that's what I was going to say, once you put it in that context I completely agree with you. So that definitely makes sense. Okay, so number 3, what's your purpose. I completely agree. People need to understand why you're doing-- In fact a lot of times, I have found that people really won't follow through with all of the things that you want them to do, people on your staff, until they understand why. And if you give them a deeper explanation and spend the time explaining that, then they understand the repercussions and why. The why could be on a small level of causing poor communication in the office. And also could be why you're committed to being the number 1 in your industry is because it saves 20% more lives, or whatever it is. So there's several different, deeper why's or what your purpose is. So do you agree with that? Jeremy: I do, and I think the best leaders and most effective leaders do that right there better than most. Because what they're deciding, they're making a conscious decision to say, "I'm going to take a little extra time." Now, I could kind of pull out the boss part and say, "Hey, just do your job." But I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to treat a person like they're just an employee, I'm going to treat them like a person. Travis: Right. Jeremy: And if I give them some of this information that's behind the reasoning, deep down it's actually going to give them hopefully a greater passion to work even harder. And I agree with you, the best leaders give the why. Travis: Right. And so, a classic example that really makes sense is a soldier will give his life for fighting for his country, that's his why. But you could offer him a million dollars for his life and 99.9% of the people would say no. Although we'd all love to have that million dollars, why would you give it up for your life. The why is not big enough. Dying for your country, that's obviously big enough because millions of people have done it in the past, right?

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Jeremy: Exactly. Travis: Number 4, loyalty. Loyalty is big. I completely agree with you. In fact, loyalty and dishonesty, and theft, all of those things live in the same will house for me, and if a lack of loyalty is present, or dishonesty, or theft is present, I can't continue a relationship with someone. And I'm afraid that loyalty has been moved too far down on the priority chart for so many people. I'm not trying to infer that I'm perfect but I'm extremely loyal. And to me loyalty, and integrity, and those things are just, they're paramount, right? Jeremy: Yeah, loyalty feeds passion. And it's funny that when someone knows that you've got their back. When the boss knows the employees has them covered. When the employee knows that the boss has them covered because they've got that loyalty that's been built upon and got the trust factor, all that sits back into the issue of team and how effective the team can be, but it ultimately makes the company the best it can do.. Travis: Right. And a lot of people don't realize that consistency is a part of loyalty. And the fact that I pay you every week, the fact that I show up, the fact that I do what I say I'm going to do, that fact that I keep my word, the fact that if I can't keep my word I call and tell you. Those are all pieces of that loyalty, right? Jeremy: Man, great word. To me you just hit the nail in the head. The word consistency might be one of the strongest words we can use within relationships that are professional or just friendships. But you're exactly right. The consistency is absolutely huge. Travis: Yeah. We had a time set for an interview, I called you on it. And so, I set a standard with you. So you know, „that Travis, he's on time‟. If he's not on time something's up, right? And so, that's just a critical piece of loyalty. Communication. One of my favorite sayings is, and I'm probably going to destroy it because it's not top of mind right now. But the most common myth with communication is that it just occurred. So many people think that they've conveyed a message, or a feeling, or a thought. And more often than not they haven't. And so, poor communication causes much more problems than most people ever realize. And so, slowing down, taking a minute, and making sure that you're doing a good job on focusing on maybe what that client's saying, what their problem is, and getting a clear picture of how to solve it is vital communication. So, I think it's brilliant that you brought that up. Do your thoughts align with what I'm saying there? Jeremy: I do, because what happens often times, either within businesses, from boss to employees, or sometimes even the customers, is when someone doesn't communicate clearly

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you could have had the right intention, the right idea but you just didn't get it communicated properly. So there was a misunderstanding. And if we could spout a lot of the misunderstandings, all of a sudden you're saving time, you're saving money, and that's going to make things flow a lot easier. Travis: Right. And then culture, I like the alignment piece of that. We have built a culture in the business. And then we have 1 or 2 people that just don't align with that culture. And they cause more problems. And it's not necessarily anything wrong with them but it's just how they're made as a person. So sometimes they just don't fit in to that specific seat on the bus, and they cause more disharmony. Have you found that to be true? Jeremy: Yeah, and that goes back to the Good to Great book. And you want to get people who can create that synergy. Synergy is really what makes things start to move faster. And someone that doesn't fit in to that culture, it's almost like you put the two horses and they're connected into their reigns. One's moving left and one's moving right, we're not going to get very far. And that's something that's very important for leaders to take notice of. Travis: Right. Completely agree. And then number 7 was the integrity. And I think that's kind of the piece that wraps up into the conversation that we were having earlier with consistency and all of those other things. Because for me, what I've been building all of my life is my word. And my integrity is built on my word. And so, it's so critical, and I see people do and say things online that I want to say, "Do you really want to say stuff like that at the expense of your reputation." Do you feel like your word and your reputation intertwine with the integrity there? Jeremy: Absolutely. And that's what's interesting about social media, is if someone is on Facebook or on Twitter and they're putting out messages that say the letter A, then when you meet them everything they say sounds like the letter B. Travis: Right. Jeremy: Now, you might not trust them. For me, travelling around the world and speaking fulltime, that's very, very important that the organizations know, when we bring Jeremy Kingsley in to speak, we know what he's going to speak on, we know what his book says, we know what he says on Twitter, we've looked at his website. And he's going to match what we've seen because that's where the integrity comes from. And if I can build trust with those clients, they end up becoming hopefully, lifelong partners with us in business.

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Travis: Right. And I view the same way with the people that I interview. I'm not willing to get salacious and try to find negative angles, and get in an argument with someone. Although that would draw more interest. I'm really here to bring as much value and support that person that I'm interviewing rather than so much of the media will lure you in to speak on their platform and then ambush you with negative stuff. And I'm really not a fan of that approach. And that's a connotation of what we're talking about, right? Jeremy: I appreciate that. And over the years, this is my 19th year, once or twice I've had a couple of interviews where I have had a couple of host take a couple of cheap shots, and they brought up things that were inappropriate, that had nothing to do with the context of what we were talking about. And of course, that put a bad taste in our mouth and it made us not really want to work with them because they were a little dishonest. But we really appreciate you and all the other shows that have the integrity with their guest. Travis: Yeah, I don't understand, well I do understand but I don't like that type of-- as a matter of fact I've tried to eliminate virtually all news out of my life because it's constant negative, salacious stuff that doesn't feed me, or nourish in an empowering way. I saw a cartoon and it really drove the message home. The guy had went to the kitchen to get something and his daughter was in the living room. And there was a hand coming out of the TV with a gun to his daughter's head. And it's saying, basically, why do you allow all of this negative, insulting stuff to come into your home and infiltrate your family and your children, right? Jeremy: Yeah, it's very interesting. And if we could lower the amount of negative news and try to enhance the amount of positive news, what difference that could make on the community, on the economy, and business in general. Travis: Yeah, it would make a huge, huge difference. Listen, we could go on for hours, there's so many great things that we could talk about. I'm running a little long and that's my fault there. So, listen, do you need to drop down and do some push-ups or anything before we transition into the lightning round Jeremy? Jeremy: No, I think I'm all set. Travis: Okay. So, I did send you 3 questions, and those 3 questions. So the first one is, what book or program made an impact on you related to business that you'd recommend and why? Jeremy: Yeah, the book that kind of stands out to me, and there's so many good ones. But there's one by Ken Blanchard called The Secret. And the subtitle is What Great Leaders Know

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

and Do. The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do by Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller. It's just a short little book, but it's kind of his normal, kind of little story about a lady who is managing and a bunch of challenges that came up that to me were very, very practical. She was trying to get the opportunity to be a mentor, which is something that I really believe in. And then learning basic principles that go back to how you make your people the most successful. Great little book, The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do, Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller. Travis: Excellent. What's one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered, if any, that you'd recommend to other business owners and why? Jeremy: Yeah, I wouldn't say necessarily anything really recent, but I will say that the businesses who have a really, really sharp website, they're very clear, they're very sharp, they make things easy to navigate through. They have the information that you want to get to and you can get there quickly. The websites to me are still one of the most important pieces of any business. And then, probably in the last 3 years, maybe even 4, I think Twitter has become very important. You want to start to build kind of that customer base, or loyalty base, the friendship base through Twitter. You can update them on thing that you're doing. So to me the website in Twitter, very, very key components. Travis: How much time do you spend on Twitter. Do you dedicate 2 hours a week, or what? Jeremy: I try to put out 1 tweet every morning between 8 and 10, and I try to make sure that it's connected to leadership principles, something that can serve people. And I have more opportunities as I'm reading or I say something a little special, probably 2 or 3 times during that week, I'll try to put out a second one as well. Travis: Yeah. Now, what famous quote would best summarize your belief or attitude in business? Jeremy: To me it's a leadership quote by John Quincy Adams, one of my favorite one. I put it right at the beginning of the book. It says this, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." John Quincy Adams, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." Travis: Right, I agree. Jeremy: And that's what we want leaders to do.

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Travis: I agree 100%. Excellent interview. How do people connect with you? Jeremy: Best way to connect is to go to my website, real simple, JeremyKingsley.com, you can read about the places where I'll be speaking, you can watch some of the videos. Of course we've got links to the new book on there from Amazon. And then if you want to check me out on Twitter, very simple, it's just @jeremy_kingsley on Twitter.

End of Interview Travis: Excellent. Thank you for that Jeremy. Listen, I want to remind you that you can find all the links to the books and the resources mentioned in the show notes. Just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com. It's a new site that we've been building out that's completely focused on giving you the resources to grow your business. Before I close the show today, I wanted to ask one favor from you. And that favor is this, if you find value in our show then I would really appreciate it if you'd go to iTunes or Stitcher and write a review. This would help us reach more entrepreneurs just like yourself and it would mean a lot to me, it would validate. I want you to give a review and give me an honest opinion of what you think about the show. If you like anything about the show then tell me what you like about the show. I read each and every comment. If you feel like I can improve, go ahead and list that. Again, that would mean a lot to me. Today, I'm going to wrap up with my quote, and the quote reads, "You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win." This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now, to your incredible success my friend, take care.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

How We Can Help You We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That‟s exactly why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at a fraction of its normal cost. Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever! We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats within your business. This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons are. As the 'Business Owner' it‟s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you‟re in the middle of a daily management. And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial. This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn‟t matter if you are a one-man army, or an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show “Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

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