Generosity = Profit: The Surprising Secret of Great Leaders

The definition of generosity is giving more than is customary or expected. Now understand it's really about the relationships. The better relationships you have, the better opportunity you have for profit. The better relationships you have, the more repeat customers you have, better opportunities you have for referrals. And people do need money, don't get me wrong, and money goes a long ways, right? But it doesn't get remembered like time and [music] talent. And so when you leverage time, talent, treasure, generosity with people, and that's that's where it's all about. Doesn't work on machines. This only works on people. There are some things as a leader that you are not going to tell your spouse, right? It's just not going to help [music] them. Relationships. There's some things that you can't share with your employees. Some things you can't share with everybody else. And so, get an advisor. Get a coach. Everybody needs a coach. I have coach. I have coaches. You need somebody that you can talk to. But don't do it all by yourself. It's I don't think it's necessary and I don't think it's healthy. >> Welcome to the Let's Talk Business podcast, a project of the PEX group. Gain valuable, actionable ideas from the world's [music] top business leaders to help you take the next step in your business journey. And now, here is your host, Manny Hoffman. Coming to you from the PEX headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. This is the podcast for nononsense advice to help you learn, grow, and lead. Today, I'm so excited to welcome our guest, John W. John is a business and executive coach, author of Checkmate, and the creator of the whole life leadership program. After decades working alongside multi-million dollar companies, he now helps entrepreneurs and business owners cut through the clutter and the noise, hire the right people, and build systems that scale. His focus is on clarity, accountability, and generosity, showing leaders how better relationships and stronger culture can derive real growth and profit. In our conversation, we talked about the never- ending requirements of leadership, why accountability has to run both ways, and what generous leadership looks like on a stressful Tuesday when everything feels like it's on fire. It's a fascinating topic with a lot to unpack. Let's get right to our conversation with John W. John. Thank you so much for joining me on the Let's Talk Business podcast. >> Well, thank you so much for having me. Okay. So, um, thanks for for joining us and and and it's it's always a pleasure and your topic is leadership and which is always refreshing for me and my audience. Although we cover a lot in leadership, but the as as we always say that if you're a leader, you're always growing and every day you're waking up, you're thinking about what could I learn to become a better leader today. So, I know our listeners will enjoy this episode. for our listeners that don't know anything about you, give us a little bit of your past history and what got you to what you're doing now. >> Well, so uh first thing I'd say there's no such thing as perfection in leadership. It's it's constant growth. Um second, I'm currently building this thing called the whole life leadership program and that starts with my corporate experience. I spent about 30 years in multi-billion dollar corporate and then in 2010 um the client I the company I worked for went moved to Dallas and I was in Southern California and I didn't want to uproot my family so I had to make a decision go back into corporate or start my own practice and I was getting kind of burned out on the whole corporate thing so I was starting my own practice and um I purchased a focal point franchise so I didn't uh coaching I did some research coaching was something that fit me very well and Um, I didn't want to start from scratch. So, I bought into the focal point Brian Tracy organization. Spent about um 7 years with them. Uh, three years in Jeff Walker's launch club digital marketing. Uh, then the pandemic hits and life throws me a curveball. I get divorced. I have heart surgery and I say I'm out of California and I go to the Northwest. >> And um, a lot of reflection time there, right? And looking back at my my 10 years of practice, >> uh, I realized that while I'd love to say all of my clients were wildly successful, that just wouldn't be 100% right. Some of them were and some of them were less so. And I looked at why, and it really came down to two important things. One is, uh, you know, sort of individual identity. Could they manage their own selves very well, and were they willing to do the work necessary to change that and put it into the right place? or B, could they uh work with and relate to other people around them? And that's sometimes that's their spouse or their employees or their customers or the service providers. Um and those are restrictions. If you can't as a leader, if you can't do those things, then I think you're really um shortcircuiting yourself. >> Mhm. >> And so, um I also when I came up here, I did not want to go through the business building activity that I did down in Southern California. Um I really plus it was the pandemic. There wasn't a whole lot you could do, right? Um so I really started building uh live programs, live virtual events and I created a product called uh the fasttrack to business freedom. Now that supported this book that I wrote and published on Amazon called Checkmate, winning tactics for translating ideas into money. And uh the concept there is this five steps. Clarity, people, testing, planning, and change management. But the one thing that's consistent through all of that is people. And so I really went through a the the 5D challenges about how to acquire how to attract, acquire, and retain top talent because A players want to work with AA players. And so I had some clients on there talking to me and so one one of them, good friend of mine now, Armando, he says, you know, if you're going to try and attract A players, you better be an A-level leader. >> Oh wow. >> And it was like a light bulb went off on my head like that's what I need to teach is A-level leadership. Um and that is where whole life leadership came out and was born. And so I built a u sort of a six facet. It's sort of like a diamond. I think when you polish the facets, the light shines and the six facets that I built. First one, clarity. And I think that's at the start of everything all the time. Um if you're clear on things, it saves so much time, so much energy. Um second one is goes right into relationships. Goes into people. You know, how do we interact? How do we relate? My theme is generosity. And I think generosity in your relationships with people always delivers and when I say always I mean always delivers better results. And so we go through this relationships uh activity where we build generosity into our communication skills. Um we still need goals right because goal management is important and that's how you decide to manage your time. Um and then we have this thing called teamwork which is how do you get your team to work and play together well. So, it's no longer 100% in your >> control. Um, and then I add in two components. One on strategic planning because we want to stay focused on the most important stuff. And then one on financials. My my clients are early maturation business units. They're really um at that stage where they want to grow, but they don't have a system. They don't have a model. And so, whole life leadership gives them that plan, that model. Um, and often they're not coming from a financial background. They're coming from a service or trades background. And so they don't have a lot of financial um, skill set. And and I don't think you have to have everything in the financials, but if you're not measuring the most important stuff, you're going to find yourself in in a hole. >> Um, so we really talk about just what are the most important things to measure? And then, you know, as you grow, do you need a um CPA? Yes. A bookkeeper? Yes. Maybe at some point you need a CFO. And the new fractional CFO model is really awesome because you don't have to hire a full-time CFO. And I can teach a lot of things. I'm on the relationship side clearly. Uh I'm not on the financial side. [laughter] Um so I just I just know what I have to do to set up my stuff and and how I help my clients get their stuff set up. [snorts] >> Got it. So, so one of the things that uh I I've seen you write is uh generosity as you mentioned before which you speak a lot about generosity and from your perspective generosity creates profit. Uh I ju I I just want to you know for our listeners too because that's something it's a bold statement >> because people want to be generous and and they but just they don't connect it to profit. They usually say if I'm going to be very generous I'm going to pay my employees more. I'm going to do this more and at the end of the day I'm going to stay with less profit. So what what's your definition of profit and how do you connect the two? >> Well, let me let me do the definition of generosity first. >> Sure. So the definition of generosity is giving more than is customary or expected. Now understand it's really about the relationships. The better relationships you have, the better opportunity you have for profit. The better relationships you have, the more repeat customers you have, better opportunities you have for referrals. And so um when we really look at this, if you think about the sales model, I mean this is I think the most obvious one. >> The salesperson can oversell and win one big contract from a client kind of take them for whatever they can. U but you will never get a referral from that client and you will never get repeat business from that client. And so the lifetime value of that client is drastically reduced. But when you're generous, and sometimes generosity isn't money, sometimes it's just attention. Sometimes it's it's making sure that you're having the conversations that allow you to put your employee in the place where they could be most successful, right? And and so you think about generosity, three areas, time, talent, and treasure. So time, whenever you're giving somebody your attention, that's generous because you don't have to. And by the way, most people don't. um whenever you're sharing your wisdom, your knowledge, your history, that's generous. You don't have to do that. And you know, you can get paid for that, but if you're giving it away, people will appreciate it. Uh there'll be gratitude and thankfulness that comes back and and a willingness to spend more time and money with you. And then ultimately, we talk about treasure, right? But treasure, that is the least effective model for generosity. You can write a check, fastest thing in the world, but and people do need money, don't get me wrong, and money goes a long ways, right? But it doesn't get uh remembered like time and talent. And so when you leverage uh time, talent, treasure, generosity with people, and that's that's where it's all about. Doesn't work on machines, it only works on people. um you know your spouse, your family is engaged, your employees are engaged, your service providers which can do so much for serving your business um and then of course your customers you know it all makes a difference and it all leads to greater um profitability. Mhm. Um what um what you mentioned about your book which is obviously connecting chess to business. Um from based on the the leader the the leaders that you have worked with, what is the biggest mistake you see people making in business strategy that would would make them lose the game. >> Oh, making errors in the hiring space, right? People just think, hey, I just need somebody to take care of this task. and they go get the first guy they can find to take care of that task, but then they end up having to manage that person and it actually costs more time to manage that person and they they don't really do a great job of of hiring from an attitude standpoint. So my my model So if you if you have a bad hire, it is incredibly expensive, right? There's training and time to get that person up to speed and then they're bad, so you let them go and you have to start the process all over again. It's just really expensive. Even if it's a a low task hire, somebody that's not really expensive, you're still talking tens of thousands of dollars, uh, plus your time, which typically most of us don't measure that, but it does take time to manage people effectively. So, the key is to hire for ownership, right? Not task. In other words, it's the outcome that's necessary here. And then to make sure that the person has the attitude, the mindset, the behaviors that will support those tasks. because we can teach exper we can teach skills, we can help them get more experience faster, but it's pretty hard to teach that attitude stuff. Um, so hire for ownership the outcomes and make sure that they're capable of doing that, they have the right attitude in the process, you'll have a much better success rate. >> Mhm. What is um, and this is something I've heard many many leaders uh wrestling with, which is let's say they hire for attitude, but then there's obviously you still have to do the job. You know, it reminds me of a story. I was once sitting in a company which company culture was a very strong um part of the of the hiring process in that company and there was a guy that was very much connected with the culture and but they they they just didn't do a good job and what their task what the job was and at one point the leader called him in and said you know what I think it's time we let you go because you're just not producing he says but I'm such an asset to the culture people love me people like me he says then great come back at lunch every day we'll give you cereal for free. But somebody said even if you're great for the culture, you still have to do the job. >> So >> yes, >> so the skill and the production and productivity is equally important to the attitude of the person. And what a lot of business owners wrestle with and I want to get your take on is they hire for attitude and they let's say it's a beginner, somebody that's fresh with the energy and the right mindset, but they're just just not catching up on the skill set and and and and in order to on in order to produce what the company really needs for the value. What what is that mechanism that you teach your leaders to what is the time we say, you know what, okay, it's not working out or give us some more time and they're going to get to it. Well, that you have to give them a little bit of time, right? You can't just make a decision in a day. But it's to me, it all comes down to KPIs and metrics. Every employee should have KPIs and metrics that are responsible that that they're responsible for their job so that we can see how well they're performing, but not only that, they can see how well they're performing, right? And then if they compare themselves to others, and this is often, you know, there's no reason to keep this secret, right? Um they can see whether they're performing at that job or not. And if if if you don't see some movement, now I I'm not saying perfection or anything, but if you're not seeing any movement in 30 days, then there's an issue. You need to, you know, step in and say, "Okay, I'm not seeing any movement." And see if there's some corrective behavior we can do. Um, I wouldn't go much more beyond 60 days if I don't see the movement that I think is really necessary. and I might make a move in 30 days if if it's proven that I can't this person can't doesn't have the skill set, doesn't have the knowledge, doesn't have the will to do the work that they that they need to do. But it's really all about those measurements >> because then it's no longer subjective, it's very objective. >> Yeah. One one of the things that you speak a lot and I I think leaders are now very familiar with the word accountability when it comes to people. Um, why do we see so so little leaders diving in to really build out a proper accountability chart? Like like why is this always the hard the hardest part for a leader? >> Okay, so this is more opinion because I didn't measure this, right? But I think accountability goes both ways. I mean, you need your employees to do what they said they were going to do, but you need to do what you said you were going to do. And so if you hold your employees accountable, they are going to in turn, whether you like it or not, they're going to hold you accountable, right? And if you're not willing to step into that, and I think the best leaders do, I think the best leaders step into that, figure out how they can be accountable. Um, but if you're not willing to have your employees and and again, the classic business, they they work for me, they should do what I tell them to do, you that isn't that isn't the way it works. That's not going to be the way that you get long-term viability in your business. >> Mhm. Before we dive into this week's episode, I wanted to share an opportunity that many business owners are already taking advantage of. If you're feeling stuck or unsure about your next move in your business, there's still time to turn things around. That's where a clarity session comes in. This is a focused onetime strategy session with me personally where we'll break down your biggest challenges, identify opportunities, and map out your best next steps for your business. You walk away with a clear action plan to move forward with confidence. Now, I want to make this clear from the get- go. This is not an ongoing consulting offer. You know your business best. This session is simply about giving you the clarity and direction you need to take action and make the rest of the year a success. Many entrepreneurs have already gained incredible value from those sessions. [music] So, don't miss out. Reach out to me now by emailing podcastpexgroup.com. I look forward speaking to you and seeing how I could bring more clarity to your business. What would you say um in terms of going back to you said like it's all about the people? What is what if if if a listen a leader listening to this this conversation and they want to improve their culture, they want to improve the the type of people they attract, where are the pl where are the lowhanging fruits in in a in a in a companies that you find that where they could start improving and what would be the steps they could take? >> So I I think this is a relatively easy answer, but it's hard. I think you you lean on behavioral assessments. Um, you know, people don't want to spend the money because it costs money to hire somebody, but a bad hire if it cost you 30 grand. I mean, you could spend $1,000 in assessments to a define your ideal employee, the person that you really need for that particular role. And I don't think that happens very well. Um, and then B, uh, if you have an existing team, an existing that you're trying to do, let's run the systems like whether whether you use disk or KBY or CVI, there's a bunch of them out there. I'm not saying that you have to pick one. I I'm a just a big fan. But you're going to get the underlying behaviors for your team and you will rapidly see where the connections and the disjointed pieces are and you can either make steps to adjust adjust or train, right? Or make shifts in your organization, right? What is it? Colin said, "Hey, it's about getting the right people on the bus in the right seats." >> Yeah. Got it. And and and in terms of in terms of uh sometimes you you have an employee which maybe not be an A player. How much do do you think a leader's job is to work on that to in order to improve to get the person from a B to an A? >> Well, a good question. Do you want to get them from a B to an A? Right? Because at the end of the day, your employees are never going to do it like you do it. You're a one-of-a-kind person. The question becomes, can they do it well enough? Can they do it well enough so that you can focus on the higher value, higher priority items? And so you may have somebody that can do it well enough, but they're a B player, right? And maybe they don't want to be an A player, but maybe that's all you need is a B player in that space. >> Um, not everybody is cut out to be an A player. >> Got it. um when somebody starts off a company and they're usually they're you know they're the chief everything officer so they're doing >> the chief the all the hats on the board >> okay at one point they start hiring the first hire the second hire the third hire let's say they have five hires so which means they're they're moving over from operator slash to a leader um that's you know at which point do you feel they have to have that mindset switch in their career >> well you're you're right on it I I I don't know that if it's it's a switch, right? I mean, I think you start figuring that out right now. If you have a goal or a plan that says, I want to get this business started and I want it to look like this in 5 years and it's going to take more than five guys. It's going to take, you know, a team that looks like this. This is all part of the clarity work that we're going to be doing to make this happen. Then I think you have to start working on your leadership skills immediately. Now, if you don't, it's going to be very hard to find that a player because you're at that point where you're talking about having five employees, your next hire might be a leader, >> right? Might be a COO or type of person that manages and leads others. And if you don't have the leadership chops to bring another person on board that's a leader, you're not going to get the the the talent that you need. >> So, I I think it starts from the beginning. Mhm. Now in in terms of I know that you're working on a program on a live event uh in in somewhere in September. Could you share a little bit more about the what what framework you're going to be going through? >> So that's the whole life leadership framework. This is the the tool system that I built to extend the leadership principles that I that I teach. And so it's a live virtual event. So it's it's done on Zoom. You can do it from anywhere. um it is an implementation event not just a learning training event. So the thing and it's done on Zoom. So but we can use breakout rooms. We have all kinds of tools that allow us to um stay engaged and extend our learning not just from me but from everybody else around you. I mean the the collective knowledge in the room is pretty giant and if we can get that so so if we go into clarity for example one of the first sessions we're going to do is on clarity everybody needs it um and we talk about a vision statement right where you going with this business right if you don't know that you're not going to get there but when you create your vision statement there's eight steps that we go through one of those eight steps is inspiration like how do you inspire the people around you to adopt that vision. And the story, the obvious story, well, I don't want to say it's obvious, but the one I like to use, John F. Kennedy, we're going to put a man on the moon in 10 years. Right? The whole country jumped on that, right? That was it's like gives me goosebumps to to I remember that. I remember that. >> Um, so how do I make it inspiring? Right? It's inspiring for you because this is what you want to do, but how do you make it inspiring for your employees? How do you make it inspiring for your service providers? How do you make it inspiring for and so often it gets really shortcircuited? Um and how do we how do we create that? So I'll do some teaching then we'll get into breakout rooms then we'll do some sharing then we'll do some collection um and then we'll go on to some other things. So there that's one area. We have six particular sessions that we talk about. There's some laser coaching that goes on where I'll be able to provide some specific coaching to to um to the attendees. Um, yeah. So, it's just it's just and there's a playbook essentially that you will it's digital. You download it for yourself, but you know this is where you're going to take your notes. So, you walk I can't build the whole plan for you in three days. >> Yeah. >> It's your plan. >> But what I can do is give you a process to build the plan and a process that doesn't skip steps >> so that when when you're dealing with the relationship stuff, it's a part of your planning. when you're dealing with the strategic planning part of it, there's a there's a method for what comes first and second and third and making sure that it actually gets done. So, it's it's I'm pretty excited. 3 days, people say 3 days is a lot. This is three days to get back 362. This is three days to get clarity for the rest of your year or two years and have a system that works for you for the rest of your life. Mhm. How do you describe in your words whole life leadership on a stressful Tuesday? >> On a stressful t so whole life is [clears throat] as I was mentioning that that the clients that I had that were less than successful. It's because they had some relationship issues or they had some personal issues. Um this is about here here's my thing. Life is not about business. Life's about life. business is a supporting vehicle for the life you want to live. Now, a lot of business owners have not taken the time to figure out what that life looks like. And so, now they don't know how to position the business effectively to get to that point. And that's what we want to do is we want to we want to have that all connected so it's all going all pointing moving in the right direction and now you've got metrics and the things that you need to track to make sure that you're going and getting there. Is life going to throw you some curve balls? Yep. Absolutely. You know that that's just what life does. Uh but you need to you need to have a course correction model that allows you to make it make changes as needed. >> So you have you have a couple of thousand leaders listening to this episode. Um leadership on the top is always lonely. Um you know [laughter] what is uh some some words of of encouragement that you could leave them with? >> Well, it's lonely, but it it doesn't have to be alone. Um, there are some things as a leader that you are not going to tell your spouse, right? It's just not going to help the relationships. There's some things that you can't share with your employees. Some things you can't share with everybody else. And so, get an advisor, get a coach, get somebody. Everybody, everybody needs a coach. I have coach. I have coaches. Um, everybody needs a coach. You need somebody that you can talk to that can share, you know, and it could be a therapist, but a therapist can't give you the business side of things, right? But they can they can certainly help you from a mental side. Um, but don't do it all by yourself. It's it's not I don't think it's necessary and I don't think it's healthy. >> Yeah, very true. Very true. And also there's so much help in you know available in sometimes it's it's even being part of a business community where you could just bounce off ideas and and share some of the struggles and the wins. Um there's a mastermind that I that I host which we have a you know group of 13 leaders. It's very helpful you know even me moderating it and seeing the the in the you know the back and forth between the members and and seeing progress from month to month. It's it's it's it's amazing to see. Hey listeners, are you struggling to create beautiful looking proposals? Is it a hassle every time you need to prepare a quote or proposal for your clients? Is collecting signatures still a manual process? Well, it's time to upgrade to Panda. At PEX, we use Panda for all our proposals, employee documentation, and so much more. It saves us time, keeps everything organized, and our documents look incredibly professional. With customizable templates, real-time collaboration, and e signatures, Panaduct turns creating documents into quick and easy steps. Plus, it integrates with so many other tools, streamlining your workflow and boosting productivity. Try Panoduct today by visiting pex.co/pandidoc and start your free trial. Trust me, it's going to be a gamecher for your business. That's pex.co/pan da d. So, yeah. So if you're lonely at the top, uh figure out what works for you. Um that's a great great a great great advice. Um where could people find out more about you and the programs that you have? Um so the name of my company is businesswit whi. It's a play on my last name. Um and so businesswit.com is my website. There is a services page on the website that has all of the different things that we offer. Um, whole life leadership is at businesswit.comholelife-leership. I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm coach John Wit on LinkedIn. So, if you look for John Wit, you won't find me, but it's coach John Wit. Um, and you'll see a lot of the things that I have going on there as well. Um, and then John BusinessWit is my email address. So, if there's something that you're looking forward to have a conversation, >> cool. For the links, resources mentioned this episode, check out the show notes at www.p pestgroup.com/mpodcast where we'll link to the resources you just mentioned. Let's close with the four rapid fire questions. Are you ready? >> Okay. >> Number one, a book that changed your life. >> Good. Great. Jim Collins. >> Great book. Number two, a piece of advice you got that you never forget. >> The sun will always come up tomorrow. >> Number three, anything you wish you could go back and do differently. Oh my god, that's actually a long list. Um [laughter] um I wish I was more of a people person younger in my life. I didn't really get there until actually after my corporate doesn't lend itself to that people thing. Um it's a numbers game. Um I really didn't start going in this place until the last, you know, 15 years ago. >> Nice. And for number four, the final question. What's still on your bucket list to achieve? Uh really I this this whole life leadership this live virtual event um is is about how do I teach and impact a greater number of people. I've one-on-one coaching done that for a long time been very successful but I really think that there's there's a big part of the world out there that is uh needs to move into business ownership. They're becoming disenfranchised from the government, disenfranchised from corporate college level. Um, it's it's hard to find a job today and learning how to take control and manage your own system and your own results. Um, I think that gives you a leg up. >> Beautiful. John, thank you so much for joining us. I know your time is valuable. That is why in the name of our listeners, we'll forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today. It's been a blast. >> Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. >> My pleasure. Thanks. That's my conversation with John with my takeaway from this one. Number one, leadership never ends. There's no finish line. The best leaders keep growing, learning, and adjusting every single day. Number two, generosity pays off. Giving more time, attention, and talent than expected. Build stronger relationships, and those relationships drive referrals, loyalty, and profit. Number three, hire for ownership, not tasks. A bad hire is costly. Look for people who take responsibility for outcomes, not just some someone to check a box. Number four, accountability goes both ways. You expect your team to deliver, but real leadership means letting them hold you accountable, too. And number five, clarity is power. When you're clear on your vision, goals, and metrics, you save energy, attract better people, and keep your business moving in the right direction. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends, co-workers, and family. This will make the show better by having more people tune in on a weekly basis. Subscribe, like, and comment, so the algorithm will do us a favor and push the the program more up in the al and algorithm. Thank you so much. [music] And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Let's Look Business podcast. I hope you enjoyed the practical nononsense advice that our guest shared. If you found value in listening, I would be so grateful if you could share the episode with your friends and if you could give the show a fivestar rating on Apple Podcast or wherever platform you listen. [music] Subscribe to the show and get notified every time we publish a new episode. The Let's Talk Business Podcast is a PEX Group original production. Until next time, make it a great day.