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The Path To Leadership
We podcast about strong leaders, loyal employees, avoiding burnout, and raising profits building strong cultures. Everyone is a leader, but the path isn't always easy. Developing critical skills to build stronger, more successful and profitable organizations.
The Path To Leadership
From Transportation Executive to Visionary Leadership Coach: Jim Bramlett's Journey
Jim Bramlett never expected to find his calling helping other business leaders navigate their challenges. After four decades in transportation and logistics, followed by entrepreneurial ventures that taught him hard-earned lessons about leadership, Jim discovered that what leaders need most is meaningful connection with peers who understand their unique challenges.
"It is lonely at the top," Jim explains, drawing from personal experience founding a dot-com company in 1999. "I couldn't take all my issues to the board because then they're going to go—we don't have the right guy in the chair." That isolation led to mistakes he now helps others avoid through his work leading Vistage peer groups in Kansas City.
This conversation explores the fundamentals of creating business value through Jim's four customer buying criteria: convenience, transparent pricing, excellent user experience, and trustworthiness. "I believe time is our most precious commodity, not money," Jim shares. "We know how much money we have. We don't know how much time we have." This insight forms the foundation of his customer-centric approach to business innovation.
Jim's candid reflections on his leadership missteps reveal the importance of intentional culture-building and strategic planning—elements he initially overlooked as a new CEO. His journey from logistics executive to failed retiree (he lasted just three months before seeking purpose-driven work again) to leadership coach demonstrates how our greatest struggles often become our most valuable teaching tools.
Perhaps most compelling is Jim's perspective on leadership as coaching. Drawing parallels to NFL defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, Jim challenges leaders to stop forcing performance and start inspiring it. "You can't force anybody to improve. You can't force anybody to do their best. You can't force anybody to be motivated. You have to inspire them." Ready to become the kind of leader whose team would proudly wear a shirt saying "In You We Trust"? This conversation shows the way.
Connect with Jim:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimbramlett1/
Follow Catalyst Development on LinkedIn @catalystdevelopment and @drkatieervin
www.cdleaders.com
Learn more about Supervisor 101 at www.cdleaders.com/supervisor101
Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/
Welcome back to the Path to Leadership. I am so excited for my guest today. He is really kind of a new friend to me. I don't even remember who connected us. I probably should. But hey, Jim, how are you?
Jim Bramlett:Katie, I'm doing well and I'm so excited to be part of your podcast.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Oh well, I appreciate it and I know, was it Mark Schaefer that connected us.
Jim Bramlett:That's always a safe bet, here's the problem I'm old, I can't remember either.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Maybe it was Jeff Palacio. Like there, there's some core connectors in Kansas city, um. So, yeah, well, I appreciate it and I know, you know we met um virtually, uh, a while ago and and could have talked for and I'm like, oh, we need to record this conversation.
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, that's why I'm so excited about it, because you have a passion for something that I love, so I think there's a match here.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Oh, I love it. I love it Well, so will you introduce yourself to everyone, tell them who you are, what you do, all of that good stuff?
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, it's Jim Bramlett. I do many things but I'm a Vistage chair and if you don't know, vistage, it's the world's leading business leader peer group organization and I lead two groups. I facilitate and lead and coach two groups here in Kansas City. I'm a two-time author Kansas City. I'm a two-time author, aspiring speaker and servant leader, dad, husband, and I think I'm an all-around good guy but that's for others to judge.
Jim Bramlett:I love it. I love it Well, so can you tell us about your career journey? So how did you get to where you are now? Yeah, that's a great question. I got to where I am. It was a dream because I never thought I'd really amount to a lot.
Jim Bramlett:I was born in South Central Missouri, small town of Rolla, very middle class. Both my parents worked. I worked ever since I was 13 and you know that's just but, but we never lacked for anything. Uh, I ended up, uh, graduating college from uh what is now Missouri state, but then Southwest Missouri state, with a degree in marketing and I went into a sales position, uh, in consumer goods and and I went into a sales position in consumer goods and that just didn't strike with me. And somehow I got into transportation and logistics and I spent 42 years in transportation and logistics. I spent 10 years in Springfield working in the LTL industry primarily working in the LTL industry primarily and I actually tricked Yellow Freight into promoting and moving me up to the general office here in. That was in Overland Park and it was an incredible experience.
Jim Bramlett:But in college I was a senior in college and my roommate and I started my very first business and I started another business between then. I have this knack and passion for creating new things, be it companies, be it divisions, be it new products. And so after I was very successful at Yellow I was an executive there, but I had this idea it became a business plan and it was right about the time of the dot-com hysteria and they were venture capitalists for funding all kinds of crazy things. And I decided well, I've got a lot of transportation experience, I've got an idea, wrote a business plan. Ultimately we got funded and I started you know that company. And then we went for five and a half years and it was a real challenge. And then I went on and helped others start new things. And then, about seven years ago, I started what I intended to be a lifestyle business, just me myself and I. Ultimately we added a couple people and always small but a very technology-based last-mile service.
Jim Bramlett:And then my wife retired six years ago, pharmaceutical sales, and ever since she retired she starts poking me saying, hey, remember all those things we're going to do in our golden years. And I kept going, yeah, yeah, yeah. And my idea of retirement was always well, I want to spend time doing something I love but have a flexible schedule, but I'm not the kind of guy to sit on the porch and watch the world go by. But anyway, she poked long enough and hard enough. I found somebody else to come in and take over the company and I did quote, retire and I flunked. I spent three months and I figured out that playing pickleball and golf and tennis had no purpose. And I got to have purpose. And just so happens that Vistage reached out to me saying they wanted to put another peer group in Kansas City and they saw my background and thought I'd be interested.
Jim Bramlett:And I had never heard of Vistage thought I'd be interested and I had never heard of Vistage, and so when they told me what they were about helping business leaders grow and learn and succeed by forming into peer groups I immediately reflected back in 1999 when I started that com, going wow, I wish I had known about them because I was on an island and I joke with people, but it's not far from the truth. My leadership experience up until that point was I was a class president of 12 students and well, that's not leadership experience, and so it really struck a chord with me that gosh, you know what. That'll give me purpose If I can help other leaders avoid some of the things I went through be awesome. I'm also a business nerd. I love learning about businesses, how they work and the challenges, and I thought what better way than to lead a peer group of business leaders? And maybe there's a tiny way I can help them?
Jim Bramlett:They told me it would be a rough road. You got to recruit your members and that's hard. But I said, hey, I've started two businesses with nothing but an idea in my head. Hard, but I said, hey, I've started two businesses with nothing but an idea in my head. And so, yeah, I know it'll be difficult, but not as hard as starting two businesses, and so I'm a hard worker. I was successful. I launched my first group in January of 23, a little over two years ago. I started this second group last October, and it's the best thing I've ever done. I love what I do, working with these business leaders. I hope I'm contributing in some small way for them to, you know, succeed and get through the trials and tribulations that every business leader faces. So that's kind of the journey I've been on.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, oh, it's such a fantastic journey. And it's funny because I know, like I said, we talked before, but there's so much in my head like yes, that, that, that. And we're going to talk more about Vistage a little later because I think to your point. I mean, as a woman who started a company, I knew I always had this passion, but then it's like all of a sudden it's like now I'm sitting in this chair going, oh my gosh, you've never taken a finance class before. Like what are you doing? I mean, everything I learned is on the job training. So I love that.
Dr. Katie Ervin:I'm also very envious because you're living my dream. So I'm 49, and we have friends around us that are talking about retirement in the next five to seven years, and I told my husband. I said I can't imagine ever not doing this. Now. I can imagine slowing down and going on more cruises and playing more golf, but I can't imagine like full time just cruising and playing golf without doing this kind of stuff. So I love that you failed at retirement, because I think that's going to be me as well.
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, certain people have to have purpose, and I think you and I both are in that boat.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, yeah, yeah. My husband's dream is to retire from his full time job and then just support me and I'm like, hey, I'll take that too.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, absolutely then just support me and I'm like, hey, I'll take that too. Yeah, absolutely Well, and I, I love your history in transportation and logistics and and ironically you know my so much of the work that I'm doing now is with kind of male dominated fields and I'm doing a lot of work in construction, construction adjacent and transportation, and actually I have a logistics company that's on retainer and I'm in love with the work that I'm doing with them. So what really drew you to that industry and kept you there for 40 years?
Jim Bramlett:Well, what drew me to the industry was my very first job out of college. I was making $10,000 a year and you know kids today would go what. But I had a company car so you know I kind of made up for it. But this job and I knew nothing about transportation logistics, but it was a management trainee job I was going to get a 60% increase and it was working seven days on and seven days off. So being a young, dumb kid I go holy cow. But those seven days on are 14-hour days and just absolutely grueling. But I'm a management trainee in Springfield, missouri, at a dock cross dock somewhere north of 100 doors, so thousands of shipments are pouring through it every day. And what struck me was I would look at a pallet of freight and thinking, holy cow, two days ago this was in New York City and two days from now it's going to be in California, and all the things that have to transpire to make that happen just totally intrigued me. And every day, every day was different, you know, and that just it was just exciting and so that drew me. And then the more I stayed in and I get promoted, the more I learned that the industry was really kind of backward From a technical standpoint and pricing standpoint and everything they do I thought was backward. So for me that means hey, there's lots of opportunity for innovation and creativity and I love creating and, fortunately for me, I got the opportunity to be put in positions to make those kind of impacts and I did it by pushing. I didn't, you know. Nobody told me, hey, go innovate, that's not how it works. I took it on my own and had to justify the things that I wanted to do that I thought were important. And I was successful a lot of times not every to do that and so that, just my curiosity and my push and resilience I got promoted, you know, along the way.
Jim Bramlett:But then I felt that I was in an executive position at a, you know, very large company. I didn't feel like I was making an impact. And when this whole dot-com thing came out, I had this crazy idea, put it on paper and just made it happen and got funded and boy, that's when the education you know really really started. But I was innovating that whole time, which has paid off now, in the latter years, as I wrote my books, I didn't have any idea what innovation really was. I didn't understand. You know what buyers or customers are really looking for. I do now, just like I had no clue what real leadership was. I thought I did, but I didn't, and it caused some heartache along the way, for sure.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, yeah, it's so interesting because I work with so many different industries and people will say, well, this is a unique industry and this is. You know, we're special and do you have humans that work for you the things I do it? If you, if you have humans, then you need the work that I and so many other people do. And so, yeah, the the loading, the forklifts and putting stuff on the truck is unique to you. Know, an accounting firm or lawyers, but dealing with people and feelings and all of that craziness, it's the same no matter what industry.
Jim Bramlett:And you know that is the unique thing. So in Vistage, in our peer groups, we do not allow competitors in a peer group and I tell my members, there's nobody around this table that's going to help you in your subject matter expertise. That's not what we're here for, and we do what's called issue processing. What are your challenges? What are your issues? Well, guess what? Most of those issues and challenges are about people. Right, because people are very dynamic and so that's a lot of fun. But you're exactly right.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, yeah, I used to tell my military students all the time because I'd say you know what's the difference between the military and corporate setting? I'm like, well, and I know the military is trying to soften themselves up. So, if anyone's listening, I love you, I acknowledge you. Yes, but the challenge between the military and the corporate world is the F word. It's feelings. Like people have feelings and they have you know they, they want to share their feelings. And in the military it's like here's your uniform, here's your, your expectations, here's your requirements. And again, I know it's more than that. However, in the corporate world, we deal with a lot of feelings.
Jim Bramlett:Well, as I'm going through my leadership journey, I'd never heard the term emotional intelligence. I've only heard that since I've been involved with Vistage, because we get a lot of speakers to come in and talk to my members and you start hearing that and go, hey, that is pretty important, very important, because people are not robots. They all think differently and have different emotions and needs, and so leaders with emotional intelligence is very, very important.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, yeah, it is, it is. That is kind of the foundation of so much of what I do. Well, and you mentioned your books and unfortunately I have not had a chance to read them, but they are on my list. That is, my goal this year is to get through all these books on my list. But your latest book, stop the Hustle, really talks about businesses, how they often create unnecessary obstacles for themselves. So what are some of these hassles that you've seen business struggling with today?
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, the biggest hassle. So my theory is this Everybody listening to this podcast and you and I, we're buyers. Now, we may not be professional buyers, but we buy something every day, every day, and I started researching and learning what is it that makes us buy a certain product and from whom? And I believe we have four basic criteria when we make, when we buyers make a decision, and number one is convenience. We're looking, look.
Jim Bramlett:I believe time is our most precious commodity, not money. We know how much money we have. We don't know how much time we have, and so I'm looking. When I'm looking at an option to buy something. If one's going to save me more time than another and say it's priced equally, I'm going to take the one that saves me the time. So, saving me time, saving me effort, making my life simpler, making my life easier that's important to me. So if you offer something that checks those boxes, okay, you're up.
Jim Bramlett:Obviously, pricing. I want competitive price. I don't necessarily need the lowest price, but I need competitive. But you know, what's even more important to me is transparent pricing. I want to know what I'm going to spend before I make that purchasing decision, and that's why we often don't like working with attorneys. You're going to charge me $200 an hour. Well, how many hours I will let you know. Or we don't like the airlines, we don't like trucking, the industry I was in. There's so many surcharges and rules and extra charges that you get surprised with and we hate that.
Jim Bramlett:Number three is user experience. We want to be treated like we're the only customer of that vendor, even though we know they might have thousands or millions of customers. We want to be treated specially. We want people who will answer our questions. We want to be treated specially. We want people who will answer our questions. There's a lot to that based on the industry, but we want to be treated well. We want answers, we want quick responses, et cetera. And then four is trustworthiness. We want to know.
Jim Bramlett:So when we buy something, we build a perception of what it is we should be receiving. Especially true if that seller has a brand promise. I better get that. And I use this as an example when I'm buying something from McDonald's. I'm not expecting this savory you know Michelin star tasting experience, but I do expect it to be warm, I expect the buns to be fresh and I expect my fries to be included in that combo meal and I drive off and go hey, where are the fries? So we have these certain expectations and so the more that a company can say you know, we've been in business so long, we have these awards, we have these guarantees, we have warranties, we have, you know, free returns, et cetera. Have these guarantees, we have warranties, we have free returns, et cetera. So when you can hit on all four of those criteria, we buyers have less excuses not to.
Jim Bramlett:Now, most companies have some sort of conscious trade-off Nordstrom's going to give you an awesome experience and great product and beautiful, you know trustworthiness, but you pay for that. Aldi's is on the opposite side of that spectrum. You're going to get very low-priced groceries but bring a quarter, bring a bag and don't expect to talk to a butcher, a baker or you know that like that's their trade-off. And so people have excuses Well, I'm not going to all these because I don't want to bring a quarter in my own bags, et cetera. So that's what I preach in Stop the Hassle.
Jim Bramlett:The other thing that I think that gets in the way of many companies is what I call, you know, feature propositions In transportation logistics. They don't understand value propositions and in fact I get a kick when you talk to founders and they talk about their company oh yeah, we're serving an unmet need, but they don't. They don't, you know, express what that need is. We're providing super value Well, what is that? And the one I really hate is oh well, we're disrupting an industry. Well, that doesn't tell me anything. So the value we have and the value propositions need to be about the buyer, about the buyer. I tell companies all the time buyers are only mildly interested in what it is you do. They're all about what their problem is or what their need is. So the more you can express that, the better you're going to connect with a potential buyer.
Jim Bramlett:I love to use this example since I grew up in transportation and logistics. If you remember, when Federal Express came out, they would have an ad with a big plane and a delivery vehicle and their tagline or value proposition when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight, yeah, and I go okay, there's a kind of a guarantee and that they're going to save me time and effort. They don't talk about price but they don't say yeah, we have lots of planes and we fly everywhere. But all too often companies and especially in transportation logistics, because I grew up there. Well, we have a hundred trucks and we serve Kansas City. Okay, I don't care, I need on-time delivery, damage-free delivery. I need great customer service. You know good price, that's what I value. So in the in, stop the Assholes.
Jim Bramlett:The other thing I always encourage businesses and I do this in the book is listen. You need to understand the alternative any buyer has and an alternative can be a competitor. They might do it themselves and you have to understand how that alternative stacks up with convenience, cost, experience and trust. And you need to beat in those four criteria. You got to beat what that alternative is. And I joke you know, you and I being here in Kansas City big Chiefs fan I go listen, andy Reid doesn't show up on Sunday morning at Arrowhead and say now let's see who are we supposed to play this week. And I wonder what they like to do. Do they like to run the ball or pass? And what's their defense? Do they play man? I don't know, we'll figure it. No, they don't do that. They study the competitors, okay, the competitors.
Jim Bramlett:And I encourage every business to study your competitor. Figure out where they have the weakness on those four criteria, what we make our buying decisions and leverage that, and if you have a weakness against an alternative, shore that up, be it with technology or process or whatever you have to do. The more you understand the alternative or competitor, the better you can react and meet what we value and what our needs are. So that is what my book is all about, and I will tell you I didn't learn that when I started my first company. I didn't learn it when I started my second. It took years, and my first book was called the Unconventional Thinking of Dominant Companies, and I studied Amazon, netflix and Uber and that's what I discovered that formula. They hit all four of those criteria and that's what made them unicorns, and so the first book was about them. But this book is about what everybody could and should be doing.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah Well, and it's so fascinating because you know, as as a entrepreneur myself, for the first time it's you know, you think you open a company and everyone's encouraging you and then everyone's going to show up and buy what you're selling and it's like no people can like you and still not understand your value proposition for them and how you can serve them and what you can do. And so, one, you understanding your value for them, but two, being able to communicate that effectively so people can understand it and trust it and then buy in. I mean, it takes work and missteps to get there.
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, and again, it's not about you, it's about them. One of my favorite is Geico. Say 15% in 15 minutes or less, okay, is Geico, save 15% in 15 minutes or less? Okay. Now, yeah, you know they're in insurance, but their value is we're going to save you time and we're going to save you money. It's about you and I joke. Okay, what if it said we'll save you 15% in two hours or less? People are going to go. No, I don't want to spend that kind of time, right.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, yeah, oh, my gosh, that's perfect. Well, and I'm interested because you talked about you, know your experience in innovation and you know your background. So what are some practical steps that leaders can take today to identify and remove, you know, some of those inefficiencies and things that get in their way of doing the important work that they need to do to serve their customers and clients and buyers?
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, I think a couple things Um. One is um, talk to your employees. Okay, because you as a leader may not be engaging the customer very frequently and you may just be getting reports or NPS scores or very high level, but guess who's getting the granular information? It's people on the front line. Could be salespeople, it could be customer service people. Be in contact with your people and, as much as possible, be in contact with your customers.
Jim Bramlett:Why did you buy from us? What did you like? What didn't you like? Now, if you can and this one's really hard how can you engage the customer who didn't buy from you and why? And this is why I say I claim that your sales force, be it your retail or otherwise, your sales force is more important for Intel.
Jim Bramlett:I want to know why we lost and I need to know the real reason why we lost this opportunity, but I also want to know why we won the opportunity. I want to do more of that. I also believe that every company and everybody this will sound a little strange, but I believe every company should have a research and development function, not necessarily department. You know, when I hear research and development, I think you know pharmaceuticals or tech or vehicles or whatever, but no research and development is researching your competitors, your alternatives, researching your customers, researching new technologies. What can AI do for us? Okay, in customer engagement and helping us cut costs. I think that's just extremely important. So, as much as possible, talk to your people and especially having them, and, if you can, as a leader, talk to your customers and those who you know would buy from you if you did everything right.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, yeah. And I love that you talk about research and development, because I think you know, just like with professional and personal development, like you can't put your company on cruise control. I always tell people you can't put your own personal growth on cruise control because you're either going to run out of gas or hit a wall or both. But I mean, even with your company, like just because and I know there's so many we can look at Blockbuster and things like that, like the companies that are like nope, this is just what we do. And you know, when you look at the story of IBM, I love the book who said elephants can't dance, I believe is the name of it, and it talks about the CEO who came in and just really was innovative and turned it around. And it's like we can either keep doing what we're always doing, what we say we're good at, and we'll close our doors, or we have to turn it around and be innovative.
Jim Bramlett:I have a. It's not a whole chapter, but I talk about innovation. There's a big difference between innovation and invention, and I claim there's really very little invention going on, but there's tons of innovation, and innovation isn't rocket science. Anytime you can save time out of a process or with a customer, you're innovating. Anytime you can save effort for anybody, that's innovating. Obviously. If you can cut costs out, that's innovating. If you can give a better user experience, that's innovation, because you're changing a process. And so constant innovation, I think, is extremely, extremely important. And and like you said, for those who say well, we've always done it this way and it's always worked, that's how startups come in and take your business. That's how netflix comes in and puts you out of business. Blockbuster, because you thought, having physical stores and disappointing everybody on Friday and Saturday night in the new release aisle. Yes, that you know they and I talk about this, about Netflix. I love Netflix because they came up with the mail order DVD, but then I call it Netflix 2.0. They came up with streaming to be even faster and easier and they changed the pricing model to subscription-based. But had they not come up, if they would have said oh, we got it solved, we can just do DVDs for the rest of our life. Amazon would have put them out of business. And I believe the user experience of Netflix, with their own content now right, that's something very unique that nobody else can duplicate and that's why they're the number one streaming service. It's that constant innovation and we're going to give a better user experience. We're going number one streaming service. It's that constant innovation and we're going to give a better user experience. We're going to save more time. We're going to save more effort. We're going to make it simpler. We're going to make it easier all for the customer.
Jim Bramlett:I'm a huge Jeff Bezos fan. When I started my first company, I think Jeff Bezos made the cover of Time for being the biggest clown on the earth because he was burning so much cash. But one of my favorite books is the Everything Store, which is really the story of Amazon, and he was steadfast in the customer's at the center of our universe and we're going to engineer everything backward around the customer. If we take care of the customer, everything else will take care of itself. And he was under such pressure to deliver earnings and turn the cash burn around and he said no, here's my vision. It's all about the customer. We're going to build more categories and we're going to do two day shipping and the free shipping and and free return. I mean, everything was about making that customer experience and journey better and better and better. And guess who won? He did not. The analysts, and not wall street.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and you just think in in all of that like how sad that kids these days will never realize what it feels like to wait at the video store on Thursdays for the new release to come out and their mom telling them you can only you know get one or two for the weekend. And then my husband is very proud to be one of the lone holdouts. He was the one that got the letter from Netflix saying we will know and it was just last year, I think we will no longer send you DVDs. He loved getting those DVDs and every time it came I thought you could just get it and we have a Netflix subscription and everything, but he still got those red envelopes all the time I didn't even know.
Jim Bramlett:they still did it the last year.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, it was probably last year. He got a letter saying, I think it was less than 1200 people were still doing it and we're not doing it anymore. And I mean he was just crushed.
Jim Bramlett:Oh well, congratulations. You're one of the very few that has a DVD player, probably.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, Well, he would play it on his computer. But yeah, I'm sure we still have VHS and DVDs someplace in this house.
Dr. Katie Ervin:So, yeah, his secret life he used for a very short amount of time he did video distributions for like the family videos and the blockbusters, and so early in our marriage, before we had kids, he would get five to 10 to 15 screeners a week of good movies and new releases and just the most horrific, horrible B and C level movies and we would just and I mean, maybe that's why I don't enjoy movies anymore, because we would just constantly be watching these all the time and they would come out three to six months. So a movie who was still in the movie theater he would get a screener for, so fascinating so we'd sell it. So yeah, he's a big nerd on all of that.
Jim Bramlett:Well, he probably remembers when you got penalized for not rewinding your VHS tapes you know which is always a pain.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Right, these poor kids these days. They got it so easy. Well, let's talk before we wrap up the show. We still have plenty of time. But I want to talk about Vistage, because you said you had never heard of it. I'd never heard of it until recently and I'm fascinated by it because one of the things you know, I grew up in human resources and we already always had Society for Human Resource Management, local and national, and you have all of your peers and then when you start your own company or when you get into the C-suite, you're in this really kind of siloed islands weird spot and it sounds like Vistage really, you know, gives people a lifeline for that. So you talked a little bit about what it was, but can you go in a little more about what you guys do? Yeah, yeah.
Jim Bramlett:So we concentrate on two things, a number one being a leader. It is lonely at the top and you can say you've got as tight a team and you're all hanging in there. We're family. But I promise you the leader has one agenda and everybody else has their agenda too. So when you can relate to other trusted and like-minded peers and they're not in your industry, you know it's just somebody you can vent with.
Jim Bramlett:Listen, when I first became CEO and, by the way, nobody appointed me, I had to appoint myself, start my own company. I had nobody. I knew I learned real quickly. I'm quick study. I learned quickly. I couldn't take all my issues to the board because then they're going to go. We don't have the right guy in the chair and my wife didn't want to hear about it for sure. And you know, in my brain I'm on 24-7 by 365. I'm always thinking this is happening and I had, you know, not having anybody to vent with. It was important. But we share best practices. You know, when you get different perspectives, different experience and different knowledge around the table, when somebody comes up with a challenge, there's a high likelihood that somebody else around the table has maybe been through that kind of experience and what's really interesting and I see this happen all the time like with AI, we do a lot on AI and I joke with the group. I said, hey, see this gray area.
Jim Bramlett:I was around in 1995 when this thing called the World Wide Web really became popular. Well, there were people back then, oh, it's just a fad never going to last. Well, let me tell you, folks, it's not going to be that way with AI. Now, I can't tell you exactly how to use it. I can encourage you to be curious and learn, and we've had AI speakers. I now have probably the foremost AI practitioner in my group, but what happens is they're all curious but they're all skeptical. They just don't know well, where do I start, what do I do? Yeah, I understand chat, gpt, but you know well they learn from each other. They're going to trust each other.
Jim Bramlett:When somebody says, well, here's what I'm doing, they go oh, okay, and so it's cool when we talk about we do a lot on culture. And I didn't understand. I thought in my naivety he said, oh, you know, culture just happens. Well, that's not true. Culture is very intentional. I've learned, and so you know, talking about culture, talking about delegation, talking about accountability throughout an organization.
Jim Bramlett:We spent two months working on strategic planning. Well, why is that important? Well, that's important because your whole organization needs to be rowing in the same direction, knowing what the top priorities are, what resources are going to be allocated to that, when do we anticipate having that completed? And then, when it gets done, we now go, you know, step it up in the next step. So all of those things you know, and like I, like I said when I came in to be a leader, I didn't know any of that stuff and and it showed. But so those little lessons. So it's part educational, but it's also we. We, you know, we bring in a speaker almost every meeting to share knowledge, but then in the afternoon it becomes a true advisory board, and this is where I encourage them all.
Jim Bramlett:You've got to be vulnerable and if you don't come and say I'm struggling here, I'm having a challenge, you're not going to learn. Now I recognize, as a business leader, you're a natural born decision maker. Right, that's you. You just jump into it. Oh, I got this and here's what we're going to do in charge. Well, listen, you've got this group that you can run any issue, challenge opportunity and share the decision you're about to make, because maybe you're missing something, maybe there's just a small thing you're missing, that one of your peers will jump in and that's pretty valuable.
Jim Bramlett:And the other thing we talk a lot about and I put heat on them. I tell each one of them probably the most important thing you do as a leader is hire Okay. When you don't hire right, it's going to come back. It's going to be painful, it's going to be, and they've all had to let people go or people leave them, and it is painful, it is costly. So we talk about you know good interview questions. We talk about personality profiles which one works the best. We talk about you know job descriptions and making sure everybody's aligned. We talk about KPIs. So it's just a total learning environment for leaders to make them better. That's what we're all about.
Dr. Katie Ervin:I love it. I love it. You're speaking my language on all of that and I think it's I've seen through my career. It's such a challenge sometimes, that humility, to realize that you don't have to be the smartest person in the room, and that's it's not weakness to not be the smartest person in the room, like I'll have people say to me like you're really good at what you do and it's like, yeah, you should see me trying to do accounting and finance Like I'm a wreck, but yes, I'm really good at the people part, because that's that's what I do and that's my passion and that's where I've done all my work. And it's those areas that we don't want to talk about and we don't want to put out that it feels like your group really plays a pivotal role for these leaders and decision makers.
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, it's real fun. I just had a one-on-one with one of my members and they admitted to me my culture index and I know this. I'm pretty non-confrontational, but I have now learned that if and when I hire a COO, they need to be the yang to my yang right. I need to hire to what my weakness is and I need to understand myself so that I can fill that gap. And I said so that I can fill that gap. And I said congratulations, you're starting to really really get it, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah, we need to hire people that are not like us.
Jim Bramlett:That's right, that's right.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Fill in the gap, yeah, and that you know we can trust and they can say it's funny, I'm working with this team and it's like at the very basis I mean I love Patrick Lincione's five dysfunctions and if you don't have that level of trust like I always tell people, stop being nice and be kind to tell people the truth so they can be and do and get better it's, if we don't have people around us that are kind enough to tell us our opportunities for growth, then we're going to fail. Yeah.
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, I agree.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Well, and talking about opportunities of growth and you kind of teased me before we jumped on because the last question I love this question I ask everybody I have on the show and the reason I ask is we've all done things in our career that you know, maybe we're not proud of or maybe we we had lessons from it. So I'm real excited to hear your answer, to the level you're comfortable sharing. What is the biggest leadership or career misstep you've taken?
Jim Bramlett:Yeah, it was when I started. I raised the funding and I started my company in 99. And I seriously did not have much leadership skill or training. I thought I knew what being a leader was all about. I've subsequently learned. I didn't know anything and I was a visionary. So I said here's where we're going, here's how we're going to get there and I'm innovating. But I knew I didn't know about culture. I just thought it kind of happened. I didn't know about culture, I just thought it kind of happened. I didn't know truly how to delegate. I didn't have a strategic plan to where everybody bought in and said this is the way we're going. We ended up. I didn't know about sales processes. We ended up having a customer that was over 50% of our revenue and we saved them a lot of money, we made a lot of money and ultimately that customer left and we could not cut the cost fast enough and we ended up merging with another company and I left.
Jim Bramlett:And I look back and should have been a better leader. I should have had an intentional culture that not I set but the team set and we lived by it and said these are our values, these are the corresponding behaviors, these are the corresponding policies that everybody is going to follow, no exceptions. Exceptions because everybody agrees to this. Here's our strategic plan, here's the sales process, here's the accountability, and had a more rigid, I guess, process and everybody knowing their roles and responsibility. I was too naive and immature to understand all of that. I've since learned a lot, especially from my experience with Vistage. I get the advantage of hearing these world-class speakers come in every month and, man, I learned so much and I reflect on that and said you know what it could have been different? And the most painful part is, you know, we had 40, 50 employees and I impacted every one of those, you know, possibly when they got hired, but negatively when it didn't work.
Jim Bramlett:And I blame myself and I tell everybody this I wish I had known about Vistage back then because somebody would have slapped me and told me that you need to be doing this, you need to be doing that. Here's how this works. Because you know you're kind of at a distance from the board. There's kind of a fear factor with the board and you know you're giving them the high level. They don't get into the details and the day-to-day and the struggles that you have with the people, and so that was a real hard, hard lesson for me and it almost caused me and that's exactly why I started that lifestyle business Because I said I don't want that responsibility of 40 people, I just want me myself and I to be responsible for.
Jim Bramlett:That's how little confidence I had. If I had to do all over now I'd go. Man, I know exactly the playbook and the formula that we're going to employ and we're going to have everybody buy in, agree, and they're going to be held accountable to that because that's their plan and their culture. And so that's what I've learned.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Oh, that is not a great story, but that is a powerful, powerful story and a powerful lesson to learn. It sucks to have to go through it, but you know where you are today, though, based on that, I'm sure you'd like to go back to the younger you and say we're going to be okay, we'll be fine.
Jim Bramlett:But you know, I can relate when I deal with some of my leaders who are going through a struggle and I absolutely can relate and empathize. And the other cool thing, the other real cool thing, and I tell them this the very best leaders are coaches. Okay, but you've probably never been trained to be a coach. I know I had never been. I didn't know what the difference between a leader and a coach and the questions and the intent listening you do. And I've learned that good coaches can extract an answer from somebody. They know what to do, because if you just direct them hey, go do that, they're going to potentially resent that. But if they say, oh, I need to go do that and great coaches can do that. I'm going to tell you a funny story.
Jim Bramlett:So several months ago I started my Vistage meeting this way and, like any attorney, I knew the answer. I said, hey, hey, do any of you know where Steve Spagnuolo went to school Crickets. Nobody knew. I knew they wouldn't know. I said, okay, well, he went to Springfield College and I don't even know which Springfield. There's lots of Springfield, all right, any. And I don't even know which Springfield? There's lots of Springfield, all right, any of you know what position he played for Springfield College Crickets? I knew they wouldn't know. I said, okay, he played wide receiver. And I said, okay, Do any of you know? Did Steve Spagnuolo play in the NFL? No, nobody answered, he didn't. So riddle me this, folks. No, nobody answered, he didn't. So riddle me this, folks. How did a small college wide receiver on the offensive side of the ball, how did he become one of the very best and most respected defensive coordinators in all of the NFL? And his players, multimillionaires, his players, go out and create this shirt that says in spags, we trust.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Yeah.
Jim Bramlett:Now how many of you have shirts where your employees said in you, we trust. That is coaching. You have to inspire. You can't force anybody to improve. You can't force anybody to do their best. You can't force anybody to improve. You can't force anybody to do their best. You can't force anybody to be motivated. You have to inspire them, and Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo do a great job of that. If you want to be a great leader, learn to be a good coach and I'll help you.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Oh, I love that, and what a great way to end. So our listeners, we want to hear, I mean, how many of your teams have created a t-shirt for you and for those of you that are inspired by great leaders and great coaches. Maybe you should create a shirt and let your boss know, because it's a thankless job sometimes. Sometimes a t-shirt would be nice.
Jim Bramlett:Absolutely.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Well, thank you so much, Jim. It has been such a pleasure, so many great nuggets from the show. I will put all your information in the show notes so people can reach out and connect and check out Vistage, get your books and just learn from you. I appreciate everything you shared today.
Jim Bramlett:Katie, thanks for having me. Thank you for what you do, because your work is so important. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Katie Ervin:Oh, I appreciate it. All right, everyone. I will talk to you next time on the path to leadership. Bye, everyone.
