The Powerful Culture of the Service Express Way, with Ron Alvesteffer

This is the Athletics of business podcast. Episode 22. Welcome to the Athletics of Business. A podcast about how the traits and.

Behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance.

Now your host, Ed Molitor. Welcome to the Athletics of Business podcast and I am your host, Ed Molitor. And with me today is our special guest, Ron Alva Stoffer. Ron is the President and CEO of Service Express and during his tenure Ron has helped Service Express define its market and create a unique performance driven culture for employees. Service Express's core value to work with our employees to help them achieve their personal, professional and financial goals creates opportunities for employee achievement and has led to outstanding individual and team performances resulting individual and company success. As a result, Service Express has been named one of the best and brightest companies to work for in the nation five years in a row.

Service Express has also been named to the 8,5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America 10 of the past 11 years, as well as one of the top 25 best small companies by Forbes magazine. Under Ron's leadership, Service Express has averaged double digit revenue growth year over year and has expanded the geographic footprint nationally. Ron implemented Service Express's performance measurement system SR5, which tracks monthly and quarterly goals and results. A company focused on delivering exceptional customer service is the basis for Service Express's industry leading net promoter score of 84. Ron also authored the ebook the Service Expressway Values and Principles of a Growing Company. In it, Ron shares the beliefs and philosophies along with real life stories from the field that have driven these remarkable results and we look forward to Ron sharing those with us today.

Ron, welcome to the Athletics of Business podcast and I am honored, humbled and fired up to have you here and joining us today. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. How are you?

I'm doing well and I am really excited to just jump right in and start talking about the Service Express way and what you do and your journey and why don't you take us back and a little bit about how you got to where you are now and we'll get into the service expressway.

Yeah, so I mean, going way back, I mean, I graduated from Central Michigan University in the early 90s with a teaching degree. I think I took one business class through college and I won't share what grade I got in it, but you know, teaching sounded like a great idea. When I was coming out of school, I was going high school, I was going to teach, I was Going to coach. And by the time I graduated I was 22 years old. It just, it didn't really appeal to have the same appeal to me. And so I decided, you know, I thought I want to try my hand at sales where I felt like I. Sales was like the closest thing to athletics I thought, where you compete every day, you win or you lose every day.

And if you win more than the other person, you're rewarded for it. And if you lose more than the other person. Right. Then I guess you're rewarded for that as well. And so I started building a sales career by selling health club memberships for a year. And then I got a real estate license, I sold a house. I decided that's not what I wanted to do. I sold long distance services, I'll date myself on that a little bit. That used to be a thing. And then ended up moving to Nashville, Tennessee for three years. And really at that point latched on with a really cool small business that companies outsource their sales force to called contract sales managers. I really learned a lot about the art of sales, the art of growing a business, really the structure to it and the rhythm to it.

I applied all those lessons when I joined Service express. Then in 1997, that's when I joined here. I came in as the sales manager, the first manager hired by the founder. I was the 15th employee. We had four offices, you know, we're less than 3 million in revenue. And I took over all sales activities. I had four salespeople and kind of work towards growing the company. And in 2002 I was named president by the founder. He left the day to day operations of the business and so I took it over, you know, created my executive team and we've been together since and you know, partnered with private equity three and a half years ago and I'm the CEO and now we're 450 employees, over 100 million revenue. And went from four offices to 48 in county. Wow. It's been quite a journey.

That's amazing. I mean you started in 1997, you were the first sales manager and 15th employee. And here you are today. At what point did you realize this explosive growth was going to happen?

You know, it's funny because it didn't feel explosive. It was just double digit growth every year. That was the mantra, that was what I was hired to do. And so we never had one big year where it's like you know, wham, like just all of a sudden this huge growth where we doubled or anything. And in Fact, in the, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s, the dot com, you know, companies were growing, getting huge valuations and. And sometimes we'd look at each other like, man, we're only growing like 20% a year.

What's wrong with us?

Well, it turns out 20% a year, every single year, adds up to something pretty cool. So it felt like we kind of had a chance to grow into it, honestly, which was really neat.

Yeah. When that started happening. Talk a little bit about that, though. When the dot com bust happened and you looked at yourself and that 20% growth each year, is that when you realize that you were definitely doing things the right way?

I think it did feel like it. Right. Kind of felt like it validated us like, okay, companies can come and go, they can have explosive growth and then crash. And we just want to stay the course of what we feel we're good at and what we can keep up with. We're a service company. And so, you know, we never wanted to grow so fast that we couldn't keep up with the service were providing because I felt like that was going to potentially would crash us in. Right. If we started losing these customers that we worked so hard to get, that did not seem to make sense to me. And we have a 98% customer retention rate. We have an 84 net promoter score. So service is very important to us.

We work really hard to deliver a great experience, the best experience possible, whenever we get a new customer.

And how do you do that? You know, there's always the game changer or the separator or the differentiator, whatever you want to say. But what is it about you that really captivates people? Like, you know what? That is exactly why we use them.

I think we block and tackle really well. I mean, sometimes people can get so focused or unfocused and trying to do something fancy, something new, crazy and exciting. I mean, we show up, we take your call with a live person, we answer your call, we call you back within 10 minutes with your service engineer, we tell you when we're going to be out there, and we show up on time with the part in hand. We provide service on computer hardware inside large corporate data centers. And we show up with the part in hand and we fix you the first time. We do exactly what we say we're going to do. In fact, even as hard as we sell and we tell a great story, we under promise and over deliver, we exceed those expectations.

And so it's really just executing being true to your word. And becoming a trusted advisor for your clients. That's what we have found.

That all starts with the people. And the amount of value that you pour into your people is amazing. And I want to jump right into this and talk about your core value. To work with our employees to help them achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals. Can we talk about that?

Absolutely. I love to talk about it. So, you know, as I mentioned, I've got a teaching degree, and I'm not a technology guy, right? So here I am, the CEO of a technology company. You know, how does this happen? Well, when I was named President 2002, you know, I kind of. I looked at how were set up as a company, what were really good at, and looked at what I was passionate about, and I'll go back to teaching and coaching, you know, and so I thought, you know, I'm not going to win the business game necessarily, or win the technology game. As far as an expertise, my people will, but we can win the people game. It all starts with surrounding yourself with the right people. The right people mean the right people for your company.

So the right people for us who are passionate about being committed to each other, to being part of something special, part of something bigger than themselves. We wanted to create this environment, this culture where we could hire the best talent and create an environment where they could do their best work and be recognized and rewarded for it. That's when we came up with our. We called it our vision at the time, because this was our vision. Our bhag at the time, big, hairy, audacious goal, as Jim Collins teaches us, was 100 million in revenue by the year 2020, and were 7 million in revenue at the time. So it just seemed like, how are we ever going to get there, right? We said, we're going to surround ourselves with the right people.

We're going to figure out what they want to achieve, and if we can help them achieve their goals on a personal, professional, financial level, our company goals will be blown out of the water. And so that's what we set out to do. And it really started with how our founder acted and behaved and treated us. We just said, all right, we want to be purposeful about this. We want to scale this, and we want this to be at the core. Now we call it our core value because it's so ingrained in us, the core of what we do and who we are. We set off from there, and, you know, funny thing, it works.

It is pretty amazing when you align everything you do in your behaviors and Your activity with your core value, how that works itself out, isn't it?

It really does. I mean, we unashamedly put our people first, above our customers, above anybody. Because if we take great care of our people, they're going to take amazing care of our customers. And that works. That happens right there. And so we said again, we're going to win through our culture and through the environment which we have here. I'd love to talk about culture for a minute if you don't mind, because I think.

No, absolutely.

Get that word confused a little bit. And they think, you know, they read stories and stuff and they think it's all ping pong tournaments, foosball tables, you know, having parties, office parties and things like that. And look it, that is all part of it. That is all having a lot of fun at work. And we've done and do all of those things. But culture, a real meaningful culture, I believe in a company is that our people know that the work they do matters. They know how they have an impact on the company. Alright. And then they're recognized and rewarded for that. I think that's where you get true buy in and culture. If somebody shows up every day without a purpose and thinks, is what I'm doing right now even matter? Does anybody even notice? I think you get lack of engagement. Right.

We measure everything through our company and every individual in the company, including myself, has a measurable job description and we review it with our leaders every month. And so you're getting recognized every month for the job that you're doing. You know exactly how what you do impacts the company, impacts other teams and how you're a part of this growth story that we're on. And I think that's where you get deep in employee engagement and commitment. And that's a great culture.

It's a great culture. And you know, as we talked about with our brand, the Athletics of Business in the podcast here, the behaviors and traits of the high performing teams and athletes are the same ones that are key to your success in business. And I've always, in my years coaching college basketball and being around the game of basketball. I love programs as well as organizations and this is what I love about your organization. You have a culture that's worth fighting for. I mean, your people will do whatever it takes to keep that culture going. Is that true?

Yeah, they amaze me every day. I mean, they are an amazing group of people. I'm just blessed to be part of it, honestly. They raised the bar so high for me, you know, it is awesome. It really is. And, you know, and we. We surround ourselves with people, we hire people and track people that a lot of times come from other companies, other cultures where they weren't recognized. They didn't know if their work mattered. Nobody paid attention to them. Nobody asked them about their goals until they were leaving. They're like, well, wait a minute. Why are you leaving? Well, because I'm going over here. Well, what do you want to achieve? Like, it's too late. Somebody's already asked. They asked me early on. We're going to lead with that. I've been here for years and you've never asked me.

And so, you know, it's really powerful to come in there and for people to be respected and again, recognized and feel valued, feel they're part of something bigger than themselves, part of something special. And that's what we're continuing to try to create here.

And not to be the master of an obvious. The master of the obvious. And you'll laugh at me here, Ron, but I just want to hear from you, how significant is it in the hiring process, in the recruiting process, for you to find folks, yes, obviously they have to be talented. They have to have the skills and the knowledge and the credibility. But how important is it for them to be a fit into your culture?

It's the most important thing, right? It is absolutely the most important thing. I don't care how good you are, you know, how much you can sell, how technically smart you are, anything. Like, if you're not a fit for our culture, and I want to be clear on that, too. Like, we have a culture in a mindset that works for us. If someone's not a fit, it doesn't mean they're a bad person or it doesn't mean we're right and they're wrong. We're just looking for people that have the same view of how to take care of the customer, how to work together, and how to drive results that way that we do. Ours is not the only way. We're just really looking for that culture fit.

But to your point and your question, if we're not aligned right there, like, we need to figure that out during the interview process, because if they come, you know, it doesn't happen often, but it happens once in a while. It's just not a good fit. They're frustrated, we're frustrated. And, you know, we'd rather. Just for both sides, we'd just rather avoid that up front, right?

By saying fit into your culture, we don't mean that they don't think outside the box and they're not different in certain things. But it's in the authenticity. It's in being a part of something bigger than yourself. And it is, you know, what are some of the key indicators for you when you go through that hiring process? That someone is a fit.

Yeah. And by the way, you're exactly right. It's not like we all have group think. I don't care about your background, I don't care. Religion, I don't care. Politics, all that stuff. I want that all as diverse as it can because that creates a healthy mix. But when it comes again, how do we work together? How do we take care of the customer? What's our commitment when we give our word that we live up to that? What's our effort, our grit? Those things, those are things that we just don't waver on. We ask a lot of questions around it. We ask very few questions around can you do the job or not? We certainly want to know if you have the aptitude.

But we can figure out pretty quickly from your sales results and track record, or by asking you questions around technology or around finance or operational processes, whatever it is we're recruiting for, you can figure out if people have the skill for that pretty quickly. So after that it's all about are they a new term that I'm using that I heard a gentleman named Paul Spiegelman from Small Giants use was are they like hearted people? Right. Not as much like minded, yes, but like hearted. And that's what we're looking for. And we just interview for evidence of that. And in their answers, you know, is it me, me, or was it team, team? Give me examples in the past of how you've worked together, solved problems, went the extra mile, things in that nature, and the patterns begin to emerge.

I think the other thing we do is we put a lot of this out there. I mean, I have a blog, we're on social media, I wrote an ebook. People read that and I think you're either attracted to that message or you're not. And I think it's been great that way that the people who are really attracted to it, you can tell. I mean, they come right in, they've read everything and they're like, I have to be part. I thought maybe I was happy at my other job. I didn't realize it until now that I've read this, like, I have to be here. And some people are like, you know, that sounds good, but probably not for Me. Right. And again, that is okay.

Well, it's fine. It solves a lot of problems before they happen. Yeah. So I'm going to ask you a question because in the basketball world, in the college basketball world, and you see these people build these programs up and they'll talk about how it's harder to sustain that level of success than it was to get there. And whether that's true or not. But that feeling, I mean, how hard is it or how challenging and how weary of blind spots do you have to be now that you have this amazing culture, this powerful culture, and you want to make sure that not just sustain it, but you keep growing it?

Yeah. You know, I think the biggest thing is we're very intentional and we're very purposeful about our culture. And so, you know, people are going to have. Companies are going to have cultures. Whether they want them or not, one will emerge. Right. And so you can either be purposeful and intentional about it, or you can just let it happen. And the same is for us. In fact, it's not only company wide, but we have 48 offices. So every office will have a culture. We want to hire for it, we want to promote for it, we want to train for it. When we hire people on their first six months, they're figuring out how to do their job and getting their feet under them that way.

We do a training class about four or five times a year where we bring in new hires that have been with us at least six months. So they've kind of figured out their job and their role in the day to day. We bring them back and we teach a class called the Service Expressway. And I'm part of it. My executive team is part of that class, has a role in teaching it. And we teach not what we do in business, but how we do it and what our culture is and what it looks like here. We truly try to put the term, we put skin on it so you can see it, you can understand it, you know what works, you know the why behind it, which is always important to explain the why behind things and say, this is just who we are.

And now we want you to be ambassadors of our culture. It's not going to come just from me or just from some executive. It's got to come from every person in every department and every office within this whole company. So we're just very intentional about it.

Right. And what is the. To feel that culture, to see that culture come alive in the. You said 48 different offices and having a culture inside the culture if that makes sense. Like each office is going to have a unique environment, a unique culture. How do you foster that? How do you encourage that?

Yeah, I think a lot through leadership. You know, again, through promoting the right leaders, through hiring the right leaders who have that servant leadership mentality. Because it really starts there. I mean, the fish stinks from the head down. If I'm not living it, my executive team or a leader, then we're going to have issues. We really build around a servant leadership model, which is putting other people's needs before ours by understanding. I have a Ziglar quote right outside my office, which is really my life quote, which is you can get everything you want out of life if you just help enough other people get what they want. Yep, we set that tone. We hire for it, we celebrate it, we promote for it, we give raises for it. That's the type of person we're looking for. And again, it's so cool around here.

Like, I talk about servant leadership, like, it's like hard to out serve somebody. Everyone's trying to help everybody else. Honestly, it's like it is hard to do. It's a great problem to have.

Well, think about if our society did that though. How much better off would we be?

It'd be unbelievable. I mean, my wife has told me before, like, I live in a bubble here at Service Express because it is just not the same world that you certainly hear about on the news or see on Twitter in that nature. I mean, it really is a special place and I love being a part of it. It gives me energy, it impacts every facet of my. Of my life. And it's just the most amazing people to be. They're amazing, yet when you pass them, we don't look like Superman, but you get to the heart of the person and what they will do for you. And I tell when people hire in here, they're their first week.

I said, I tell them all, you could call anybody in our company right now, introduce yourself, tell them it's your first week here and that you have a question, and they would bend over backwards to help you find the answer that question and help you in any way possible. And we don't train that. We just hire for it. Right. And then create an environment celebrated and rewarded again. That's a big part of it.

Yeah. That is absolutely huge. And I know, yeah, folks like your wife makes a report, you live inside this bubble, but this is a world you created that you folks created. And one of the ways you do that, if we can Segue into that real quick is helping your employees with their goals. This is this. When were talking a few weeks back, I mean, and you can speak to this, I was blown away. I'm like, this is one of the coolest things that I have ever heard. And you were probably ready to hang up on me 10 times because I kept digging into it, like, are you serious? You really do this? He. Can you share that with our listener?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, our core value help our employees achieve their personal, professional and financial goals. And so every employee that comes in, every employee in the company goes through a goal setting process and they write down their goals. What do they want achieved personally, professionally? Here at Service Express, financially, we keep their goals on our company intranet. They're private, so like their manager can see it and then on up through to me, like just their direct reporting chain, right? So we have access to it, but nobody else. It's private. Twice a year we have what we call vision talks where the employee sits down with their leader and they review their goals with them and say, here's what I want to achieve. Because we ask them, where do you want Service Express to play in your life?

How can it help you in your personal life, professionally? What are you trying to accomplish? What are your goals financially? Look at how much money do you want to make? How much money do you want to make next year? How much money do you want to make 3 years, 5 years, 10 years from now? And let's work together towards trying to achieve those goals. Now, we don't say, hey, tell us what you want to do and we'll just give it to you, right? It's to help our employees, to work with them, to achieve those goals, to create those opportunities, to give training, to give other opportunities for them to do that. And you know, I look back on my hired date, August 18, 1997, and I look, you know, I wasn't married. I was going to be married in about six weeks, right?

But I wasn't at the time. No kids, first leadership position as a sales manager. And I think, man, on that day, my life changed, right? That's the day. Because of Service Express, I've been able to achieve more professionally than I ever thought possible. Never dreamed of being a CEO. Financially, I'm doing better than I've ever done financially. And personally. I'm married. I have three amazing kids. They're all teenagers, right? I get to go to their games. I'm coaching my daughter right now in basketball when we can get home for dinners together. I can be home for dinner. Not every time, but a lot of the times I've got great work, life balance. I get to be the dad I wanted to be, the husband I'm trying to be. It's all because of Service Express.

And too often it seems like I've heard, you know, people say, like, well, if it wasn't for my job or the company I worked for, I'd like to do these other things. And for us, we might say, man, because of Service Express, you get to do all of that and more.

Right, Right. Think about that and how much of this really stems back to the way you do things. You do things with that servant mindset and the mindset that successful teachers and coaches do, which really, you think about it, you're fulfilling your original passion, aren't you?

I really am. I really, I'm teaching and coaching. It's just a different field to play, I guess. It's a boardroom, you know, it's an office environment, it's out in the field with the team. But it really does come back to teaching and coaching. Very much a coaching mindset for sure. And I love it.

And if we could just for one second bounce back to the goals because as I read your ebook, which by the way, all of that information is going to be in our show notes and I'm telling the listener, just go grab as much of this content and information as you can because it's so valuable. But one of the things was you talked about tweaking goals. When goals change, can you talk into your whole philosophy and your execution of that when that occurs?

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's your goals evolve as you evolve and some goals you think you have later turn out to be not as important as you thought and other goals rise up. And so this is an ongoing conversation. It's not a one time event. That's why we do it formally twice a year. But really what we teach our leaders is this should be really kind of an ongoing conversation as you're getting to know your people and care about your people, that you understand what is important to them. Sometimes they change. Somebody might think they want to be in leadership and then we put them through maybe some leadership development training and some opportunities. Actually this happened recently and somebody says, you know, I really don't think that's for me. I don't think that's where my passion is.

I think it's great that we have great leaders, but that's not for me. I'd rather be more the senior go to person on the team and really good at what I do. We said, fantastic, that's great to do that. We want to be able to adjust them and update them consistently. I remember a number of years ago having an employee and they said this was before they were married and had kids. They said, I'd rather have some extra vacation time than as much of annual raise because I like to have, you know, free time and go do some traveling, some other things. And we said, all right, man, if that's important to you and what motivates you, we can do that, you know.

And then a few years later he got married, had a couple kids and he said, you know, man, I really don't need as much vacation time. I need money. Yeah, life changes. And so it's, that's why it's a continuous conversation. It's really a great vehicle to have a deeper conversation, Take time away from the business and really to show your people that you care about them, you value them, you value what's important to them. And hey, how can I help you get where you want to go again, knowing that if you do that enough times, you're going to get where you want to go. I feel like I've built my whole career around that. So I'm living proof.

I mean, that is so cool. And one of the things I love to say is how you do anything is how you do everything. And I remember I always tell our players that you need to take care of your stuff off the court because it's going to directly affect, you know, impact how you play on the court. And what I'm getting at is I can only imagine the stories that you hear about how great the employees lives are away from the office, you know, at Service Express, like the things that you add to their families, that the organization adds to their families, to their personal life, to the, you know, all of the other stuff besides just work that has to be pretty rewarding for you.

It's amazing. I'm actually getting chills sitting here as you're talking through that because I'm thinking back to a Christmas party a few years ago where one of our employees wives came up to me and this was a field service engineer that in that environment sometimes you're on an on call rotation 24, 7 and some other companies you can get working 80 hours, 90 hours a week pretty consistently. Right. And so she came up to me and she said, I want to thank you for giving me my husband back. How powerful is that? I got Chills talking about it like he's home. And when he's home, he's present, he's relaxed, he's not as stressed. This company has had such an amazing impact on his life, therefore our life. That's the best feedback that I've ever received.

And oh, by the way, when you do that with people like you think he's going anywhere. His wife would never allow it. Right. And so you get employee commitment and engagement. It just, it all works together great.

And all of a sudden that becomes a recruiting tool.

Absolutely. Referrals, Right. Testimonies. And then people walk in here and you know, some of the other greatest feedback I've gotten our people. It's like we thought it was good when went through and heard the story and we came in. When we're here, it's better than we thought, it's better than we even imagined. And so that's just a testament to our people. Again, it all starts with surrounding ourselves.

With the right people. So what are, as a listener sitting here saying, okay, that's great. There has to be some struggle. We all know there has to be struggle to grow. What are some of the struggles or the challenges that you've had to keep the double digit growth going, to keep the culture, to, you know, be aware of the blind spots, to keep growing through adversity in the marketplace. What have you, what have been some of the struggles?

Yeah, I mean, it's a challenge. I mean it's so, it's, you know, it's a great culture, but we don't all come skipping into work every day, you know, humming a tune. You know, there's challenges that come along with it for sure. And I think again though, what separates is the perspective, how you look at a challenge. And I feel like our people, the people we're looking for, they run to the challenges, they want to solve problems. You can't keep them away from wanting to be involved in helping solve a problem. I think that gives people energy. We're going to have issues. We're a growing company and we're doubling about every four years. So we literally feels like we've become a different type of company every four years. I think there are times when some people we've had can't keep up, won't keep up.

I think the underlying thing that people like to talk about when you're creating a great culture is that sometimes somebody's not a good fit for it, or sometimes you've grown past where somebody's at, or maybe they hired them in and they don't have the right attitude. And that happens here too. And I think, you know, how you select is important, but how you deselect is very important. And I think average companies and companies with poor cultures don't address issues that they have when they have them. And we have stuff that happens here too. The difference is how we address it. You know, that we, hey, we have everybody, every chance to get something turned around, to correct behavior, you know, all those things.

But when we get to a point, this is the phrase I use all the time and with our employees that somebody either can't change or won't change whatever it is, maybe they can and they just won't, or maybe they just can't do whatever it is. At that point we have to part ways. It's never fun, it's never easy, it keeps leaders up at night thinking about it. But we look at the big picture now. I have 450 other families that I feel like I'm responsible for right now. And by the way, the employee is usually unhappy too. Feels like they're not the right fit. And it's just, I think it's more cruel to keep them on board than it is to just have a straight up conversation to say it is time to part ways.

We've tried everything we can and usually at that point they know and you try to do it the best you can, you go your separate ways. But I think that's important because some companies, they'll kind of, whether they promote trouble employees or just shift them from one department to another, they never address it. And I think you have a great responsibility for your people to address those things head on.

How do you go about having the difficult conversations?

Yeah, we walk right into it. We call it the danger zone. Right. You have to just sit down and have it. And I'll gut check that really hard in meetings I'm in. And if I hear as we're talking or strategizing and somebody's talking about their team member or their frustrations, you know, I'll point blank challenge my team especially be like, have you had that direct conversation with your employee? And sometimes I'll get like, well, yeah, I've kind of said this. I'm like, no, there's no. Kinda like if I were to call them up right now, which I may do, and I ask them where those conversations will they repeat back to me what you said, you know, and you can see a lot of times kind of the sheepish, you know, I'm like, look it. We owe it to them to say exactly.

Whatever we're saying in here, we have to say exactly to them. We owe it to them to give them that feedback. Otherwise, how can they ever correct it? Right? And that's walking in the danger zone. And I think the key part of that, and I learned this from a mentor of mine when I lived down in Nashville, Tennessee. Tina Mayberry was, you know, if you say it in love, if you lean in, if people know that you care, you can give that direct feedback. And you probably saw the same thing in coaching, right? If your players knew you really cared about them as people, you could be pretty direct with them. You know, I think my team would tell you I give direct feedback and, you know, and I strategize hard with them, you know, but they know how much I care about.

I'm doing that because I'm so passionate about what we're doing and about helping them. And so I think if you lead that way, they may not always agree, and it might not always be the best conversation, but the end, they'll respect it. They'll appreciate it. You know, we appreciate you for that.

So who's been. Who's been your. You just mentioned one influence. Who's been the biggest influence on your career or influences on your career?

Yeah, you know, I've had. I've had a number of them. I mentioned Tina Mayberry, who was so good at that. I mean, we'd have weekly strategy meetings, and the first thing she would do is just sit down and spend 15 minutes. I was new to Nashville, just talking to me. How you doing? What did you do this weekend? Where have you guys gone? Have you tried this? She just really took an interest in me as a person. Right. And started there, and then we'd get to business. But I always felt like Tina cared about me as a person first. John Maxwell says it. He says, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And she really embodied that. So she was great. The founder of the company, Mike McCullough, was fantastic. He really cared about. About people.

He challenged me daily. I mean, I used to, like, be in his office and you'd just be challenged on things. But I knew he cared about me. I knew he was passionate about people in the company and the growth of the company and where everybody could contribute. And really, our core value is built around his behavior that we just kind of took and scaled. So he's been a great mentor. And then I'll also just say, I'll end this with my mom. She's like the most amazing person. She has got a great attitude, a can do attitude. You talk about grit and perseverance, she embodies it.

Even today she's retired from being a legal secretary and she's got this thriving pet sitting business that she started because she loves animals and helped a couple people out, got referrals, and now it's like I can't hardly get her in town to visit me. So booked up, she just, she always finds a way. And anytime I wanted to do something in my life, she supported me 100%, enthusiastically. Never thought that was a crazy idea. She was always like, go for it. You should do that. Try it. See what happens, you know. And so she's been an amazing role model for me.

So how do you turn around and pay that forward to your kids and you know, are they interested in the business? Do they understand? And they're at that age now, in their teen years where they. The concept of leadership and the value of what you do. What are those conversations like?

Yeah, you know, it'd be funny to ask them because I just actually had a conversation at breakfast meeting this morning and said, you know, unfortunately I'm their dad. So they get hit with all this, like, leadership, you gotta be a leader, you gotta set the example. Like when bad things happen, like, so what? Persevere. Life can be hard. Like, you have to show grit. You can get through this. Just like, no excuses, a lot of caring. I mean, I'm there for them. They know I care about them, they know I love them, all that thing. But it's also I try, hope I'm not really try not to be that helicopter or bulldozer parents like, you gotta figure this out. And I'll brag a little bit here. My oldest son has been captain of the basketball team first years in high school.

And the comments and the feedback we get from teachers on all three kids, it's just been positive. And so I really just try to instill that in them. My wife is amazing. She taught for 13 years, had an incredible career. She really embodies this for the kids as well. Hopefully we're giving them a message and hopefully they're seeing us live it out. The old kids, they go by more on what they see than what they hear. That's a high bar that we're trying to live up to as parents and me for sure as their dad.

Well, just in our two conversations that we've had or a few conversations that we've had, one of the cool things about it is it's just a way of life for you. It's not like you have to be real systematic about how you have the conversations with your kids or with your employees. It's just. It's what you do. It's just the way you are. It's just your servant mindset. So the fact that they're going to be around that all the time, it's no shock that they're getting good reports. And your son is the captain of the basketball team, which is. Just make sure he gets enough jump shots, will ya?

That's right. That's right. He's a shooter. We shoot. We're not tall.

Hey, when in doubt, shoot and always remain in doubt.

Let it fly.

Yeah, yeah. So that is great. So what's next? I mean, what's the next step up for the service expressway? What are some of the things that you folks are working on or, you know, in the leadership, what have you?

Yeah, you know, so I mentioned our BHAG when. When I was named president of 100 million in revenue by 2020. And so we achieved that this year, as a matter of fact, officially this year, so a couple years early, which is great relations.

Yeah.

Thank you, thank you. And so we reset a BHAG for 500 million in 2025 with the caveat of the service Express way, meaning not to get away from the core principles that have gotten us here that we believe will scale to 500 million and beyond. And the idea of setting a BHAG like that, it's really not about the number, because I don't expect employees to say, like, oh yeah, let's have a bigger number for the sake of having a bigger number. That's not exciting. So what we talk about is what are the opportunities that show up within that number? Think back to your goals, personally, professionally, financially. You know, we're a hundred million now. We, you know, took us 18 years to 20 years to get there. We're gonna do it again four more times in the next seven years.

Like, where are the opportunities that you see in that number that can go on your goals? And how can we work together to make sure you take full advantage and be as much a part of that as you can and you want to. That's where it really gets exciting. And the other thing is we put a BHAG out there. It makes us question everything that we're doing now, business, process wise and culture wise, to say, will this still work? Are we prepared to scale to that level? And if it's not. That's okay. If you say, like, this process will only work till 300 million, like, I'm like, great. So you've got. When we project 300 million, say it's three years from now. Like, you have till then to figure that out, to fix that. Like, don't run away from the problems. Lean into them.

And I tell. Yeah, yeah. I tell everybody, like, you want the biggest career hack? Solve problems and help people. That's what I found. Solve problems and help people. Look, you want. You want to achieve things. It doesn't come to you on a silver platter, you know, it comes to you as a challenge, as a problem, and you can either complain about it, dish it to somebody else, or you can get in there and be part of the solution for it. Those who have been part of the solution over the years are the ones that continue to rise up through the company. You'll like this story. My son. So I mentioned basketball team. So his freshman year, he was competing for playing time, and he was actually struggling a little bit. He was trying to grind through some things.

He was playing point guard, and they had one that was injured, another out sick, and they were playing a really strong, athletic team. And everybody else, you know, his. The other two, his subs were sick or hurt. And he's like, oh, man, dad. Like, you know, and we got to play this team. Like, they're really good and athletic. Like, I don't know. And I said. I said, kurt, man, this is called opportunity. Like, in basketball today. And this is what life looks like. It doesn't come all wrapped up in a package like, oh, let's have you play against a really bad team so you can score a bunch of points and look good. Like, you're gonna go out now and either make or break it with how you react to the situation. Are you gonna lead through it? Are you going to compete?

Are you going to give it everything you have, win or lose, and rise up to it? Are you going to shrink from it? Right? And this is the stuff. This is life. So it's a freshman high school game today. It is my business world all the time, and, you know, so I gotta want to be those parents. He rose up to it. They lost the game. He competed hard, had one of his best games, ended up being starting guard through the rest of the season, named team captain, as I said. And that moment really launched him because weren't even sure he was struggling. Like, will he even play? Will he make jv, Let alone varsity. And he rose up through that. And when you do those things, that's that grit. And I think that gives you confidence in the business world, too.

When you solve problems and you can work through challenges, you show yourself a little something like, I can do this, and I've been through that. We can go on another one. And so we enjoy the good times, but we're prepared for when those challenges comes and we try to embrace them as opportunity.

So growth or adversity, Right. I mean, it's just what you just said. How important is that as you look at your next bhag? And before we close, I definitely want to jump into the bhag, because as hard. As hard as it is for probably you and I to believe, there are some folks out there who have not read Jim Collins. But growing through adversity, how significant is that? Not just getting through it, but growing through it.

Well, it's everything, right? Because you're going to have adversity. We have adversity here. Everything we do great today, we did really bad earlier, you know, earlier as a company. And so again, it's, how did we figure that out? How do we solve the problem? How do we go through that? And you're right. It's not just making it. It's what are the lessons that we learned through there? And not to be afraid to make mistakes, you know, to fail forward again, as John Maxwell would say, is to put. Put yourself out there, put it on the line. As long as you're learning, you get better from it. That's where the gold is. That's where the absolute gold is. Those who never put themselves out there or keep making the same mistake and never grow, they just keep banging their heads against the same wall.

That's where trouble comes in. But you're never going to go through a career, a life, anything, without some adversity. Again. It's how you're going to look at it and whether you're going to attack it and get through it and be part of the solution, or you're going to shrink from it and let somebody else do it.

Right, right. And then the next time that comes around and it rears its head, you can tap into the lesson that you learned the last time.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Jim Harbaugh would say it builds like a callus.

Right? Exactly.

Yeah. That you can. That you can lie on.

Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about the bhag. How long have you been using bhags?

Well, you know, really, since 2000. Since we read Good to Great and Built to Last. The The Jim Collins books, you know. And so really, you know, we officially put together our BHAG in 2002 when I was named president and again were 7 million. We said we're going to be 100 million by 2020. And I didn't know how were going to do it. I mean, I didn't have a game plan to get me all the way there. We just said that's our mindset and that's what we're going to grow to. And if we double digit growth year over year, we'll get there at 2020. And so we put that out there, but then we set upon the journey one year at a time. I think that's the balance, right?

You can't get caught looking so far ahead that it kind of spins you out or you forget to execute today or this year. And so when once we hit it, we put together a new BHAG once we knew were going to hit it, we put together a new BHAG a couple years ago because we knew were trending towards it. And it really changes your mindset. It's like moves the bar forward, I think. Keeps us engaged, keeps us sharp, keeps us looking at constantly improving everything that we're doing and all the things that eventually lead up to success.

So as we start to wrap this up, let's tap into the teacher mentality in you. And you are sitting in front of a group of young men and women who aspire to be leaders, not because it's the next step in their career, but because truly that's what they want to do as a poor value into others and they're going to eventually have the responsibility of building and driving a culture and sustaining that. What advice would you give them?

Yeah, I would say, you know, first and foremost, be authentic to yourself. Like if you're going to be a leader and build a culture, you know, if, look, if you hear this and the way we do it is not for you. Don't try to emulate it because it won't be authentic. And that's the first thing is be real and be authentic and build your leadership style and your business. If it's through a business through that. I mean, we grow double digits every year. Some companies don't want to do that again, that's fine. Doesn't mean we're right or we're wrong. That's just how we're wired. That's who I've surrounded myself with. So if I didn't do it now, I'D have a big mess on my hands because 450 people want to be part of that vision.

So I think be authentic to who you are, care about other people. TINA MAYBERRY STORY Right. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. You have to truly care about other people. And the other thing is, don't ever give up. And we've talked about challenges and perseverance and grit and what opportunity looks like. You justthere are just times you just have to will through and not get up. And if you can work through those hard times, you know, it's glorious. On the other side, I find that people who can't work through those, and so they give up or they change jobs every time something gets a little difficult. Those problems just follow you around because you never plan it and work through them. So be authentic, care about others and other people, and never give up.

Those are three things that come top of mind.

That's phenomenal. And Ron, if folks want to find out more about Service Express, the Service expressway connect with you, how can they go about doing that?

Yeah, you know, Service express website is service express.com I've got a personal website, ronalvisteffer.com where I do blogs just on my leadership, you know, kind of background and I'd say theory, but experiences and our take on leadership through Service Express. I do video blogs on there. We're on Service Express as on social media, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. I'm personally on and professionally, I should say professional Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram. We're out there. If you Google us, you'll be able to find us. And Elvis Duffer is a unique enough name, you'd be able to see it.

And we will have all of this. If you go to the athleticsofbusiness.com website, you can grab the show notes and all of this. The links to all of this information will be on the show notes and we would love to hear any thoughts you have on this wonderful interview. I mean, I appreciate all your time, Ryan, and all your transparency and your stories and the value you poured into us today. It's been an absolute blast.

I've really enjoyed it. Thank you very much. I love your podcast. I told you the angle that you take because athletics and business can be so similar in so many ways. And so I love your approach to it all. And it's just enjoyable to talk with you. So thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

I appreciate it. And you take care.

All right.

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