Reed Nyffeler - Lead Exponentially: Lessons in Leadership and Purpose

In 3, 2, 1.

Welcome back to Becoming Preferred, the podcast for entrepreneurs and professionals who are tired of being an option and are ready to become the preferred provider in the markets they serve.

Our guest today is a man who doesn't just build businesses.

He builds ecosystems of opportunity.

Reid Niffler is the co founder and CEO of Signal, a global security powerhouse that he scaled from a local startup into a massive franchise network.

Hundreds of locations.

But Reid isn't your typical grind until you break CEO.

He's a lifelong entrepreneur who believes that a business should serve your life, not consume it.

Through his books, lead exponentially and transform through purpose, he teaches leaders how to step out of the daily whirlwind and into a role of true stewardship.

Today, we're going to deconstruct how he professionalized a fragmented industry, why he's obsessed with lowering the barrier of entry for the next generation of leaders, and how you can stop being a superhero in your business so you can finally start being a leader.

Join me now for my conversation with Reid Niffler.

Well, hi, Reid.

Welcome to the program.

We're delighted to have you.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited about this.

Had a chance to look at your book Lead Exponentially, and we're going to be talking about that.

Creating authentic and integrated intentional leadership.

We're going to talk about business.

We're going to talk about all kinds of things that I know that you can lend insights to because you're an entrepreneur and a businessman.

So, again, welcome to the program.

Thank you.

Where are we speaking to you from today?

Where are you at?

I'm in Omaha, Nebraska.

It's a little warmer now.

It's freezing cold this weekend, but it's nice and living here in Omaha.

Well, you're an entrepreneur.

But, Reed, before we get into it, let's go back to high school.

You're back in high school in Lincoln, I believe, and I know you went to college there.

You're deciding what you want to be when you grow up.

Give us a little background.

Where did Reed come from, and how did he get where he is today?

Yeah, so I think, you know, in fact, just this last week, I had an opportunity to speak to an eighth grade class.

And I remember starting in junior high and high school, and my son is in an eighth grade class.

And I was there, I said, what's the one thing that stood out to me was always trying to find a better way to solve a problem.

Right.

And I didn't look at the symptom necessarily.

I didn't look at the bad grade and blame someone.

I looked at what I could change, and I think entrepreneurial journey starts with taking ownership.

And ultimately, as I reflected back, that's something I did early on.

You know, it was really easy.

And I remember, in fact, my grandma would say this, and she said, don't point your finger because there's three pointing back at you.

And I think a lot of people, they're trying to point all five at somebody else every time, and they're just not entrepreneurs.

Right?

And so I think my journey was, if I'm going to take ownership of the outcome, I better take ownership of the decision, because if I'm pointing those fingers back.

And so that was really early on in my leadership journey.

I recognized that, you know what?

I have no problem living with the outcome if it's positive, and I don't have a problem actually living with the outcome if it's negative.

If I made that decision, what I don't want is consequences from someone else.

And that could be a consequence from a boss that made a poor decision.

That could be consequences from, you know, a peer or somebody that told me to do something that was a bad idea.

But then I realized, all right, I'm a leader.

I'm an entrepreneur.

I'm going to find a solution and live with a positive and negative consequences.

And obviously, as you make mistakes and you fail forward, you learn quickly.

And then more decisions are more positive outcome decisions than negative outcome decisions.

So that was really early in my life that I saw that.

And in as I went to college, then I took that experience and that first my freshman year, I moved in, and I had a construction background, and so I knew how to build things.

And I saw these dorm lofts, and I thought, okay, that's great.

And then I quickly realized that university was renting them for $140 a semester.

And so I thought, I can build this for way less and sell it to them.

And so I found a solution that I made for 38 bucks, and I sold it for 120 bucks.

And the reason people wanted lofts was because their dorm rooms are all small and they couldn't fit all the stuff in there.

And so I found my target audience, which I found was the dads.

And I know you have kids and five of which are daughters.

And sure enough, I'm sure your daughters moved in with way more stuff than the two sons did.

So.

And I'm sure you just like my myself had cash.

So I went to the dads, and I said, hey, you want help carrying that Stuff up, I'll get you a loft and it'll all fit on the floor and you can get out of there and let them decorate.

And so sure enough, I went and went to the girls dorm, moved these lofts in, built the lofts quickly, made $80 a loft.

And then if there were two roommates and two dads, I would say, hey, $100 each.

And they both is kind of a guilt sale.

And so I saw quickly, there is.

When you have a product that is better and cheaper, you find a target audience, which in this case was the dads of the daughters that were moving into college, which had cash in their pocket.

And you made it quick and easy, you could be an entrepreneur.

And so that was, you know, I made $5,000 cash profit that first two weeks of school doing that.

And so I thought I got something here.

And you know, that early business taught me entrepreneurship, of course, salesmanship, it taught me economics.

Right.

Because I knew exactly how much it cost me time, managing my time and all the above.

And it was such a foundational step for me at that st stage of my life and career.

Well, that sounds interesting.

And like I say, timing, it's looking for opportunities, it's how do we fix things, how do we scale things?

Now let's go back to your grandma because you have a great analogy.

It's fascinating about great grandma versus grandma as it relates to leadership.

Unpack that one for us a little bit.

Yeah.

And so my grandmother, you know, she, she was pointing one, I would point one fingers like you, you know, so and so.

And we were probably pointing at my siblings or brothers.

And she goes, the problem with placing blame, right.

There's three, you know, back you, what can you change?

And that was really foundational.

Right.

And I think so many people in this generation, we're trying to find everyone else to blame but ourselves.

Yeah.

And the problem with that is, and I always tell people this, whoever you are blaming owns your decision.

Right.

Whoever you are pointing at, they are now afflicting you.

Yeah.

And they may not ever care about you.

They may never talk to you.

If it's somebody you've never met, like a news media or whatever else, they are afflicting your life, you've chosen that because you've accepted them by blaming them into your life as a source of responsibility.

Instead, you can conversely say, you know what, I'm not going to listen to that.

That's the choice I can make.

They may say that every day, all day, every way, but if I am not bringing their name to bear, then I can then say, hey, I'm going to make the decision for my life.

And so that was a clear part.

Mine is saying, own my outcomes, own the decisions and the outcomes that are there.

Saying, I don't have to listen to this content, I don't have to believe this.

I can make that choice for myself.

And that is essentially me saying, no longer pointing the finger, but recognizing what can I do.

Right.

I don't agree with what they're saying.

I don't agree these, but I don't have to listen to it.

That's my choice.

I can't change their mind.

But I don't have to get emotionally invested in it either.

Yeah, you have the right to react to it or not to react to it.

That's right.

You didn't cause it, cure it.

It can't control it.

It's control.

I totally get that.

What a great insight too.

It's really being accountable for your results in life because I think if you blame somebody else, you, you disempower yourself.

That's exactly right.

Even if it isn't your fault legitimately.

Let's say you work for a company, they go bankrupt.

And I know you talk about that 20 years, the average business goes bankrupt because why, why do they fail?

And in your mind, from a leadership perspective, what's your take on that?

Why they typically 15, 20 years, it seems to be a lifespan.

Or you get, you know, mergers, acquisitions, they get right size capsized, you name it in your mind.

What's the root cause of that?

Well, I think that ties back to my book lead exponentially actually, because many times we build a product.

I'll use my dad as an example here.

He, my family was extended farmers all the way through and he was the first one to not be a farmer.

And so he went to college at University of Nebraska and he became a shop teacher because he knew how to farm, fix things and so he's a shop teacher.

And then he needed a little more money when we were born and so he started roofing homes.

And so then as he's roofing homes, they offered him a superintendent role.

And so from there he built homes and he always built for the baby boomers.

And he was a baby boomer.

And so he came as a baby boomer.

So they had their first kids and so they had a small, you know, three bedroom, two bath, bath house.

And then they got more income and their houses got bigger all the way to the retirement community.

And I was giving them a hard time because my mom loves to map cemeteries.

I said, you're still working on those baby boomers, dad.

They're going to be there eventually, but you got to map their next plot in life.

We're on our way out the door.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyways, but I think that's the key is he was always in that genre, but he never understood the next generation of buyer.

Right.

He didn't understand now my age or demographic and ultimately what we wanted.

He was always like, why do the people care about these things?

Because this generation cares about these things.

And so that I think leans into your concern.

Why do businesses only last for 20 years?

Because an entrepreneur starts and they start a business around a problem that existed when they started.

And they worked for years to get a system in place to solve that problem.

But over that same 20 years of time, other problems have been started.

Right.

And been resolved.

And an analogy I like to use is this.

So, you know, there was a company that knew that consumers wanted a product they could see in a picture and they wanted a fair price.

They want to deliver to their home shortly thereafter.

Right.

What they didn't realize was that was the Sears catalog.

Yeah.

I would go at Christmas and I'd go look at the Sears catalog, I'd circle the item, we'd call the phone number, mail it in and come back.

What changed was actually the Internet.

People still want that Amazon.

Right.

They still get that from Amazon now.

But the business didn't evolve with the way consumer habits evolved.

And so I think what happens is if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Right.

It's kind of a mentality and the business goes out of business because someone else fixes the problem better.

Amazon versus Sears.

So I think that's why you see a 20 year cycle and then you become, now that I've been about 19 years into this business, if you don't bring the energy to the business, it will either take energy from you or it won't require any energy.

Right.

It's just status quo.

And so I know every day I have to bring the energy and I think that's critical.

And so people get exhausted, they're tired, they're older, they're distracted, they have kids or grandkids like you have and you're all over the place.

Right.

And so then that takes your energy as opposed to bring your energy, and then eventually it fades.

And then you realize at the end, what am I going to do now?

I'm at the age of retirement, I don't have that energy.

How do I approach this Again, and so I think that's part of it.

But in my book, what I talk about is leading exponentially in the final chapters on triplicate.

And this is the way to effectively do that.

So as a leader, I invest in the second and third generation and the examples that I use there.

There's a one in particular that I think is relevant for this, which is George Washington, because you had Benjamin Franklin, who kind of was a generation earlier, George Washington, who was in the present generation at the time, and then Thomas Jefferson, who was the next generation.

And so all three of them are in there as they're crafting this Declaration of Independence in the beginning of the US So you have Benjamin Franklin, who was leveraged as a resource that knew history and he had studied, written in newspapers and kind of had the media side of it.

George Washington was your military, right.

And then you had your up and comer, which was Thomas Jefferson, who ultimately became a president as the fourth president.

Right.

And so you had continuity, which, you know, a lot of people don't realize, but between the beginning of the American Revolutionary War until when Thomas Jefferson was president, that was probably 35, 40 years.

So if we were the country, like a business, and Thomas and George Washington, who'd already fought for 12 years in the American Revolutionary War, was the president for eight years and was exhausted and died shortly after exiting the office, where would the country be?

Because we were just getting started, right?

And it required John Adams, who was there, you know, as his vice president, who became the next president, and then ultimately Thomas Jefferson, who was the fourth president, of course, in that process.

And so those are all the things that I think are relevant.

And that's how we build organizations that endure over time.

It's interesting how and the multiple generations.

I'm kind of at that stage now.

I've been running my company since early 90s and it's.

I still got a way to go.

I plan on doing it for about another 10 years or so.

But what's that next generation?

Because there's no reason to give it up now.

As a speaker and author, we can't do that.

We have to, right?

When we're done, we're done.

But it's all those other services and products that you can create.

So as an entrepreneur, one of the things I was interested in in your book, and you talk about it in your.

In some of the things that you produce is that ability to scale.

And it's a challenge for entrepreneurs.

People have trouble doing that.

How are you able to bring the scaling technique if you will, you talk about the six month test and as a good test, let's start there and then maybe talk about your formula for scaling.

What should entrepreneurs do if they got a great idea, a good product, good service and they want to expand it?

Yeah, I think the first thing is time management and then how to evaluate your time.

Right.

Because we have energy and time is the resource we apply that to.

And so you will not be able to scale if you don't know how to effectively use your time.

Because truly scale is just like a gear on a bike, right.

You're not going to go anywhere if you don't know how to pedal.

It doesn't matter what gears you put on there.

Right.

You just aren't leveraging that accelerator right now.

You can go a lot of places if you keep walking and you're going in different directions.

But you don't know how to scale because you don't know where to direct your energy and over what period of time.

And so that's the first thing is I always go back down and I manage my time.

And it starts with our vision.

Where do we want to go right.

First, Then ultimately, what's the next five years look like?

Then three years, one year, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, then our minutes and then we stacked it on there.

So then how do I structure my time?

And I use half hour blocks, or an hour block, in this instance, two half hour blocks.

And then how do I structure that to leverage that towards my vision?

And then I'm down to moments.

I matter.

And that's in my first book, Transform Through Purpose.

We talk about moments because in those moments I can use voice inflection, I can use word choice to have a transformational communication that's memorable that would ultimately scale.

Right.

You were mentioning as we were onboarding here, Michael, that stories are what sell.

Right.

Even the best product isn't necessarily going to sell if the story is better for another one.

And we can see this throughout history.

Well, that story sells because of the presenter of that information.

Right.

We've all seen adaptations of movies or plays and the best actors are the best storytellers.

That's right.

Not the script.

You can have a great script with a terrible actor.

Right.

And likewise you can have a great actor with a terrible script.

It's really that script and that actor together, and that's the story that sells.

And so that's ultimately what we need to focus on, is saying, okay, if I'm going to scale, I have to quickly and easily communicate the vision in A way that someone can transfer that information from their mind to mine and then run without my direction.

Right.

And so that's a system.

Right.

And so the system then says, okay, then how do they go back to that?

And so then you have the story that's a system.

Understanding their part.

And so acronyms are a good tool for that.

Right.

I have a lot of acronyms that you can break down that are easily remembered in that process.

That's a system.

And then the second piece of that is breaking it down in component parts.

And so you think of what Henry Ford is, that our goal is to build a car.

And everybody bought into that story, would use his story, everybody in that story of if there's a car on every road and we can make it affordable for every man, the world will open up.

Right.

People start driving.

Then in order to do that, he needed to break it down into component parts.

And so he had people on an assembly line.

The line moved, not the people moved.

And that's what happened.

The assembly line moved and they just did their part quickly and it was just highly repeatable and they became highly skilled.

So that's what you do next.

Once you're an entrepreneur and you figure out your business, you figure out a way to communicate the vision so it's not lost.

Then you break it down in component parts.

Right?

We call that our location, the soapbox.

Sales is S, O is operations, A is administration, P is promised.

That pulls together the acronym so it's not forgettable.

Sequentially.

First, nothing starts without selling something.

Then you got to operationally deliver and someone's responsible for that.

Administrative, you got to collect the payment and make sure someone gets paid to do it.

And then promise you got to retain them so they'll come back for another customer.

And so that's a system.

And you sequentially break that all the way down.

And then once you have those categories, you subcategorize them.

So you break that system down all the way down into 30 minute blocks.

And those 30 minute blocks are important for this reason.

Attention spans continue to shrink.

If I go train someone.

Yeah.

On how to do something for eight hours, they were like, I did the first 30 minutes of stuff, but I can't remember the next seven and a half hours.

I just sat around waiting for you.

But that's where 30 minute blocks are.

An appropriate cadence of which, if we can get people to operate in 30 minute blocks, then we can really start to scale.

And so that's what I encourage people to do.

If you're here and you want to scale your business, Go back, look at last week and do a time audit.

Yeah.

Look at where your 40 hours were and then say, okay, of those 40 hours, how many of those hours?

Help me get closer to that vision.

And then how many of those were in a sales ops, admin and promise?

If it's too heavily weighted in one category, Ideally you want 10 hours each, you're not going to make any progress.

And so then you'd say, okay, now of those things, this is what I tell people, how frequently they need to be done.

If they need to be done every day or every hour, hand that off to somebody else.

Start scaling now, you've opened up that block.

Put in something that you can do with your vision if it needs to be done, maybe you're past that every week or every month, hand that off.

I'm at the point now, if it needs to be done every quarter, I hand that off.

So I'm working on annual things.

And that's how you build a business at scale.

You take those time blocks, you look at those time blocks and you say, how frequently do I need to do this time block?

And then I can train someone how to do that.

30 minutes a day or 30 minutes a week, or 30 minutes a month, or eventually 30 minutes a quarter and you hand it off.

Well, it sounds like it's fair to say.

And you've done this.

You're setting up, for instance, let's say you set up your businesses if you were going to be a franchisor and full of systems.

Even if you keep it as an entrepreneur, small business, you own the whole thing.

You have no franchisees that you're going to go to.

But if you set it up, I think that's what you're talking about.

Because when you buy a franchise, you're buying a system.

Somebody's already figured, that's right, you've already done that and figured it out.

So I think you could write a whole book just on setting up and scaling.

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And now back to my conversation with Reed Niffler.

You talk about scaling through systems and not creating superstars.

Now your company Signal, which been around for about 18 to 20 years or so, you use a proprietary Uber like software to manage security.

So in a world where many entrepreneurs feel they got to be the smartest person in the room, how does technology.

Because when you started you weren't about six, seven, eight years into the Internet.

It was just getting annoying.

We didn't have right today couldn't do zoom meetings.

How did you evolve that?

How did it start with it?

And then how does technology allow the leader to step back and let the business kind of lead itself?

Yeah, much like we started this conversation, everything starts with a mindset, right?

My mindset was I was going to take ownership at all and I was not going to be victimized by the software that was available out there.

Then I took a step back and saying if I was going to design a software and own it, and certainly it's going to be expensive, how would I design it?

And I use this analogy because it helps people kind of understand technology.

For years, even at the advent of the Internet and maybe even up to some cases present day day, a lot of businesses go and solve a problem with software, much like a taxi cab and a gps.

Oh, where are cabs?

I have no idea.

Let me call them.

Oh no, I got a GPS now, so I at least know where the cab is.

Now I can't pass that information along to the writer, but the dispatcher at least knows.

And that software as a service solving a symptom of a problem, right?

And so then where did we design?

I said if I'm going to design this, I'm going to design it like Uber, right?

I'm going to say forget what software is there.

What's an ideal experience?

That's what they did.

What's the ideal experience for the driver?

What's the ideal experience for the rider?

What's the ideal experience for the corporation that's providing these services?

And they developed a software that laid that all the way out.

It's nothing like the taxi cabs had before.

And what it did is it highlighted key touch points that are human in nature and leverage technology when it didn't need to be a human touch point.

Right.

So we still have someone drive up, say hi to us, and, you know, enter into a conversation in the car, etcetera, and then ultimately they accept or receive payment on the other side because it's too far.

When you go to Waymo, and I know you have a place in Arizona, so I assume you know about Waymo, which is.

No.

Drive a driverless car and they GPS handles everything, and you can't talk to anybody and you don't have the sense of control.

So that's technology too far.

So I knew I wanted to be in the middle road, right.

I wanted to map all our experiences and simplify it, leveraging technology.

And if you go look at some of the favorite restaurants or places you go, that's exactly the experience we're looking for.

Right.

Amazon, you still have a driver pulling up to your driveway and he says hi and drops it off or is friendly or courteous, but everything else was automated.

Right.

Because you still need that physical interaction to confirm that the right person is there at the right home delivering the right product.

Right.

As opposed to a drone dropping a package in your front yard and hitting your petunias or something like that, you know, so it's just all those things that are there.

We need a balance of those things.

And so that's what we did.

We looked at, okay, what is our user experience map, and whether that's a franchise owner, a customer or an employee.

And how do all those intertwined?

And then how does software make that more efficient?

Just like Uber with the driver, the writer, and the corporation.

And so we built the technology stack around that, and it creates scalable efficiency because it was designed not working around the problems, but designing the experience around the technology.

As you develop this technology to support your franchisees and the businesses themselves, new technologies are always emerging.

For instance, to use the example you did, we've got AI now, which is Right.

And AI has been around forever.

I mean, it's been around since the 60s, actually, if you look at.

Right, agree.

Yeah.

So when you're looking at AI, when do you look at it as an entrepreneur and go, okay, we need to bring this in.

Here's.

We're going to apply it to the user experience here in the journey.

These are the mapping points where we should use AI gets Rid of some of that because it gets rid of.

It doesn't get rid of the human to human.

Which to your point, you're saying with the Amazon guy and going, hey Hank, how's it going?

You know, whatever, or the team sure that shows up your house delivering it ups or whoever's showing up.

How do you look at that new technology?

When's the right time to jump into it and how do you evaluate that and how do you see it going with AI?

Yeah, I think that's a great question.

I think many times is we have to understand the power and value of a human.

I also say in the era of artificial intelligence, authenticity is the currency 100 and so where do we need to be authentic and where can we be automated?

And that's a decision, I think that the leaders of the future need to be the ones that can appropriately make that decision intuitively for their organizations is really understanding what can be automated and what can be done.

And I'll go right back to my time allocation.

AI should be those 30 minute blocks we have to do every day, right?

So if there's something that is so routine, 30 minutes every day, for example.

I'll give an example.

In our business, so we do reports, right?

So we go on a property and we write a report.

AI can scour those reports that were done the night before.

And many times we take pictures and look for any identifiers that we would otherwise human eyes would be able to see.

Oh, there's a gun in that photo, right?

Should we further investigate that?

Pull that to a profile, right?

And so AI can do that.

I don't need to have somebody go look at that, but I need somebody to know what to do if there is a gun in there.

That's what I need a human to do.

So this identifies a problem and accelerates that process going forward.

Right?

Because just like, you know, growing up I didn't have GPS on me and my dad be like when you could hear the whistle, you had to be within the range to hear the whistle.

Now my dad could whistle and I knew downhill how far that was about two to three blocks.

So I could go a long ways according to that whistle.

But he had no idea where I was.

He couldn't see me.

Right now I got life360.

I said, you can see where my kids are, how fast they're going and where they're going, right?

And so certainly there was efficiency in the way he whistled.

And I just had to hustle home because he knew I need to get home.

For dinner, you know, or there's GPS that can track where we're at in the same.

In the end, I still am going to be with my dad.

Right.

I didn't change the relationship, I just changed the visibility in that relationship.

And that's where I think AI is.

It doesn't eliminate the relationship, it accelerates it and it doesn't take away the value of it.

It gives you more opportunity for it.

Right.

I mean, FaceTime's a key part of that.

Right.

Instead of just calling mom or dad, we can use facetime and see them and that enhances it.

And then you can put a little, you know, treatment on those images to make it even more entertaining.

We'd like.

And that's another AI thing, right?

Absolutely.

Well, it allows us to elevate ourselves and if we embrace it and you're people ask me all the time, will AI replace our jobs?

And I said, I don't think so, but I think someone who knows how to employ it.

So it's taking that so we can be more human to human.

If you're getting a procedure in the hospital, you want a nurse holding your hand, talking, that's the human to human.

It's eq.

It's focusing on our ego in our business and going that route.

Let's talk about.

You talk about and challenge owners with what you call the six month test.

So for listeners who are currently grinding it out 60 hours a week, the test is simple.

I think you talk about if you left your business for a period of time.

Right.

Unpack that a little bit for us.

Yeah.

So essentially I think what you're trying to build as a business, that if you left your business.

Now, I think there's two sides of that coin.

One, we want to make sure that we're applying things in the business that are valuable to the business every day.

Right.

That I always look at my time saying, what's the thing that only I can do in this business?

Right.

And so that is effectively the secret sauce at the same time is can it continue to go if I'm not here?

Right.

So what is the routine and what is the secret sauce?

Right.

And so we want to look at that.

What is the differentiator?

Right.

And so that six month test is saying, if I wasn't here every day, grinding it out and working through that, can the business still sustain itself in my absence?

Right.

Are the bills they're going to get paid.

Is a service still going to be done?

Now, in our instance, probably there'd be a lack of Vision.

Right.

And maybe new opportunities are pursuing.

But if I was gone for six months, I can assure you the lights would still be on, everything would be paid and everyone may not have as much fun when I'm gone.

Right.

I mean, of course that's the case with you, Michael.

Or maybe they'd have more fun.

See, I, maybe that's what I want to believe.

But nonetheless, I think in the case, the day to day functions are going on and so that's a six month test.

And if you're not living in that environment, your business isn't scaled is essentially what I'm saying there.

So if your business isn't there, you don't have scale because it's too dependent upon you as an owner.

And more importantly, no one will buy that from you because it needs you to be gone.

You haven't set up an asset you can sell because it's dependent upon you and you cannot replace it.

And you're adding that value in the sale price, but they're going to discount in the buying price because it requires the person that's on that other side.

And so that's why you want to do that is for your benefit too economically, as you're exiting a business.

Well, it goes for us as speakers.

They want you when you rewrite the books, they write you.

But your courses, the, your software, your things you generate, those products are byproducts.

Those are all things that can go on into perpetuity and you create a business for yourself or a revenue generating machine.

So I like it.

Your book Transformed through Purpose suggests that business success is a byproduct of a purposeful life at home and in the community.

Yeah.

How do you respond?

Entrepreneurs who say, hey, I'll focus on my personal life, you know, once my business is successful.

I think you call it the purpose anchor.

We have to develop that and it's a trap.

Can you unpack that a little bit for us?

Yeah.

So essentially I'm a big believer that we were built on purpose, for a purpose.

Right.

And so if we don't know what that is, we're not fulfilling our purpose, basically.

And so the other thing is we're always going to have competing interests.

If we want to do one thing, there's going to be something we're giving up to do that.

I always tell everything, I tell my kids, everything we fill our time with, it's at the expense of something else.

Make sure it's worth that expense.

And so the first four chapters are really about the priority.

The first one for Me is faith, family, then productivity, then fun.

So that means that if I want to do something fun, but I lose my job, my family and my faith, probably not worth it.

Right?

That's, you know.

Sure.

Yep.

I went and I went to Bali for six months.

Now I'm homeless, I lost my job, you know, but it was a great six months.

Right.

My wife, my wife has a new partner.

He's a nice man.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's why you prioritize.

So it starts with your priorities.

Yeah.

And then once you determine your priorities, your purpose will reside within those and it needs to be transcendent, universally eternal.

And so that transcendent means it can't be about you.

Right.

Because you know, you have seven children and kids, what happens if you're gone is, then it's, they're the generation that carries that forward.

So it has to be transcendent.

It can't be about us.

So many people live a life that's only about them.

Right?

Well, the world would effectively end if everybody believed that about themselves.

Yeah.

Right.

So then it's transcendent.

Universal means your purpose is everywhere.

Whether you're at work, you're at home, you're on vacation, you're in any of those four areas, it's the same.

And then eternal.

You can do this the rest of your life.

So then your purpose resides there.

For me, it's through intuitive interaction, propel leaders beyond their self imposed barriers to live out their unique purpose.

So just like we're having this conversation, Michael, that's intuitive interaction.

I'm listening to you and providing feedback.

And my objective is to propel leaders, yourself and your listeners so that they're self imposed barriers and those are things they believe about themselves that aren't true or can't be changed.

That which really can be changed, that are holding them back from living out their purpose.

And so in that book, once you clarify that, it's so freeing to yourself.

But more importantly than others will choose to follow.

I believe as followers, we don't choose to follow leaders because they have no idea where they're going.

They don't have a purpose and they don't have a vision.

Why would we follow them?

You want to wander aimlessly, they're fun to be with.

It's one thing to hang out with them, it's another thing to follow them.

And so again, if you looked around and your listeners looked around and said, okay, who in my life would I consider following?

If they said, hey, come here and what you're going to look at the one continuity that you'd have in there is they have vision and purpose.

Those are the two things that people would consider following.

Well, they know where they're going and they're going to go there on purpose, you know, I mean, instead of back their way into it.

And so if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a leader, if you're someone and you don't have vision and purpose, why would someone follow you?

That's a question you should answer for yourself.

And if you haven't clarified that for yourself, how can someone else.

Because you know yourself best.

And that's what this book does, helps you understand that for yourself so that others can choose to follow you as you move forward.

Yeah, it's putting a rudder on your boat.

Right.

If you got a direction, you might have.

I'm a pilot, been a pilot for 40 plus.

Cheers.

And when we go in a destination, I go say from Calgary to Phoenix, the office.

I know it's a five, six hour flight.

I know I've got to stop and get gas in Salt Lake or Spokane where I'm going to top up again or clear customs.

And then I have a route.

I got a route that I'm going to go to.

But sometimes weather comes in when I don't expect.

Sometimes there's a mechanical issue I got to deal with and I might have to divert.

And so like all aircraft, you have an alternative.

You have a, where's my backup plan, My plan B.

So when you're setting up your plan and you got your purpose, do you ever set up plan B or alternates?

Yeah, for sure.

I think your purpose is ultimately inherently who you are.

Right.

And so plan B is.

Where do you apply that?

Right.

Because ultimately, I'm sure, Michael, in your case, you largely have been in the same space for 30 years.

Yeah.

But the world's a change.

I mean, you, you started your business in the 90s, that was pre Internet.

So did you abandon your purpose of being a, you know, a speaker and an author?

No, you just evolved it as the Internet came.

Now you do podcasts as opposed to live speaking events or.

And you probably still do those, or maybe there's an e book that you didn't have before when you had to write a physical book.

So I think the purpose is consistent.

The application is what changes.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Let's talk about handling uncertainties of the future.

A lot of people get anxiety because of the uncertain future.

You talk about generational and building things on a generational basis.

There's Five generations of buyers.

We have baby boomers all the way down.

There's some even before the baby boomers are still around.

My I was at my father in law's birthday yesterday and 97 years old, still going strong.

He just bought a new car and they tried to sell him a five year extended warranty and he's.

I'm 97, like really?

I optimistic, right?

Still golfs and drives and everything.

But you built a $300 million plus business in an industry, security industry that is constantly changing.

So how does a company stay relevant when the world feels more volatile than ever?

Yeah, I think the key is, and I always talk about this as a speaker or everything else, a lot of people focus on their content, what they want to say or do.

I focus on the audience.

Right.

As we were onboarding here, I said, hey, I want to stay within the scope of what your audience wants to hear.

Why?

Because the audience only cares about what's relevant to them, not what the speaker thinks is relevant to the speaker.

Yeah, exactly.

And so I'm always studying, in fact, in a couple of weeks here every year I go to about 100 different cities in the United States where franchisees are and I see what's fixed, meaning what's the same of our brand and what's flexible geographically different.

Right.

Obviously, as I mentioned, I've been to Calgary, even last summer, but I also went to Phoenix.

Those are two totally different countries and totally different cities and totally different climates and they both need security but in different ways.

And so ultimately you then say what is fixed, what won't we change about our brand that makes it that tried and true stable brand that everyone is looking for.

And what is flexible, what is different in the dry heat of Phoenix, that's different in Calgary, right outside of Banff, when you probably have a little bit more of a tech hub that has different challenges as it's going from there.

So those are the things you look at and then you give autonomy within that to the entrepreneur that's operating there saying, hey, here's what's fixed, I need you to stay in this lane.

But here's what's flexible, here's the decisions you could make and it's not completely prescribed and I want to leverage your intellect and intuition to be able to manage that accordingly.

And so then you can stay relevant because whatever was relevant before will be irrelevant at some time.

But there are some things, like for example, gravity, that's been relevant forever and however, it has different impacts on different people at different stages of life.

Right.

I mean I seem to weigh more.

I think gravity got heavier, I don't know.

But ultimately that's what happens over time.

Right.

It changes that and we involve.

Well, that's a good point.

When I see our two year old granddaughter fall down just a little distance, when I see myself fall down or slip on the ice, the results and outcomes are sometimes vastly different.

So.

Right.

It's good.

Let's talk about generational impact over revenue.

I thought this was interesting.

You've said that you measure success by multi generational impact rather than just revenue.

So.

Sure.

An entrepreneur that's just focused on their Q4 goals, how can they shift their mindset toward 100 year legacy?

Yeah, I'm going to go back to my family generational story here because I think it's interesting.

I, you know, I, as you were pronouncing my last name, you noticed it was German.

And I told you I grew up in Aurwag in Switzerland.

And you'd said you'd been there.

And that's actually where my great great grandfather had immigrated from.

And he was 18 years old and he left there because he looked around and he saw that there was not enough farmland for him and his three brothers.

And he was 18, got whatever money my grandfather, great, great great grandfather had his wallet, hopped on a boat, ended in the train in Duncan, Nebraska.

That's how we ended up here.

And it's because a neighbor back then had gotten a farm off the Land act in the late 1800s and started there.

And then my great grandfather came and he also got a piece of land and was the first one to start a school and a church and they had a one room schoolhouse.

And so then my grandfather was the first one to get through grade school.

He got to about seventh or eighth grade and he became a farmer.

And so then here's a decision my great great great grandfather made that we would have been starving in a small little plot of land in the middle of nowhere.

But he made the risk to come across the ocean to come to Nebraska and plant his family there.

And you can only look back and see how destitute it would have been.

They didn't have convenience stores, they didn't have restaurants.

Your dinner was running around in the field.

You had to go find it after a hard day's farming.

And you didn't have insurance or crop insurance or all the things we had.

Now you didn't have a grocery store.

And I remember then and these are the values that are still instilled in me.

And I Saw photos and there's a photo.

And I went back with my dad and we were touring this area and there was a garden out front.

And I go, why is there a garden at this farmland?

He said, oh, that was your refrigerator, Reed.

You know, there's a farm.

That was your livelihood.

This was your life.

And so then I said, interesting.

He said, yep.

And then I said, what are those vegetables on the front door?

He goes, oh, that's the convenience store.

If you had a bumper crop of pumpkins and you wanted to switch that up for potatoes, you just carried that over to someone else's house and you swapped it out because you got sick of eating the pumpkins.

And so that's what they would do.

And to me, that's like, that's community, right?

And those were legacy items that were there.

And that's still instilled in my family.

And it goes back to my grandmother pointing that finger.

I knew that was coming from that heart that she says, hey, we knew that our livelihood was a result of that.

And she's the one that was pointing that finger at me or that I was pointing at myself and says, take ownership.

Because our family took ownership of moving here, you take ownership for your life and, you know, do us proud in that same legacy.

So I now have that obligation for the next generation going forward and saying, okay, because they took a risk at the early stages, I have an obligation to continue to build on that over time so that I can pass that forward, so that the next generations can have an advanced life like I've been able to enjoy because my great great grandparents immigrated from a town where there was no farmland left, no money, and no future.

Interesting.

Let's talk about the younger generation for a minute.

You and the power of what you would call low cost opportunity you've created, you're launching a new model.

I think it's called Filter Go.

Yeah.

No money down options for young entrepreneurs.

So why is lowering the barrier to entry part of your purpose driven strategy?

And what advice would you give to young people, you know, in their late 20s and 30s who go, hey, they're tired of the gig economy.

They want to do something that they can build and something purposeful.

Because one thing I love about the younger generation is they tend to be more purpose.

I'm baby boomer.

It was very transactional.

We did this.

Yeah.

Why did I have a paper route?

Not because I love delivering papers.

It was because I need to earn some money.

Right?

So I always work to develop things to draw revenue.

But the younger folks Seem very purpose driven.

Is that, you know, are we saving dolphins?

Are we keeping the landfills clean?

What advice would you give them?

And talk about the power of low cost opportunity.

Yeah.

So we'll start first.

I think you talked about the gig economy.

And I look at it this way, study that generation.

And I said, what are they looking for?

And it's pretty obvious when you start looking at the decision they're making, that gig economy, they want autonomy and opportunity.

Whereas to your point, on the baby boomers, they wanted the most amount of income for their time.

I don't care what I'm doing.

I don't care about the purpose.

I'm just going to go make the most that I can, and at the end I'm gonna get a gold watch and a pension.

Right?

And now they're saying, I want autonomy.

So then I'm saying, okay, what is holding them back from having their autonomy and opportunity?

Well, I think society at large has structured because it's this baby boomer oligarchy and, you know, kind of hierarchical thing.

So I said, okay, what are they willing to do?

Right.

They want to manage their free, their freedom of time and to maximize opportunity.

So then I'm going to develop concepts that fit that need.

And it needs to be quick learning.

So this filter go concept is functionally switching out a filter, a commercial air filter in an air conditioning unit every 90 days.

So we leverage technology where you go and you meet Michael and you say, how many filters do you have?

When do you want it changed?

Please run your credit card.

Then just like Uber, it says you need to change it on February 2nd and every 90 days thereafter.

And it'll remind you to do it.

You go change out the filter, it tells you the size, you take a picture and you get paid.

Now you can do that whenever you want to.

You can change it on the 5th if you want.

You can change it a week from now if you want.

Right.

And the customer gets automatically notified.

So now they have autonomy, they work by themselves, for themselves, they have opportunity.

How many places have an air conditioning unit?

Pretty much everyone, Right?

Right.

And they all have a filter that if you don't change the filter, just like an oil change, the engine blows, the air conditioning unit fails.

So now what does it require?

Somebody that's a little bit outgoing.

Right.

Somebody that is there.

But also I take away the economic barrier because I'm getting the money up front.

I charge the client.

Now, I don't need to charge them because the client is paying their income before they had the Filter installed.

And so then it's no investment.

Right.

There's no cost, no investment.

Just go get the clients, not a big inventory.

Go pick up what they need.

That's right.

You pick it up that day.

And it's almost like the meals people get.

Now we go to the grocery store.

That's right.

Meals are already done.

Salad in a bag.

People are wanting convenience because they want to buy their time back.

So that's exactly right.

And if you're not mechanically oriented and as the demographics get older, we got 60, 65% of our population, baby boomers.

And what are they looking for?

They're not as big consumers as they used to be.

But what's that next generation looking for?

What would you as far as next or opportunities.

How do you, you know, seek out opportunities?

Like do you ever get, you know, there's a shiny object, I think I'm going to go investigate it.

Or how do you maintain your focus?

Yeah.

So I think again I have the software platform we've discussed and I look at business to business opportunities because they're just long standing and build over time.

There's 166 services a business owner purchases depending on type of business they're in that are third party services, filter replacement security, you know, fire extinguisher inspection, a series of them, pest control, window cleaning.

That it would all leverage our service of the software but also appeal to a 20 year old to provide that service in blocks of time, less than 30 minutes.

And so it goes back to exactly what I've been saying the entire time as you see this all come together.

If I can get a franchise owner to do repetitively things that 10 to 15 minutes of time, it's enough change.

They give them enough autonomy but it's enough consistency.

They get performance.

And you can build a business that you can ultimately leave for six months because you build up your cash flow that someone else can take.

You've really built something of value.

So I'm going to continue to look at these industries and areas because once I have that decision maker that purchases the filter flip, then he's going to purchase these security and all the other services because they're used to the software.

Think of it like adding to your Amazon cart.

Yes.

Once you bought one item, it's so convenient to buy the others because you're used to how it works.

Yeah, no, no, it's smart boy.

Time goes fast when we're having fun.

What's Reed Superpower?

So you get to brag here.

I know you've built Something exciting and good, but something maybe we don't know or think that, hey, you know what?

I'm really good at this.

What would you tell us?

You know, it seems like more and more it's creating analogies.

I mean, I think I can pull one out of anywhere.

It seems like anymore I can pull an analogy.

And I've realized that it's much like a parable, a story that we can tell that others can identify with and then otherwise be able to go forward with understanding.

If you had a.

You got a superpower, but if you had, you know, a kryptonite, what would that be like?

For me, it's detailed, so I have really good people to help me with the detail.

The finer things.

I keep 30,000ft and I enjoy it there.

It's a pilot.

I like the scenery, I like the view, I like looking at it.

And there's not too many people bothering me up there, right?

Yeah, right.

Look, things.

What we did.

So detail for me, patience, right?

I always tell my wife that she's using a patient.

By definition, that's a waste of time.

I mean, you're wasting your time waiting for something.

So I would say patience is, you know, probably my kryptonite that if I have to wait for something like, how can I accelerate this?

That's just inherently how I think and.

Operate, which feeds the whole entrepreneurial journey and going to look at opportunities and.

And it's really about disrupting, right?

Which, you know, brings me to my next point, talking about disruptors.

And you're going into fields, going into markets, and you look for, how can technology be applied here?

And if you start to look at it and how AI is some of the, you know, things that are necessary, obsolete workflows, if you will.

Because the mundane things, the boring things, the repetitive things, AI is going to take care of that.

What about becoming an interrupter?

Is there a formula you use for identifying those opportunities?

Because you've already named a couple, which are.

If anyone's listening, you're going, hey, there's some good business opportunities here and they can explore that.

How would you.

Yeah, so I look at the biggest marketplace, right?

I think a lot of people looking at marketplaces that they like or they're passionate about or otherwise, what's the biggest marketplace?

Security is an enormous, I mean, 270 billion global marketplace.

So that's what needs to be disrupted, right?

If it's big enough that it's viable, how can you disrupt it?

As opposed to creating a new category that wasn't ever Created before.

Right.

So my kids like these, you know, new.

I don't know if they're healthy soda drinks or whatever, but there's been a whole bunch of them that have come out that are all flavored and different and that's now been disrupted already about 10, 15 years ago.

And it's just becomes a me too.

So you disrupted the, the soda category with bottled water, among other things.

Now it's overly disrupted and there's not enough market to go around.

So don't walk into an industry like that.

That you are just another me too with a slight variation already exist because those become fads.

Right.

And you can see that throughout time.

But go look at the ones that haven't been touched for years, things that have not been disrupted ever or at least in your generation, and then say what needs to change here and how can I use technology to do that disruption?

And that's where I would start.

Great insights, lots of gold there.

The book is called Lead Exponentially your path to developing Authentic and intentional Leaders.

Lots of good things.

We'll have your website where they can order the book wherever they find their books.

Lots of bookstores online, Amazon, great read.

And they can find both your books.

There's.

And if they want to reach out to you and get any of the franchise information for any of your businesses, we'll have that in the show notes as well.

Any final thoughts for our listeners?

No.

Thank you for having me, Michael.

And I guess I would just challenge the listeners to say, you know, you have the ability to define your future, just as my grandmother said, point back at yourself and determine where that will lead and then take ownership of your future in your life and you'll be much better for it.

And appreciate that I asked you to do it because your future is in your hands, no one else's.

Reid, this was fantastic.

Thanks for being our guest today.

Look forward to sharing the information with the rest of our audience.

All right, thanks.

Michael.

As you are listening to this episode, what is one idea that you've heard that has caught your attention and why does it matter so much to you?

And who is one person who you.

Can share that with?

Either sharing this episode or just sharing that insight that occurred to you while you were listening?

Perhaps it is taking full ownership of your outcomes by recognizing that when you blame others, you are essentially allowing them to own your decisions and afflict your life.

Or maybe it is practicing effective time management by aligning your hourly and daily actions with a long term vision, ensuring that your energy is always directed towards scaling your goals rather than just staying busy.

Thank you for listening, for learning, and for investing in yourself so that you can become the best version of you.

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