John King: From Music Startups To EOS Leadership Coaching

This week we sit down with John King, an EOS implementer and business coach, to unpack how he learned to spot misalignment early and help leadership teams get back in rhythm without blowing up the culture. His story moves from band leader to a venture-backed music tech startup, through a decade in ministry, and into building a coaching practice for second-stage companies that need real structure and traction. 

We get concrete about the hard moment every founder hits: deciding to raise the standard when your team feels like “volunteers” who can walk anytime. John breaks down why the first fix is almost never tighter control. It’s clearer leadership. That means explaining the why behind the change, enrolling key people before you try to move the whole company, and being honest about what’s required to level up. We also talk about visionary and integrator dynamics, and why the right partner can turn ambition into alignment across the organization. 

Then we go into the unglamorous engine behind consistent growth: relationship-based outbound done with discipline. John shares how he rebuilt his identity, found the right rooms, and created a simple flywheel built on talks, follow-up, and getting on the phone. He also challenges the usual entrepreneurship narrative by reframing risk: one employer can be “one customer,” while a diversified client base can actually reduce downside once you build momentum. 

If you’re building a business operating system, exploring EOS, trying to improve company culture, or wondering whether to bet on yourself, this conversation will give you language and moves you can use immediately. 

—
🔗 John King: https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/john-king/
🔗 Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkingeos/—
ABOUT PERSONAL BETS

Person Bets is a podcast for the people actually running the business, not the investors, not the board, not the consultants on the sideline. Hosted by Chance Sweat, business broker at FitzGibbon Alexander, Inc. and founder of Foundry Leadership.

🔗 Personal Site: chancesweat.com
🔗 Brokerage Site: fitzgibbonalexander.com
🔗 Follow Chance: https://www.instagram.com/chancesweat

ABOUT PERSONAL BETS

Person Bets is a podcast for the people actually running the business, not the investors, not the board, not the consultants on the sideline. Hosted by Chance Sweat, business broker at FitzGibbon Alexander, Inc. and founder of Foundry Leadership.

🔗 Personal Site: chancesweat.com
🔗 Brokerage Site: fitzgibbonalexander.com
🔗 Follow Chance: @itschancesweat

Transcript

Music Roots And First Startup

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Um, you're by tr by I'm gonna say training, right? Because you were showing me some musical instruments here a minute ago. This isn't what you like went to school for and like set out in life to be your mission to be an EOS implementer and a business coach.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

No. I mean it is now.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Yeah. It's your mission now. But what did what was your first like your first real job, if you will?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

First real job? Um, it's probably where all this stuff kind of came together. So I how far do you want me to go back?

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Oh stuff.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

So I I'll keep this pretty light and we can go there deep if you want to go. I had a pretty dysfunctional upbringing, as many of us do. And so I kind of really attach myself to music early.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Because it was kind of like a thing I could do, kind of escape, played in bands, and so that was my first big passion, love. It was in bands, and I was I found always kind of found myself as the leader of these bands. And so bands are just little teams, right? Okay. So I work with leadership teams now, bands are not that much different. It's a you know, just a group of folks that you're trying to figure out what everybody's supposed to do, and but I love music, and uh that was my first uh passion, so did that, and then I felt like I really needed to grow up in Birmingham, Alabama. I felt like I needed to get out of town and do something different, and there's all kinds of reasons for that. We could talk about if you wanted to. Uh, so I came down here in 2004 and went to full sale for uh audio engineering and music production. I pretty quickly realized I'm not really an engineering guy. So I was in this program and realized I'm more of a creative. Um, but my it led to my first real job where I was the first employee at a venture capital-backed music technology company.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Uh, and the CEO was in uh Los Angeles, and the her partner was in Orlando. Uh, and so it was the three of us, really, and then we had like a programming team in uh the UK and in Finland. So it was actually this really cool marriage of music, and I got dropped right into this incredibly entrepreneurial startup. And so I'm like 20 years old, um, and getting to do stuff that I think most 20-year-olds just don't get to do. So I kind of led our whole testing of this software. So the software at the time, it's gonna sound funny, it's it's called e-jamming. All right, everything had an E before it, right? E-jamming. And this was essentially Skype for musicians, right? That's how we used to say it. Now I used to Skype or Zoom or whatever, but we used to say Skype for musicians, and it was so that musicians could connect over the internet in real time and try to play in real time. It didn't, it didn't succeed because the technology infrastructure at the time, and even now, the internet infrastructure does not support enough of a real-time experience in musicians that you would need to be successful. Okay. Anyway, so I was a first uh employee, and it gave me this uh taste for kind of the entrepreneurial life, and um, you know, I got to, you know, we flew all over the world. I was like the face of the company. So I I was this 20-year-old kid, didn't have the beard at the time, so I looked nine years old. Like beard comes off, I look nine. Uh and I would present this to VC, to, you know, acquirers, to big media outlets, do big presentations at big conferences, and so it was just kind of a pretty cool experience of being able to be a musician, but also start getting a taste of this kind of really entrepreneurial startup world. So that was my first, that was my first real job.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Did you ever uh grow your hair out long? Like oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, this is the short version, yeah, man. High school, down here. By the time I was here though, it was it was starting to shorten up. But yeah, of course, man.

unknown 4:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

I mean, I feel like that that that kind of VC-backed music industry, like I feel like you kind of had to embrace a little bit of both of it, right? Like you had the long hair, the kind of the hippie-ish, but you were also kind of like, I am the tech guy.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, and my role there was just I just needed to be a a competent communicator of our technology and like be a I need to be believable as a real musician.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah. Yeah.

Turning Rhythm Into Team Alignment

SPEAKER_01 4:39

So do you have like this underlying drive for things to be like in sync? Like they have like things have to be running together.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Okay, I've never really thought about that, but yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Like it has to be on on track or whatever the right like is there is there an underlying metronome to your life and rhythm?

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Dude, that is that's an interesting question. I actually would think that's a great way of thinking about what kind of drives me is I like taking things that are out of sync and getting them in sync. Okay. That's kind of what I do for a living. Yeah. You take a team, a leadership team, things are not quite in sync, and we try to get them in sync so they can actually go where you want to go. And I think that's what you're doing with music is you're taking all this you what could be just random noise and trying to get it into something that is enjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

And listen to. I have a feeling that a lot of the companies you work with, they're humming along, they're doing well. A lot of them are doing fantastic, but there's just something that's a little off beat, and you're just finding those little pieces that are offbeat and trying to bring them into the main, the master track or whatever it is. That's basically your job.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah, I I have thought for a while. Um what is his name? Rick Rubin is uh, you know, famous producer. And if you hear read about Rick Rubin, he is very light touched, right? He doesn't come in and just tell everybody, all these artists, what to do. He just kind of hangs back and waits for the right time to go this. Um I'm probably a little heavier-handed, but my I have for a while kind of been pretty clear that my role is kind of similar. They're the band. I'm not in this band. Right? Rick Rubin is not in the band. He's the producer. But my job is to help, you know, just a little bit of this and a little bit of that to get the band to perform a little better. Yeah. And that's that's what every you know, entrepreneurial company needs is a good, solid leadership team, which is a band at the top. And so, yeah, you get these little things that aren't quite working, and I help kind of uh get it to work, or you realize, you know, what's not working is some of the people don't fit in the band, right? Pete Best was not the ultimate drummer. You had to get go, you had to go get Ringo Star, right? So uh, you know, it started with Pete Best and you had to go get Ring O'Star.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

You're like, no, we don't need a saxophone in this ensemble.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

This is anybody ever think saxophone was a good idea?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Except for Springsteen. But you've told me too that even part of your um kind of your sales methodology is you're not a cold call, hunt you down. You're a all right, you d you told me what some of these challenges you're having are. You ready to fix them? Nope. And then you wait, what, nine months and you'll be like, how's it going? And that's it, that's your method is kind of that Rick Rubin style of just kind of sit back, watch, and yeah, I think you I think all this stuff is just leadership, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And I think that you you but you can't force people to do stuff they don't want to do. I mean they at the end of the day, you've got to kind of figure out what the the best way to get somebody to do something that they think they should do. And and sometimes that's the right end of the time is now, and sometimes you just gotta go ahead. It's just not it's not the right time. And so yeah, I think you just you gotta build relationships and stay in touch with people and make sure you're actually understanding what they're going through. Yeah uh and so you gotta slow things down, make sure you understand. I actually don't think sales and what I do facilitating and coaching teams is at all different. I think they're all one and the same, and they're just trying to understand what the actual issue is. Okay, what is the actual issue, not what is the issue what the issue presenting as the symptoms, right? Uh we're having cash flow issues or something like that. Well, that's not the issue. Yeah. It's never the issue. It's it's what's presenting itself, right? Let's dig to the front of the or the bottom of the issue. And so I think leading, selling, they're all really the same thing, is you're just trying to help somebody take where they are, and if they want to be here, can you help them get there? And what are the steps you needed to do to get them there? And I don't answer your question, but it's I kind of all see it as one activity. I don't almost don't even separate.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

You don't separate the two silos

Becoming An Entrepreneur Over Time

SPEAKER_01 8:58

of work. Okay. Now, before you I I guess I'll ask you first, do you have you always seen yourself as an entrepreneur? Or do you even see yourself as an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Um no, I d I didn't grow up in uh in a family that you know that was something that was a part of the identity. But looking back now, I'm like, oh, I've always been a little different. Right? Yeah. Um so I grew up with, you know, professors, teachers. No, there's a part of what I do, which is teaching. So there is a little nugget there. And then my dad was a general in the military and then was a judge. So he was a lawyer. And there's some entrepreneurship in being uh he was a politician, right? So he had to get elected. So you actually have to be entrepreneurial in a way. Uh but no, I didn't, I did not. That was not something that I thought much about. And I think it's it's just in the past few years where I'm like the m you know, really being around entrepreneurs more, where I was like, uh these are my these are my people. Yeah. You know? So no, that was that was something that took it kind of revealed itself over time.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Are you you are probably one of the more regimented people I know, just from our conversations. Do you think some of that's from your your dad's time as a judge in a in a military background?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

If it is, it would be in our DNA because you know, I I didn't spend tons my parents split and uh spent a little bit of halftime with uh dad, halftime with mom, up until a point that I went and just lived with my mom. So it probably would not have been from um exposure, it would have just been in the DNA. Embedded in you. Does that make sense? Yeah, because it's not actually something I think I picked up a whole lot from him directly.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Okay. A lot of musicians in your family? Uh grandmother.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Okay. Great pian pianist. Okay. And her brother was like a world-renowned um trombonist in jazz bands in New Orleans, right? So you can be world famous as a trombone player and and really struggle in life. Yeah. Right. So, I mean, I never knew him. Apparently, he's like a really cool guy, but so I've got a little bit of that on my mom's side. On my dad's side, I I don't know that there's any of it. I don't know of anybody with any type of musical. But my mom loves music, and so she steeped us in great music growing up.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

So were you the band leader when you put your band together?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I always fell into that role. It didn't necessarily start that way, but I I would just kind of find my, you know, somebody's got to fill the void.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Okay. And so before you launched kind of your venture here, the coaching, the US implementation, some of the other sales things you do, what did you do right

Leaving Tech For Ministry Work

SPEAKER_01 12:00

before? I ran a production company. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, so I can give you the so I was in that tech startup. Yep. Uh by all accounts, extremely exciting, what we're doing. Doing, you know, most of my friends are either never made it to college, or if they are, they're still in college, you know, and they're doing that, and I'm all I'm doing this stuff all over the world, or I'm doing this crazy stuff. Um probably the deeper version of that story is at that time I was kind of going through this, you know, I was not a uh uh Christian growing up, and so I'm going through this whole experience of becoming a believer, and my whole life is kind of changing. So that's actually that's the probably more important undercurrent that's going on at that point. So I'm in this startup, my life has kind of gone through this kind of big spiritual conversion, and I had started to get involved at a church. Um and I felt a their the worship pastor left, and they reached out to me and were like, I think you're the guy. And I was like, that's fantastic. I do not think I'm the guy, right? So I was like, I don't think I'm the guy, so I appreciate it. But and so I kind of just initially was like, no, no, I'm I'm not turning this down for for that. And uh that's not how it worked out, right? So I at over time I really felt like I was called to do this, and so I I left the the tech startup and went into ministry for 10 years. So I was a worship pastor at a at a church, and so that's actually probably where and I was always a little bit of a fish out of water there because I'm I am wired type A, a little more intense. Uh so that environment was a little of an odd fit, and I kind of knew that it was probably not my long-term fit, but I did that for almost 10 years uh as Worship. And I probably the I I learned two things in that experience, and I'll that'll get us to the production company, but I'll tell you in a second, uh, that have just greatly benefited me in the work that I do.

Leading Volunteers Without Leverage

SPEAKER_00 14:21

The first is we assembled, you know, a pretty good group of talented musicians, some who had been professional, toured, uh on, you know, multi-platinum record. So we had a stable of really good musicians. But I I decided as a part of our model that I really wasn't gonna pay much of these folks. So I was gonna this is gonna be volunteering, uh, except for a few, just a couple anger guys. But uh where I'm going with this is I I realized I had to figure out how to lead people that I had no stick, all carrot. Yeah. I mean, I can fire them from the volunteer band that they're in, but there's not. So that was a great lesson for me, which was I gotta figure out how to motivate people to really put in work, do something that is uh to do something at a high level as a team, to be challenged, to be coached, to be pressed. And at any point they can just tell me to go tech hike, right? So it was a really great, because now I lead these people and they're where it's a strange relationship when a client hires their they're hiring you to challenge them, right? Uh and so you're in this, it's an odd dynamic, right? Because technically you work for them, yep, but your job is to lead them.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Uh and so I learned, I think that I didn't know it then, but looking back on that, it was a tremendously good experience because I really had to figure out how do I get people motivated to do something that I think they need to do without having much of a stick.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

I don't have that control.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Does that make sense? Yeah, because they weren't depending on that role for income or anything else. It was purely fun for them.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

And I would get people in various other parts of the ministry who were like, and I'm I try to say this with whatever degree of humility here, but who'd be like, I don't I don't I'm I'm struggling to get my people to buy in. Uh uh, but it seems like you get all these people to buy in. Like, what are you doing? And I I had to really think about it, I don't, I didn't really have an intentionality about it. It was just kind of how I approach things. Uh but I think my theory, and this is what I do with everybody, is I just expect a lot of people, and I expect that they would have expectations of themselves that are high. Yeah, and so I just wherever you were, we're gonna have high expectations. Agreed? Right? So that's just our agreement. You know what I'm saying? And so there's no other path. And if you don't have those high expectations, it's just not gonna be a good fit for you. So that was one thing that I think has helped me a lot in this work where I I I mean, if I am working with somebody that's on a leadership team, I can't fire that person. Yeah, I can influence a leader to, hey, I think you need to move on from this person, but you can't fire them directly. Second thing is, you know, you get in a ministry setting. Is this are we on track here? Is this good? Okay, that's exactly what I'm uh you know, you do funerals and you do these things that you going through people at, you know, at their highest, but also at their lowest. And and uh, you know, a deep empathy for people who are going through something difficult. And I think when I work with my teams, people are going, they people got other things going on in life. You know, and I think an ability to not be um thrown when somebody is emotional or struggling, or you know, it's like, all right, we can navigate this. And I think that those two things from that ministry experience really helped me a lot in my current work because there's a time to be demanding and strong and challenging and pushing the team, and there's also a time to to kind of sit back, put some, put your hand on somebody's back and go, hey, we want to get through this. Do you know what I'm saying? And so you that that experience, and and I'll be honest with you, I got a period through a period of that where I was like, why am I in this line of work? I I thought I was maybe gonna become a pastor, and it just felt like those doors closed. Like that just wasn't the right path for me. I think this is the right path for me. And so I really struggled on the back end of my ministry experience of like I felt like I was on just straight up on the wrong lane. I didn't know that there was a lot to glean from that experience. Like I was kind of burnt out from it, and and I look back on it and I'm like, oh man, this is huge. This has given me a lot. So anyway, so I'm doing that, and so here's where some of the entrepreneurial bug just kicks in because that I love that, but very early in my kind of faith journey, I had, and I cannot explain it to this day, I got, I just felt this connection to wanting to spend time in in Africa.

Africa Purpose Work Meets EOS

SPEAKER_00 19:03

And I don't really understand it to this day, but early on, since like 2005, I uh I went over there to East Africa for three weeks just by myself and just kind of wanted to experience it. And so once I became on staff at the church doing worship pastor, um I we had this opportunity to start up this ministry nonprofit where we could essentially be the funding arm and set up this program to help orphans and vulnerable children create these small businesses, micro businesses. And it was just like this formless thing. And so there was a group of us, and I was like the tip of the spear on naturally kind of just getting this thing going. So I traveled over there a lot, and and um it's called it, it was originally called Punua and it's called Inua now, and it's been going over 10 years and helped, you know, thousands of young people come out of extreme poverty. So the time I mean I'm I'm doing this kind of worship pastor thing, and I'm also kind of helping on the side kind of launch this enterprise to help young people who I think part of it is I just connected with their story, having some struggles as a kid, you know, yeah, connected with that and wanted to help them. And so uh and so we're still, you know, you actually look around my office, there's a big line over your shoulder. There's a lot of little subtle Africa. The map over there it's not that subtle, it's a big Africa map, uh, little touches, and so I I keep it top of mind. And Laura and I, um, my wife, uh, we are the kind of this primary uh investors in this school that's in in a sloman Nairobi, and we've just kind of been doing this for like 10 years. It's a separate organization, and so that's a kind of a big piece of of who we are as well. So I'm doing that. And when I'm launching, help, helping launch this PNUA, uh, I hired a production production company uh to create some content for us, and we need to tell the story. And uh I hired a guy named John Strong. Um we don't we had been friends, but I wanted him to make some some content, some videos for us. And anyway, we hit it off, he did some great work for us. Uh, and uh over time we built this relationship, and towards the end of my ministry time, he was like, hey man, I got this company, got a team, got employees, and we're a mess. And will you come run my company? Right. And so uh I didn't immediately do that. Uh I consulted with him for I don't even really remember six, nine months, but then ultimately came on and took over running the production company. So last the ministry gig took up run the production company, and that's where I really kind of got into EOS. We used the tools, it was pretty messy, but we used the tools internally and it really helped us get some form uh to what we were doing and we had we had a we had a cool uh little run together we had a film you know get picked up by Netflix and we did some cool national commercial spots and so it was a lot of fun but I really fell in love with EOS and that's where I decided hey I I think this is this is my path so I kind of started connecting the dots on you know fundamentally leading bands is just being a coach or just kind of a coach. Yeah get the team to perform uh and this whole kind of loving entrepreneurial stuff and so I just like hey I can do that put this entrepreneurial stuff together and build a coaching practice and so that was 2018 uh and and kind of just took all this stuff from my past and started really putting it into play with uh what I do now to help kind of second stage entrepreneurial companies so not startups not big you know two to typically my clients are like two to a hundred million uh in revenue uh you know really get to the next stage right really professionalize and get to the next level what would you say to those um business owners or leaders who they feel like their entire staff is a bunch of volunteers where do they start because you said you set the standard and collectively hey this is the standard we're gonna be operating at

Raising Standards Through Clear Communication

SPEAKER_00 23:25

and they're frustrated about that you mean they they view I I thought I was doing really good at my job I'm great at my job and now this person's telling me that the standard's not what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

You know I see that and I hear that I saw that in my own line of work saw it when I owned my own business right we came in this is what we're gonna do we're not gonna do that. But you need that person because they well you think you need that person because they're they're performing or they're generating revenue.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

So make sure understand the question is that if you are now you are the leader and you are now upping the standard you're saying like we are now making a change and you view your employees as volunteers or you help me understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

So I'm the owner of this business right and it's time to level up. We need to take it to the next level we've been coasting we were on a slight decline I feel like I'm managing a bunch of volunteers because people aren't as bought in as I'm trying to be right you know they always say um managing volunteers is like hurting cats right very very difficult to do so where do where do these business owners where do these entrepreneurs start yeah I think um if I think I where are you going if if you're all of a sudden wanting to up the standard uh and then you look at your people and you're going okay they're not buying in I think the instinct is to get frustrated with the people and I think the reality is you've probably severely undercated un undercommunicated why we're doing this.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah. What's the story? What's the motivation? What's the ambition? Why why why are this all of a sudden why have the rules changed all of a sudden the rules have been this way for 27 years and in the last six months the rules have changed. Yeah uh that is not their problem you're making it about them that's a leadership issue I think step one has to be the leader has to kind of get I think you got to go and you probably want to go to some key people first who you think can help be on the journey and lay out what it is that you're seeing and why this this is why I want to up the standard I feel like there's more here there's more opportunity and I and I think being humble about it is probably a really good place to start. I've not always known how to get us to perform to a higher level I've always wanted us to and now I'm seeing a path for us too and so I want you to understand why it is that if we start seeing some changes and higher expectations why that is right and so I think I think there's more leadership work and that is work. And a lot of entrepreneur founder folks that's not their initial go-to they are action people take an idea get it to action go get a sale move move move move move and this is this can be some slower work this is investment work. So I think that's the first place to start is helping people understand what is motivating you and then probably then you got to do the other work of seriously key people making sure you understand what motivates them. Why do you do what you do? Right so a lot of this is just you got to start kind of investing in some of your people if you have a really large team then we got to figure out who are the key people we need to get on board so that they can then hopefully buy into what you're trying to do and then they can kind of get everybody else on board. I would say that if that is just fundamentally not a great skill set then we got to go figure who can we get around you that can help take your idea and translate that to the rest of the company to get the rest of the company on board.

unknown 27:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

You see what I'm saying? Because some some of the folks I work with are probably just never going to be very good at articulating that and empathetically trying to do that work and so we might need to get and we the term we use is integrator right so if you're a visionary and you don't know how to get the team to get all aligned then we probably need to get some folks around you to that can help the team get aligned. Now we then may have to come to a serious point and this happens too where let's say you've done that and they're just they like the old way then we're gonna have to confront that. Yeah. Right? And the difficult part of everything we do is the folks and could be wonderful folks who got us here may just not be the right folks or at least in the current roles that they're in to get us to the next phase. But I to the short answer to your question is a long answer short answer question is I think the leader has to look inside internally and go if they're not getting it have I communicated why it is that all of a sudden I want to say here were the rules here are the new rules okay yeah you could push back pretty good I think that's great.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I I I saw this differently I saw this in myself when we took over our shop and I came in first few weeks we set the new standard and we weren't good at dealing with that confrontation and the people who were very welcome to are very you know they were like okay cool yeah this is the new standard and then over the course of a few weeks reverted back into what they were most comfortable in. And it took us pulling them up month after month meeting after meeting to the new standard again. And it became frustrating and wore us down. Right. I I think that you know there's a bunch of reasons there and this this this episode is not about me so um we could make it about you want to start turning the table turn around switch real quick I don't I don't get interviewed very often I do a lot of interview how does it feel to be on the other

Luck, Timing, And Betting On Yourself

SPEAKER_01 29:16

side of the table?

SPEAKER_00 29:16

That's fine.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah it's different though. I I I would love to ask you this question before we shift into kind of the the main question I have for you but how much do you feel like these companies you work with or businesses that you've been a part of how much of it is is right place, right time, luck versus these people are just the the Elon Musk of their industry and they just everything they touch is turns to gold you think it's a is that a 90% luck? Is it 50-50?

SPEAKER_00 29:48

It's definitely partially and I don't know if luck is the right word you could probably dig a little deeper but let's stick with luck. Yeah it's a I I I think man I think that if you think that all of your success there's not some luck baked in I mean I mean fine you I you can do that. I think there's some element of how how did you grow up? What were you exposed to I think it's different for everybody. I've got a couple second generation or third generation where there was already something established and they've done a great job of capitalizing on something that was already established. So yeah I hope they recognize how fortunate they are as something to work with. And then there's some who you know who grew up dirt poor and didn't have anything and really just scrapped and scraped and so it's probably a little different for everybody. But I think at the end of the day we're all none of us made ourselves we literally were made by somebody else. Yeah right so even even if you can't figure anything else out to go I didn't do it all myself you did not birth yourself. You are here as some type of a gift. And so I think even if that's all you can find you could go hey I had an opportunity to be at this time I got this information you know I was exposed to this and I and then I applied the work put the work in and here we are. Okay. So I but I think there's got to be some portion of it that's so what was the happenstance?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

What was the lucky moment where you you stepped back and you said all right it's time to bet on myself right because you had the job with the VC back company you moved into uh ministry work right where you led a teen so someone else is paying you along these these steps and eventually you are the person leading the production company right so you've elevated yourself to that top spot but the company's still paying you right um there was something that was built there before you at what point did you go all right it's time to bet on John King it's time to bet on myself and you launch this venture yeah I mean we got to the point where the vision for what we were trying to do with the production company we were just not on the same page uh and and it was just not we weren't going to get on the same page and so um I knew that that wasn't the right place to be so we stepped back and we had been financially smart enough to I had a little bit of time not not forever but a little time uh to figure it out and you know I did some like one off like my first my first income after I left the production company was the production company hired me back as a as a a consultant on a documentary that we were working on.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Right? So I immediately you know I'm now on my own but I'm immediately coming right back in that world you know I think it's pretty I don't know six months five months after officially kind of moving on you know I had a pretty good idea I think this I I could go an employment path but I just kept coming back to I really want to do my own thing. And I think underneath the hood I've always wanted to do my own thing. That's probably wasn't I was never a great employee I was a bad employee but I was I probably wasn't always the easiest to deal with okay right I mean I think I was a team player but you always knew where I stood my opinions were always going to be very well known and so that's where we are right you know like I I'm I've always been independent kind of minded and and I think at the end of the day I think it was just this this thing that was inevitable that I you know I think I just wanted freedom as much freedom as possible to kind of dictate what the outcome was going to be career wise family wise uh but I would say it was my wife who finally just said hey dude would you just do this and stop talking about it which is probably pretty common right not a huge shocker. We were sitting around the table actually not terribly different than this she was sitting here I was sitting where you are uh dinner table and she was like just do it we just gotta do it right and she we had uh uh she was pregnant with our first you know uh she's a nurse so we didn't have you know massive income to rely on and so that was that was when we decided to kind of go for it this is 2018 and man it was lean dude it was friggin' lean I made like eighteen thousand dollars in 2018 I think I made like $35,000 in 2019 uh so it was lean for a couple years figuring out the mechanics of knowing that I would be good at the work uh but for the first time being the person who was by themselves having to go develop and close all the work. I had been in the selling process before but not the single person relying on driving all the revenue. So that was that was quite a journey to kind of figure that out and you know we had some highs and lows for sure uh in that in that journey. But by about 2020 late 2020 things started to up and to the right kick up.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

So

Rebuilding Identity After A Career Pivot

SPEAKER_01 35:45

I've read a ton as you you know and you read about some of these entrepreneurs and they're like all right I'm gonna bet on myself and they go out day one and they're just doing everything. And they burn themselves out. So that day across from the table from from your wife in the next morning were you like a totally different person or were you just the same person reoriented?

SPEAKER_02 36:06

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

I think about those guys who say they're gonna lose a bunch of weight and right and so the next morning they wake up at 4 30 and they go run five miles and then they you know they can't walk for two weeks right and they so they did too much too fast. So were you out the gates just hunting like crazy or was it more of a a steady process of building that new identity if it really was even a new identity I think the energy was there but I just didn't know the mechanics.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

I didn't know who exactly I should talk to and so I'm talking to all kinds of folks and that over time you realize oh this this these aren't the right people talking to these are not really prospects or these aren't the right connectors or so I didn't really have a network. Okay. And in this work you need a network where people see you as this guy who can help a group of people move forward in their business. And I did not have that. And um I think I thought I had more of that when I started. Okay. Because I knew people in the business entrepreneurial community but they did not view me that way. So I had been niched into a different area. Yeah you were the production guy I was either the production guy or I was the ministry guy. Okay and it was actually the ministry guy that was probably harder the production guy we could we didn't have any of that that that was a harder leap for people to go I'm I'm I'm trying to figure out how to get from this to that. So I had all these I thought those were gonna be my people and that was that was humbling experience. Needed very humbling I mean I actually had a guy from that I went to church with who I was one of the probably the can I say dickish conversations I've ever had with somebody and he's like oh I just want to be clear I'm not buying this from you I just had to see what this was about and I was like oh cool interesting that's kind of like a prick thing uh in retrospect it was gold yeah I needed that right you you need that kind of humbling and you know as a personality challenging me like that is like okay cool all right yeah dude uh I will go figure this out right so it actually motivated me more uh when I got some of that pushback and so I had to really just figure out who do I need to talk to once I started getting into the right circles with people who I didn't have as much of a previous connection with that's when things started uh moving so you know I've been experiencing this myself as I shift from you know corporate to uh my own thing how do you because your skills your talents your personality that was all the same right you're that's still what you bring to you about the same but how did you go about cultivating that new identity and building that that network right how'd you get in the right rooms well one of my very first key people uh was Ray Watson that I connected to yeah and we hit it off and for whatever reason uh so my first client was in one of his uh CEO roundtable groups and my first client was like you need to be Ray uh and so it just kind of started going from there and Ray put me on the speaking circuit basically and I have always been a you know I mean I'm not like the world's greatest or or orator uh I can't even say that word. But effective enough. Yeah you know and and so I just tried to give as many talks on what I was doing as possible and get in front of as many people and I I realized that that was probably my uh my path was I just needed more people to talk to and doing talks was a great way for me to get efficiently in front of a captive audience and then I just tried to be really systematic with meeting those people and following up with those people and so pretty quickly I started getting a little steam there once once I could get people to say hey you're a guy who knows something that can benefit people once you come in and give a little talk so that was huge.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

So that was kind of the start of the flywheel if you will right that that spin. What's the flywheel look like nowadays?

The Phone Flywheel For Relationship Sales

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Are you pretty you got you know open calendar uh not very open calendar which is great um it's actually presents different challenges and nothing to be complained about is is is uh figuring out you know it's more of a capacity issue yeah but the flywheel now is part of what I learned um so I kind of didn't tell you what I learned right so what I learned obviously the talks were a piece of it but I told you I didn't know the mechanics I had a great guy who has now become a mentor when I first started who was basically like um look we're gonna go make friends with as many people as we possibly can and the primary mechanism is gonna be through the phone and so we're gonna call as many people as you know and we are going to build this up through the phone and as you give talks we add people into the list and now we call them and they just bop both that is really the catalyst right was this consistent cadence of calling checking in building relationships with people following up helping them staying in touch over time and so in the beginning that was I was doing a ton of that as I've gotten busier as essentially that work worked and I got more and more clients the amount of that I do is a little lower but that is my consistent flywheel right so I don't do as many talks although I enjoy doing them just don't have as much time don't do a lot of networking events I do my client work and I get on the phone. And when I first was taught that work uh man I was like you know I don't want to feel like I use car salesman I don't want to you know all this stuff yeah and I went from really hating the idea of doing it and the only thing that really motivated me was I thought about my family. I got to provide for these people. And so I'm willing to do whatever I've got to do. And so I worked through that head trash the head the mindset stuff of like am I cold calling am I turning into that guy I didn't want to be that guy to really just seeing it as the most efficient and effective way to build a lot of relationships with a lot of people and so man that that is really the thing that led me to to my practice consistently upswing. And that's why about a year you know in the past year I in addition to implementing EOS I implement something called outgrow which is just that right at scale. So you're just getting all of your sales customer facing people to consistently go outbound and build you know relationships with people primarily through the phone uh you know you consistently see 15 to 30 percent revenue growth and it just works and so I I come back to my own story and so the beauty of that work is I'm not asking people to do anything I don't I don't currently do or haven't done before and you know went from um 1800 in company revenue in 2008 to to seven figure company revenue you know so and and so all of that is to I I really contribute to just the willingness to consistently reach out and build relationships primarily through the phone.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Yeah I'm did it this morning got my calls in man got my five calls in I so I'm glad that you said it the way you said it because I was hoping Is this a huge tangent? Are we on track? No, I I don't want to boast about myself on the podcast about you, but you are following all my leading questions perfectly. Okay.

Credibility In The Trenches

SPEAKER_01 44:09

I asked you earlier about how do you raise the standard for your company? And you had a key comment just there that I'm doing the thing that I teach. Right? So I wanted to bring back to you you can't raise the standard if you're not willing to meet the same standard that you're expecting of your employees.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

You have to be willing. Now, should a CEO of a hundred million dollar company be actually doing what everybody else is doing? No. Should you be willing to do some of that? At times?

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

You should be willing to do what you need to do. There's a balance there, right? Right? If we're looking to expand into four or five markets, I don't need you cleaning a truck. Nothing wrong with cleaning a truck. I don't think you should be cleaning the truck today. Right? We need to figure out how to get. So I think you need to, I do think you need to be willing to do certain things that you're asking people to do. It just builds credibility. Like I've got a team that's starting outgrow this week or in like uh a week and a half. And the culture of the company, it, you know, it's not as healthy as it as we need it to be. We need to get the the health of the culture. There's some doubt. And I told this guy, I was like, I think it's gonna be important because we're gonna ask your team to do some stuff. Getting on the phone scares the living daylights out of people, right? It does. They want to throw up in a trash can. And I've been there. Uh even though what's the really the worst that could happen, but that's not the point, right? It is a real fear that we have of rejection, and and his team is is is nervous. And I was like, it's gonna be important that you join them. Join them in the work, right? I think they've got to see that you're you don't have to do as much as they do. But let's get you doing some of this. And I think he's like, absolutely, I think that's gonna be a key piece of me being like, I'm not asking you to do something. This is nerve-wracking for you. I'm not gonna ask you to do something that I'm not willing to kind of come alongside. Let me get in the trenches with you, right? So I think that that's a good example. Should he be doing that all the all day? No, there are other things he needs to be focused on, but in this case, it will help kind of build the culture up to meet, right? He's raising the standard, and so he's willing to do what he's asking him to do.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

So, John, as we kind of wrap up here, I have a few more questions. I want to ask you again, and it sounds like the answer is Laura, but what made you bet on yourself?

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Well, I think Laura uh got tired of me talking about it. Right? And so uh she is she's an amazing person, so she I think has at the right times at various times, have she just said, hey, do it ago. But I think pri personally I mean we all have to bet on ourselves to some degree. And I don't even know is that the right language to even use, but let's we all have to decide what we want out of life. And I wanted not like a hugely driven by a lot of fancy stuff type guy. That's what I love about Lara. We that's not, you know, we have done well. You know, if you saw where we lived, it's not that much bigger than this room, you know. I mean, we we haven't let that necessarily keep pace with what we could. So we're not driven by that, but driven by opportunities, freedom, freedom to use our time how we want to use it, freedom to do interesting things, and not have a lot of worry about it, right? So we had a nice trip to New York City for Valentine's Day, and I didn't want to, I didn't want to spare an expense, right? Let's just, if we're gonna do it, let's do it. And so we did. And I that is important to me is if we're gonna do stuff like that, uh meaningful time together. I want to be in a position where we don't have to worry about that stuff, even if we're not gonna be splurging all the time. Does that make sense? So I think it was it's really driven by freedom. And then the more analytical side is um, you know, I think the perception is that going out on your own is necessarily riskier. And I think that very much so in certain circumstances, it there is more risk, especially at the beginning if you don't have uh a lot of clients or customers. But I'm not so sure that that's always accurate. And the way I like to think about it is um when you're an employee, you have one customer.

unknown 48:57

Right?

SPEAKER_00 48:58

And so I teach all of my clients if you have one customer, or we have two customers, that's a that's customer concentration. That is incredibly risky right in your business. And so that's very risky as a person who's taking care of their family. That's also risky.

SPEAKER_03 49:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Is to you've got one customer, the employer, you're betting that they're gonna take care of you. Well, what their job is to make decisions that's for the good of the whole company as a whole. And maybe they make good decisions and maybe they make bad decisions, but they have at times the right and the prerogative to go, we gotta do something different, and it may mean we don't need those people anymore. And that's not necessarily a good or a bad thing, it just kind of is what it is. Well, that's you put yourself in a risky position. You go over and you build a company that has uh, let's say, a diverse enough customer base, so I've got 30, roughly about 30 companies that I work with. Well, nobody has 100% retention. Every company has churn. I do, you know, we have some, and so sometimes it's not the right timing, there are various issues, and people fall off. Well, if one of those falls off, I don't enjoy it. Who does? Yeah. Every once in a while I do enjoy it, uh, depending on who the client is. But as a general rule, uh I don't enjoy that feeling, uh, but I'm not I'm not gonna lose sleep over that. So I in my work, I get fired. But my firing is now the risk has been decreased. And so for me, there was an analytical side of this too, which where I started to go, I actually don't know that this is necessarily riskier. Do you understand? Yeah, the perception is that it's riskier, and there are times in which it's riskier, but I think on the whole, if you can get it to a point where there's something going, uh, you know, I I would not want to go back to the position or be in a position where I'm worried is is my boss gonna fire me? And this is the only stream of revenue I have. So that's risky. So I think there's a the the kind of emotional spiritual side of it, which was drawn to being able to create. I think that creative side of me, that musician, has never gone away. I want to create. I don't know what the future looks like. I want to be a part of that creation. Uh, and I'm okay. I don't need to know everything before I take a leap. I need to just know enough. So I've always drawn, and this gives you that opportunity. Uh and then the analytical side is really looking at what's riskier.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

And I think I've gotten to the point where I would rather, I think, at this point, have that risk that's spread across multiple revenue streams than one revenue stream that says, you know, without notice, and you've experienced this, uh your services no longer needed, and that's it. No revenue. So there's there's kind of the heart and the mind side of how I've kind of looked at it. Yeah. Does that answer the question?

SPEAKER_01 51:49

I think it does. I hope so. It does. And as we we wrap up here, I mean, I want to first by uh I don't know if I've shared this with you, but the night that you and I met, uh, we were driving on our way to that dinner thing at church, and I turned to Taylor and I was like, you know what? I think I'm I think I want to start some sort of business coaching thing. Like I I don't know if I want to do this corporate sales thing for long. Okay. And we were in the process of selling our business, so you knew that that we were kind of spreeing up some time. And we sat down in that frigid cold room, and I leaned over and I was like, What do you do for work, man? You're like, oh, my business coach. And I literally turned to Taylor and I was like, You won't believe that. This is cool. I did not know this. Um, so I think that was a lucky moment where I leaned in to not just, you know, I think I followed up with you at the end. I was like, hey, what's your number, man? Let's get let's get lunch, something like that. Yeah. For those of you that are for those people out there that aren't blessed to call you a friend, they're not here in such a flood or they're not a client of yours. Where do you recommend they go?

eLeap Tools And Final Advice

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Books, podcasts, things like that that would help them kind of cultivate this mindset of leaning into their own gifts and talents and trying to find where that underlying metronome beat is that they need to be in.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

I don't know how big your audience is at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

It's right now it's me and you.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

We're working on it. We're working on it. Uh I would say they can they can reach out to me. I'd love to talk to them. If there's somebody out there who sees this is like, hey, I'd love to, if if this is helpful, and you may have watched this and be like, oh, that was not a good use of my time. Uh but if it was, you know, um, you can put my email, I can give you my information and people can reach out. I think um, so I implement EOS. EOS is founded by Gino Wickman. Gino is also working on something called eLeap.

SPEAKER_03 53:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Uh eLEAP is um he created this whole series of toolkits for kind of the stage of entrepreneur that's helping decide first, are you really an entrepreneur and is this a good path for you? Ooh. And then if you are, kind of the early stages of how to get that going prior to having something like a leadership team or a larger company. So it's really in that kind of like one man, two man, you know, four or five people type stage, I'd highly recommend looking at that. They've got all kinds of cool resources. And and his first objective is actually to help you figure out is this a good path for you to take this leap? Or are you is are you more called to um you know being an entrepreneur, being entrepreneurial inside of a company? Great. There are all kinds of potential opportunities for that, and he doesn't necessarily help you down that path, but he helped you uh gets clarity on on that. So I think that's step one is just figuring out um if it's the right path. I will say, and I don't want to be overly callous, but life is short. And if you feel like this is if you're getting a strong enough, if this will not go away in your mind, and this is probably what was going with happening with you, right? It was happening with me. It just wouldn't go away.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

You gotta pay attention to it.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

And you know, I always try to look, I always try to go to the end. My wife thinks I'm morbid, right? Because I talk about death and like the end a lot, but I always go there and go, well, what would I have wanted to be proud of? And I think courage and perseverance is important to me. What what was the courageous thing I felt like I needed to do at the time? And if you're just feeling like that's something that won't go away, don't be stupid, you know, especially if you have a family, you need to take care of your family and do this other stuff. But I would pay close attention to it and know that look at a look around, people figure it out all the time. Yeah. Uh, and you probably can too. So uh I think you want to have a plan, be clear on the mechanics, maybe a little more clear than I was, uh, and go for it. Awesome, man.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Well, I appreciate you, and I think that's it, man. I guess we l we uh we end this on. I love it. Cool. All right. Thanks, man.