Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For me personally, what this whole interaction relationship has done is it's put a framework, a formality, a plan around ambition. And man, like, I got chills on my arm had I had that when I first started my career and or paid attention to the coaching and mentoring I had around frameworks and procedures. You know, I was the typical sales guy. Yeah, I'll just go get it. And I was successful, but I would have been dead.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: I'm Dennis Sorensen and this is the Think Big Win Bigger podcast. This is the podcast for sales leaders and salespeople who know they're capable of more and are looking for a system that is predictable, repeatable, scalable and forecastable for growth. It's not theories, it's not motivational speeches. It's an ambitious way to operate your business.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Hello and welcome to the Think Big Win Bigger podcast. I am your host, Dennis Sorensen. I'm really excited to have my good friend and business partner John Giese joining me for this two part series. In part one, we will break down how leaders learn to see opportunity that others miss, why most companies fall short without the right structure and accountability in place, and how slowing down to ask better questions is actually what unlocks bigger outcomes.
This is a conversation rooted in real experience, what it takes to think bigger, operate differently, and ultimately win bigger. Let's get into it.
[00:01:33] Speaker D: John and I were introduced in 2023 by Mike Weinberg, our mutual friend. We met in Orange County, California when John and Mike were working on an engagement with one of their clients. And Mike invited me to come and John was kind enough to let me join. And I'll just tell you a little bit about John. John is a serial entrepreneur who has built and led multiple businesses as the CEO, building them from the ground up. He served and continues to serve as a board member for several companies.
And today, I'm proud to say, my business partner and my friend. What stood out to me right away, and what I continue to see every time we work together is how John sees opportunity. He has a way to see an opportunity that others miss, right? To see opportunities that are there in plain sight, but nobody else can see them but John.
I've often described it to John as he sort of vibrates when he gets over opportunity. He just kind of feels it, feels it in himself. Right? And our first conversation turned into an ongoing dialogue and then working together with our clients and ultimately building horizons west together. I wanted to bring on John today because this episode is about ambition and John brings a perspective that comes from actually building and leading and living it not in theory, but not just in frameworks, but in real world experience.
So, John, welcome to the program. Excited to have you, and love, love
[00:03:06] Speaker A: having you here, Brother Dennis, you know, thank you very much.
It's an honor and privilege, really, is to be on this.
I think Mike Weinberg gave you and I the biggest gift you can give somebody, which is introducing them to another dear friend. And I'm sure we'll get into it on here, but I didn't know what he had planned, but I know he had a plan, so thank you. Looking forward to our conversation.
[00:03:37] Speaker D: So, John, we had the opportunity to meet in Orange county when we were with Mike, and I'd like for you to take us back to Orange County. Take us back to October of 2023 when we first met. Tell me what was going on in your world at that time.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Well, in the spirit of time, I'll keep it short because we had a lot going on. I was what I'll call in the process of a rebirth at the time was in the process of scaling my own consulting business.
And I felt as if I were just starting all over again, like being a young adult in the business world. And Mike and I had picked up a client that was in the life sciences space, which I knew nothing about, but it resonated with me because a lot of my career in the construction and infrastructure industries, I didn't know anything about it when I. When I first got in it, but we figured it out.
[00:04:34] Speaker D: So you were working across at the time in your consulting business, a range of different clients. What kinds of problems were you typically dealing with and coming across with those clients?
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah, great. Great question. They're all great companies. They had good bones, good foundations. But I found the. Probably the common denominators were, you know, lack of organization and structure, particularly around the revenue function, and there was no accountability. And running your own companies and doing the things that I've done, you're accountable every single day, because if you don't perform, people don't get paid, you don't make any money.
So you've got to build accountability into your system. And I found that that was why my clients at the time were calling me in, was to help build, structure and build a process and build some accountability.
[00:05:32] Speaker D: When we first met and you were coming into that conversation with me for the first time, what were you expecting? What were you expecting from that?
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Well, it was.
Mike had mentioned with this particular life sciences client that he wanted to bring a friend in. And I said, well, who's the friend. And he said, dennis Sorensen. I said, wait, you mean the guy that was on your podcast way back when? And it gives me chills today because what you've said. I've been listening to these podcasts for four or five years, however long it's been.
And what you and Mike have talked about really resonated with me because I had been doing it in part, meaning I didn't have any structure around it. I was just an ambitious entrepreneur who didn't know any better. So I was really excited about just meeting you and being in the same room. So I didn't have any true expectations, but, man, was iron on where that
[00:06:35] Speaker D: would go, really was, because after that, we, you know, we. We stayed in touch. Right. We continued to talk, and, you know, eventually we started working together. And so what led you to really kind of lean into that and want to lean into that with me?
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Man, these are. These are good questions.
Some emotional piece of this. You know, it's.
It was natural, right? There was just a natural collaboration, I think, was the most important thing. Like, I.
You were challenging me in a way that I hadn't been challenged since my mentor back in the mid to late 90s.
So I think that was the first thing that really had me lean into this. And the second one is, as we talked, I really started to see the value that you could bring to my clients, because, again, I know how to go do it. But in this case, I was being the athlete with my clients, not necessarily the coach.
And it dawned on me with the way that you operationalize sales, I said, wait a minute, we could be dangerous together. So those were the two. I guess I could probably go on and on.
[00:07:56] Speaker D: We have been a little dangerous.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Yes, we have been a little dangerous, for sure.
[00:08:01] Speaker D: So as you think back and as we started to talk, what were you starting to notice in the opportunities that you were working on? Right. In the space that you were in? Right. And how did the things that you and I were talking about resonate for you in that space?
[00:08:17] Speaker A: I want to go back one step, too, is just the frequency that I started to notice through you challenging me. And I don't think at the time we were really talking about ambition, but looking back, it was ambition. You disguised it.
That frequency then transferred over into.
I think this question you're asking now, the tendency for people and companies is they often think, well, geez, what we've been doing for the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years has gotten us here. It could certainly get us to where we want to go. Even though they had opportunity, whether it was a specific process or technology or both, they just didn't see and don't see the opportunity. It's almost as if they just operate off of hope. And in the utility infrastructure construction industry, whether it's power, gas, water, wastewater, those companies are not accustomed to being disruptive and in this case, outcome based sales,
[00:09:32] Speaker D: how did you see that showing up as far as like things falling short for them, like falling short of where you thought their total potential might be?
[00:09:41] Speaker A: They just didn't know what they didn't know, meaning they didn't know how to ask these questions.
If the opportunity with a particular customer of theirs or a new customer, they didn't understand how to frame it differently and ask the right questions. I would say I don't know if that answers the question, but that's my first what comes to mind.
[00:10:04] Speaker D: So you could see like within these companies that they themselves weren't necessarily seeing what was possible for them to achieve.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. I don't know if that was because of lack of property, process or just because they've been into the, the same way of doing things for, for so long. There was just not really any thought leadership there that was strong enough to build off of what they've built.
[00:10:33] Speaker D: So as you reflect on the work that you've done in different situations. Right. How have you seen the definition of what's possible take shape?
[00:10:43] Speaker A: I'd say in general, the businesses where I've done advisory with them, I don't know that they've really fully adapted the change.
For me personally, what this whole interaction relationship has done is it's put a framework, a formality, a plan around ambition.
And man, like I got chills on my arm. Had I had that when I first started my career or, and, or paid attention to the coaching and mentoring I had around frameworks and procedures. You know, I was the typical sales guy. Yeah, I'll just, I'll just go get it. I know everything and I was successful, but I would have been deadly had I had this operational framework that we're now able to go out and give to people and coach them across industry.
So I've had a lot of big opportunities come in the last three years because of this framework.
[00:11:46] Speaker D: Can you expand a little bit more on kind of how you think the framework, the things that we teach, our process driven approach at Horizons west, the way that we talk about the three pillars that we talk about that underpin plan, prepare, practice, play, but then it's underpinned by ambition, strategy, execution. Right. How has, how has that shaped for you, like, personally, the, you know, how are you doing things differently today maybe than. Than you did when you were that sales rep you were talking about? Because to me, you're still like, you're, you're, you're still in sales. You're in sales at all. You're in full sales mode all the time. And so, like, how do you think it's shaped and maybe changed the way you approach. Approach things today?
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Man, you know, that's the great thing about ambition, because you can use it at home with your kids, your wife, your husband, your partner. It's applicable across the board because it forces you to step back, take a moment and think because you have a different mindset if you are really implementing ambition.
So I think that that's the biggest movement for me.
[00:13:00] Speaker D: Yeah, you coach your kids, right? You coach a lot of sports, and you coach your kids in sports. How do you think, how do you see it even, like, in that environment with you and your kids, like when you're coaching those teams, how do you think about and shape that in those young men?
[00:13:17] Speaker A: I try to frame it, Dennis, as coaching them to see the bigger picture. Right. Coaching soccer, maybe out of the 14, there's 18 kids on the team, you might get one or two. Where we live, we live in a skiing town and an outdoor town. You know, one or two will go to college and play soccer. But what I try to coach them on is ambition, on and off the field, having a plan.
How are you eating? What time are you going to bed? What are you eating? Why are you doing this?
What is it you're trying to come after to get. To achieve, what outcome are you looking to achieve? Because if they can start to become more ambitious and put some structure around that in sport, one, it's going to show them how to work better with teams. But number two, at some point, when their frontal lobes develop enough, and I don't even know that mine's fully developed in the 50s, you know, being a male. But, you know, I think that's what I try to coach them on, because it's not about the individual sport that they're playing, it's more about how can they apply this in life every day. So I'll take bits and pieces of our ambition stuff, and I whisper it in my boys personally all the time. You know, I've got one that thinks he wants to be in the NHL, another one that wants to play soccer. Well, what's your plan? When I talk about the soccer, if you don't have a thousand touches a day on the ball, you're not going to go very far.
[00:14:47] Speaker D: Yeah.
And how do you think that? It's like, you know, the way we define ambition at Horizons west is, you know, we really talk about it as the total potential, right. So if we're talking about sales, right. Or, you know, for a company or for a seller, Right. It's really about knowing the total potential of your account or your territory. Right. And what we want to be able to do is understand that so that once we see that opportunity.
Right. Like we talk about, once you see ambition, it can't be unseen. Right. You shared a story with me from your sales days early on in your sales career when you had an ambitious pursuit. Maybe share a little bit about that particular opportunity.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: I had been recruited from a company out of Texas. I lived in Chicago at the time. And they had asked me if I'd be willing to relocate to Jacksonville, Florida, because there was a big sewer rehabilitation project there.
And mind you, the company I was being recruited by did about eight, eight and a half million dollars a year in revenue. And the son of the family that started this was close to my age and from Tennessee and said, john boy, I want you to go down to Jacksonville and see if we can get this whole $900 million of work. I said, really? He said, that's your job.
So I moved and they had a big program manager, big engineering firm, multinational, Black and Veatch that was over the project.
And once I saw that number and heard the number and got into what it was.
[00:16:30] Speaker D: The 900 million.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: The 900 million, you couldn't stop. You had to.
Everything I did was trying to figure out how to get there. And I was in my late 20s, early 30s, so I built my ambition plan and I started to ask questions differently than any of my competitors were doing.
And I think the program was actually bigger than that. But long story short, within 24 months, I was successful in getting the company. I worked for a five year, essentially sole source project for $450 million. The company I worked for had to joint venture with another business because they couldn't handle all the work. They were a little bit shocked that we pulled this off. And that took the eight and a half million dollar a year company in 24 months to 60 or 70 million a year. They and their joint venture partner were acquired.
And another valuable lesson. I thought I knew more than everybody else, so I went and started my own business because I didn't Want to work for the parties that acquired the business I worked for.
And it was a, I think at the time, the single largest contract ever awarded in the United States for this type of sewer rehabilitation.
[00:17:59] Speaker D: Well, you think about it, right? So $900 million. $900 million takes you down a path of having to think differently than you would if you were chasing, say, a million dollars worth of work or $2 million worth of work. You had to have. You had to be. You had to have a different type of strategy, you had to be asking different types of questions, and you had to be thinking differently about the people that you bet. How does sort of those things all kind of come together and shape in your mind?
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it was interesting because in what we're coaching and teaching now, you know, you have this enterprise sales level where you're high, wide and deep in an organization. Well, I had to do that. It wasn't formalized, but I knew that I had to be high, wide and deep in this organization. And the beautiful thing about it was, is the.
The middle managers started to understand what this could do for their lives, the outcomes it would deliver, the problems it would solve for them.
They started to tell me who needed to be involved, who I had to touch and how I had to touch them. So they gave me the roadmap because they saw the value in what it was I was bringing to the table. I wasn't selling. I was only asking questions. And I think again, that's why when I hear you and Mike, particularly on some of your old podcasts, and you guys are talking about this, and then Mike writes a book on it, holy cow. It's what I did. I just didn't know it at the time.
It works.
[00:19:40] Speaker D: And so how does what we do now. How is what we do now different than sort of the way you thought about it then? Like, you. You said that you were doing a lot of these things, right? You were doing a lot of these things. How, how do you see it differently now? How. What's the shift now in the way that you think about being process driven and in particular around ambition. Right? Like, how. How do you think differently, even though these were sort of innate things, Right, You've got this DNA that's this incredible, you know, opportunistic, you know, aggressive as all hell, you know, sales rep, Right. So, like, how do you think about it differently now, given the framing that we've put around and the structure we put around it, the process we put around it?
[00:20:27] Speaker A: You know, I think ultimately it's slowed me down a little bit from a thinking perspective, because if I smell and see the opportunity, historically, years ago, I'm going to run through the front door, and there would likely be some collateral damage. As a small cap business CEO, I had to do things a little different.
Borderline guerrilla warfare, outlaw type of mindset.
You just take no prisoners.
So now it gives me some alignment. It allows me to step back and really start to define on that particular business that we may be buying or a particular opportunity for a client. I step back and really start to ask questions differently.
Then it also.
It changes your behavior, because in this process that we do here at Horizons west, if you're implementing the four P's and all the things that lead to ambition, it allows you comfort that you don't have to be reactive. And I think there's a lot of power in that.
It's taken some time and discipline in getting to know you and working with you. And we always use these sports analogies. And, you know, I think slowing down and focusing on where the ball is on the course right now, what's the next shot that we need to take and being patient in that process, you know, and I. I don't know if we'll have time, but trusting the process, it's something I've learned from some Tier one operator friends of mine. I was never a tier one operator when I served in the military, but talking to these guys and spending time with them and how they reinforce trust, the process, that's what the message is on this ambition. If you make a commitment to it and you formalize it and you trust the process, it will change your mindset in a way that is transformative and disruptive. Whether it's you want to be the best father and husband on the planet, or whether you're trying to grow your business or you're a CRO, it's that powerful.
[00:22:57] Speaker D: Yeah. I think that there's so many things that you said in there. Right. So, like, one of the first things you said. Right. Was the slowing down. Right. So, like, one of the key things I think that I've learned through it is, you know, that it's that slowing down that in reality allows us to go faster. Because when you talk about that running through the door, you're creating collateral damage. Sometimes that collateral damage takes the form of, you know, we try to go fast because, like, I've been on a lot of sales calls with my sales reps, and, you know, the. The customer themselves will. They'll be speaking about a particular pain that they have or problem that they want to solve. And my rep knows we can solve that problem and instantly pounces on that problem, right? When what we really needed to do instead of jumping was to just slow ourselves down, take in that information. Yeah, that's a problem we can solve. That's a pain we can alleviate. And instead of, you know, I describe it sometimes as, you know, a squirrel, right? A squirrel runs through the room, and all of a sudden we start chasing that one squirrel. And what we really have to be able to do is we gotta slow down and we gotta be able to take the time to just start asking even more questions and uncovering more pain. Right? We got to kind of peel that whole onion. I know I'm mixing a lot of metaphors here, because what I want to find is that whole nest of squirrels, right? What I want to know is all of the squirrels, I want to know where they all are, right? I don't want to just chase that one. And sometimes when we run in and we create some of that collateral damage, in some ways, what that collateral damage is, is it's making again, we're putting ourselves in the position of making small changes to small things for the client. And when we're making small changes to small things, they see us as small, right? But if we can shift our mindset, if we can get to that place where we're talking about big changes to big things, that's when they see us as big. And it takes that discipline, it takes that ability to slow yourself down in order to be able to position yourself to make big changes to big things. Because when you walked in the door of that opportunity you were talking about, you were an eight and a half million dollar business. And they look at you guys and they go, well, these guys can't solve a $900 million problem.
So what you had to figure out a way to do was position yourself such that they were willing to give you half in a contract of that $900 million, which is what you got to. And it took some time. And that's the other thing is like recognizing that you're. You're playing a game that may take a little while to play, but the outcome of that game is going to be transformational. It's going to be exponential, you know, and it's.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Without violating any confidentiality here. You know, it's. That's similar on the transaction that, that we're working with at our capital firm here. There's a $3 million opportunity that is in a very short window.
And because I see the bigger picture.
It provides me comfort that if this transaction were not to go through, I don't have to worry about that $3 million number because the numbers are so big due to the ambition exercise we have gone through when thinking about acquiring some companies.
So it gives me patience in the game. So even as a CEO of operating companies, that information, that process, that foundation really holds some power on the table.
