Full Transcript – Lee Benson – Wild Business Growth Podcast #242

This is the full transcript for Episode #242 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Lee Benson – Your Most Important Number, MIND Methodology. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Lee Benson 0:00
Do less better.

Max Branstetter 0:16
Well, well, welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning, most of the time more on that later, who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is Episode 242, which backwards is 242, and today’s guest is Lee Benson. Lee is an incredible entrepreneur who has been a CEO for over 25 years, he owned and led Able Aerospace which he built to colossal proportions and sold it to Textron Aviation for somewhere in the 9 figures. He is the Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of Your Most Important Number, and the inventor of the unique methodology, the MIND Methodology, Most Important Number and Drivers, you might guess it kind of has to do with finding your most important number, and what that means for your business and priorities and, and everything in between. In this episode, we talk that methodology, how to create an incredible company culture, building a company in the aerospace space that rolls off the tongue, and how that even works. And a peek behind the curtain at perhaps a musical genius, and an ultramarathon runner. It is Lee B and just a heads up that throughout this podcast actually once in the middle, and at the end, there are some special announcements, one as it relates to a really cool speaking gig. And two more on the personal side as it relates to scheduling for the podcast for the next few weeks. So stay tuned for those ooooh a little teaser. What could that mean? Enjoyyyyyyyy the shoooooow!

Allllrightyyyyyy we’re here with Lee Benson, just an incredible serial entrepreneur in the aerospace space. I’ve never said that before and beyond. And the author of your most important number and the creator of the mind methodology. Lee, so excited to talk to you today. How’re you doing?

Lee Benson 2:35
I’m doing incredibly well. It’s great to be here.

Max Branstetter 2:39
Of course, of course, I happen to think it’s great to be here as well. So I’m glad we’re on the same page there. But really excited to dive into kind of your business building story and methodology. But before that, I heard a little fun fact that or maybe not so fun fact that you went to five different high schools. What’s the story behind that?

Lee Benson 3:01
I did, you know, my parents struggled a lot financially moved around a lot. And yeah, I went to went to five different high schools, it was kind of hard to develop long term friendships out of all of that. But I still have friends from junior high school because you know, big part of grade school and junior high, you know, same cohort going through that. So I have some lifelong relationships there. And and I think that interesting struggle, going to so many different high schools was really good for me, I was actually kicked out of the house, the beginning of my senior year. And I was already financially competent and fully independent, it was a non event for me to have my own my own place and put myself through my senior year in high school and graduate.

Max Branstetter 3:45
Oh my god. So you and I have the same high school experience. And I’m just gonna know that, that I can’t imagine that. I mean, change is always tough and really shapes you but especially at that phase of life like that. It’s just I don’t know, if profound, or I don’t know what the right word is. But it makes a really big impact. How did that I guess, quote, unquote, toughen you up from like, an adaptability standpoint.

Lee Benson 4:09
So here’s the the interesting part that I think most people know when they think about it, but they’ve, they’ve forgotten it. I’m just finishing up a book right now with a friend of mine. And the title of the book is value creation kid. And the subtitle is the healthy struggles your children need to succeed. And and I think what we’re forgetting is that we need to struggle to build capability to develop confidence to be able to create value. And it goes back to the whole purpose of an education, in my opinion, is to create value in the world. It’s either material value, emotional energy value, or spiritual value, you pick how you actually want to do it. And so some would say, oh, my gosh, what a tough time for you. That was terrible. You went through it? Well, right now we have parents taking all struggle away from all kids and now they get to 18 where they’re supposed to be an adult and the Didn’t they need another 10 to 16 years and now what we’re calling an emerging adult phase to actually become an adult. And so this was the best thing that ever happened to me getting kicked out of the house back then I got serious immediately, I already was earning money and buying whatever I wanted. My guitars, I’ve got a big music history. My own vehicle, all of it, I spent one night in my truck. The next night, I had a roommate and an apartment. And it was again, just sort of a non event going forward. This was really good. These were healthy struggles that I was going through that led to a lot of success over time. And you know, I’m on my seventh business today that I’ve started from scratch.

Max Branstetter 5:40
And how did the interaction go down? When your parents actually kicked you out? Like, what did they say? What was that like?

Lee Benson 5:46
Yeah, interesting. So it wasn’t the best environment. It wasn’t just dysfunctional. It was toxic. There was a lot of bad things going on in the immediate family and extended family. Their story later was that you were never around. So you might as well not be here. Because I was taking seven classes in high school, I was working full time I was in a band, I literally wasn’t around much. But most parents would have probably said, wow, my kid is really driven doing all these things. This is this is really good thing. But it was more than that. And I it was it’s comical now thinking about it. But I came home after working as a cook at a restaurant late at night and my clothes were in in paper sacks on the grocery sacks on the on the front patio and the keys, the locks for change. So I’m thinking, I guess they’re trying to tell me something. So I loaded everything up. And I had a nice beanbag in the back of my Chevy Blazer and slept there that night, thought about things and had a good friend in high school that had an older brother looking for a roommate said, Hey, I’m your guy. And that next night, I had my own place. It was cool.

Max Branstetter 6:54
Oh, my God, that’s perfect timing for that good thing, there was that opportunity? What was the biggest adjustment to going out on your own?

Lee Benson 7:04
Well, it’s all on you now, right? I mean, completely on you. And so it just it changes your perspective. And I and I again, I think the longer especially for our youth that you know, they graduate high school, or it really at any point in time, we keep making it easier and easier and easier on them and setting them up where they don’t have to make any decisions about where they’re going to live. And I have a lot of friends that have kids that are in their 20s to living at home with no intention of ever leaving. Well, we didn’t do a very good job creating the conditions for them to actually turn into self reliant adults in those situations. But that yeah, that the biggest change is, hey, it’s all on me, right? And I took everything more serious. My job as a cook, playing in bands and earning money that way, and how I saved how I thought about it. I mean, it really, it formed a lot of great stuff. It wasn’t it wasn’t that hard, you know, emotionally, it’s kind of weird for a kid to go through that. But it really wasn’t that hard. And I think those conditions are there for just about anyone. And when I when I talk to high school kids, and I’ve spoken to 1000s of high school kids espousing the virtues of entrepreneurship, and anybody that creates a job as a hero of mine. And I talk a little bit about my, my history. And I asked the kids, what do you think this gave me an advantage or a disadvantage? And most of them would say, oh, a total disadvantage. I can’t believe you went through, but a few of them totally got it. Right. Like you had a huge advantage over all of us. Totally agree with that this was an amazing time in my life.

Max Branstetter 8:38
Speaking of advantage, and by that, I mean, literally just because it’s a long word that starts with a let’s get to aerospace able aerospace. That was a terrible segue. But I would love to get into one of the businesses or technically two of the businesses you start I know they merge when you sold it, but able aerospace and your entrepreneurship journey. They’re able for anyone who’s not familiar, you came in in the 90s. And essentially grew it. I don’t even know what percentage fold but you grew it to gargantuan numbers and from an employee standpoint as well, just an amazing success story. How did evil come about for your involvement in the first place?

Lee Benson 9:18
My first real business was a rock and roll band in the 80s and had a sound crew like crew rhythm section, all of that some of those years we played over 300 nights a year. It’s how I’ve made most of my money. During the day to earn additional money. I worked at a small electroplating job shop where we did electroplating by hand we call the brush plating. Fast forward the end of 1993 we had 25 employees, we only really had one customer they cut us off overnight. And my boss said close it or sell it. You’ve got 30 days I couldn’t find anybody to buy it. And I said you know what I want to do this work directly for aircraft operators not for suppliers of the air. aircraft operators. And my boss at the time said you don’t know what you’re talking about will never work. And I said, Well, let me assume the $600,000 in debt, I believe I can go make it work and turn this over to me. And he was excited about walking away from the debt. And went from almost going out of business 15 times that first year, only doing $360,000 in revenue, there were three of us, nobody got paid. At least that was the deal the first year, but I gave them, you know, some provisional equity in the company. And it was a pretty exciting time. And then within a couple of years, we’re doing a million dollars, and it just kept growing to, you know, over $100 million wildly profitable. What I would say about that is there’s this value creation struggle journey that I think everybody should be on. So as a kid, by the time I’m six, seven years old, and pulling weeds in for a quarter an hour, and that’s actually back in 1968, a lot of money. And then I’m shoveling snow in Spokane, Washington off driveways and sidewalks and getting 50 sensitive that it takes about a half an hour’s like, wow, I just for folded the money that I’m earning, then I had a paper out and I’m a dishwasher, busboy, a cook playing in bands, and all the way along, I’m struggling to get these capabilities. And so that’s I call it healthy struggle, I get the capability now I’m very confident and create more value. And I learned to really trust this process. It’s like struggle, develop capability, get confidence, create value, and just keep spiraling around this thing. If every year we intentionally think about creating more and more value, and it doesn’t just have to be material, it can be emotional value, that’s a big part of my my music background, you can take bigger and bigger and bigger steps and really trust the work. And the harder it is you actually learn to kind of smile inside and go, Wow, when I come out the other side of this, it’s going to be incredible how I’m going to be able to leverage it. So that’s what happened from a kid all the way to taking over this company, continually creating more value over time. And I think that’s the most important job for any leader of any organization is to continually increase the value of the organization and accelerate that increase over time. And that’s what led to essentially rolling up three companies in the one when I exited and or sold it in 2016, I stayed an additional 17 months to make sure the transition was was successful. Because there’s you know, 500 plus employees, I wanted to make sure they had a job for the long term if they wanted, it

Max Branstetter 12:33
basically sounds like you just relaxed and coasted the entire time. Now that’s a ton of work. I’ve always been fascinated by the aerospace space again, in general, you mentioned electroplating, which I’ve never heard that term before, what exactly what is the main product or service that Abel is known for and kind of continued to be the focus as you grow? Well,

Lee Benson 12:58
when I bought the company, we were known for being one of the best job shops in the United States. And it wasn’t a very big market for doing this specialized kind of electroplating. And that was 100% of what we did. And then in this process, we would repair aircraft parts. So we would take some nickel electroplating and apply it to repair a worn bearing surface, it could be a turbine engine shaft could be a liner in a transmission case. And then we would send it out have somebody grind it so it meets the original specifications. And now you can use that on an aircraft until it wears out again. And so it’s a way to safely lower aircraft operating costs. So we started doing that we developed right out of the gate, eight repairs and and all for helicopter operators because saving $1,000 For a small helicopter operator is a big deal for an airline it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. And then over time, we develop north of 10,000 repairs thousnads of parts that we reverse engineered and manufactured and we went from this small electroplating service to we could do anything and everything in house. So you could send us a data plate with a serial number on it for a helicopter and we can build the entire helicopter around that data plate. We had a large machine shop we had one of the largest captive electroplating shops in Arizona, a big hangar with aircraft coming in and out. We did everything it was really hard but one of the coolest businesses that I could ever think of being involved with and we just kept building and building and building and the harder it is the bigger opportunities for gross profit. And boy was it fun I mean it’s 7080 hour weeks were pretty normal year after year for me but it was just it was fun energizing work

Max Branstetter 14:51
and what’s your you can tell I’ve never flown a plane myself. You might not be you might have guessed that but what is your Merriam-Webster definition for electroplating.

Lee Benson 15:04
For electroplating, you’re basically just applying metal to other metals and sometimes even metal to non-metallic objects. So the simplest way that people would think about it as you could have a gold plated ring or piece of jewelry, it’s not solid gold, but it has gold electroplating on it. And everything we did with electroplating was some sort of engineering application like it would improve performance, it would, it would make materials more corrosion resistant. It could be a mechanical build up, if you will. So there’s the decorative electroplating, like chrome plating rims on your car. And then there’s the engineering applications to improve some feature or characteristic about a component.

Max Branstetter 15:51
Perfect, appreciate it, you didn’t know you’re gonna have to give dictionary definitions today. But that’s the way we roll. When you look at the amazing growth that you let it, Able, let’s start with people. First, you went from three to 500 employees over the course of a decade and a half, like it almost feels like two separate companies to have a company that’s three people and then a company that that’s so big like that, like just crazy different parts in the lifetime of a company. But what are the biggest things that went into the, to the growth of growing the team by that number?

Lee Benson 16:26
Interestingly, it took a lot less time to manage 500 people and grow faster than it did managing 50 people. And there’s a lot of things that you learned, you know, it’s It’s always fascinating for me looking at smaller companies, and even some midsize companies. And you can see why they’re stuck, where they’re at, and most owners of companies, especially small ones, year after year, if they were to be honest about it, they would say I know we can create a lot more value than we are, it’s right there, we just can’t seem to achieve it. So what are the things that really go into that? And those were the things that I discovered over the years of growing my aerospace companies. And, you know, initially we worked really hard, and we would do just about anything. But then as we grew, some of the leaders got great results some leaders didn’t. So I’m I’m studying that and going well, that’s really, really interesting. So what are the things these leaders are doing to cause great results to happen? And what are the things these leaders are doing or not doing that cause less than great results to happen? We would identify all of that, and you know, great leaders, they they were good at foundational readiness, what are all the things that have to be in place to be able to scale from and be profitable, etc. leadership traits, how they showed up how the team realized they genuinely cared about them and wanted them to be successful. So we would break these things out. And then we said, we’re going to hold every leader accountable to these things. And we’re going to rate every leader red, green, or yellow in each category. And I did that, put it on a board for everyone in the entire company to see. And lo and behold, within a few months, everybody’s moving into the green and all the results are better, and we’re growing even faster. So it’s like, okay, we’re looking at leadership, we’re looking at foundational readiness to be able to grow like what’s the investment in the foundation to be able to scale. And then culture became a really big deal. You know, all the team members wanted to win, but in a lot of times in their passion for achieving the end result. They’re honest, and they’re straightforward, but they’ll forget to be respectful because they’re just going for it. And so I said, All right, well, let’s let’s have a set of behaviors and how we agreed to interact with each other that we can apply to create value faster. And one of them was high performing team members throughout April aerospace are respectful, honest and straightforward. Where they do what they say they will do, which is like the observable part of integrity, or they’re fully engaged and participate within the team. They present and pursue permanent solutions as opposed to dwelling on problems. So I’ll remember these alignment tools forever. Because every six months, I asked every employee to come up with one example of how they’re applying them to measurably improve the company and take a shot at a return on investment analysis. Did it improve customer experience internal or external and or profitability or cashflow? And when you get 50 people doing it, 100 people and 500 people doing this, that was amazing to have every brain in the game almost to a place where each employee was running their own business within a business. They were all acting like the CEO of their value creation business within the aerospace business. You could go to any team member, they knew the numbers and looked you in the eye, they’re going for it. And I had developed an operating methodology which is a big part of what we’ll get into here today, to where every team member knows what’s most important. And they’re doing their best work to improve it. And I could see all of it, it wasn’t a situation where I bring people through on a tour or I’m walking through the facility asking team members, so how’s it going? Are you getting what you need? Can I help you, I could just dive right into the conversation about what they’re doing to improve gross margin or customer experience, or turnaround time, or whatever it is, I could see all of that it was, it was so much fun, engaging that way. And having that kind of a culture. It was it was cool to see how that permeated out into their families into their other communities. And, and, you know, one thing I early on a way surprise me, I would have dozens of spouses throughout the years unsolicited tell me my husband or wife is a better person to live with after less than a year of working at your company. What are you doing there? Well, you know, we’re respectful, honest, straightforward, we’re very intentional how we interact with each other, in everything we do is about creating value faster, and everybody’s doing their best work to improve what’s most important, it’s really not that hard to do, you just have to commit to creating this culture and making an intentional way of creating value really important to the organization.

Max Branstetter 21:16
That has to be one of the best compliments you can ever hear when it just puts the impact of the work you’re doing. And on another level, like you know, it’s directly impacting the different team members and leaders in your organization. But when you hear firsthand that it’s impacting their family and like their quality of life and outlook on life, that’s, that’s just amazing. I’m pumped up, I would work for you. Before we get to your methodology, which you perfectly alluded to, and would have perfectly segwayed to but I’m throwing a wrench in it. I would love to hear about the sale. So you sold able you merged able aerospace enable engineering and you sold it to Textron Aviation, you know, fit a fantastic deal there. What’s your advice for anyone that wishes to sell their company with, quote unquote, big payout one day, there were

Lee Benson 22:10
actually four different businesses that rolled into one there was the original business that I purchased for its debt, able metallic services, there was able systems and technology where we built the ERP software for the business to track everything and then enable aerospace enable engineering. So now we rolled all that into just able aerospace and we sold it. So when you when you go to sell a company, there’s a lot of things to think about. So if you were if you were going to make an investment in a business, you’d want the best possible return, right? And so what are the factors that go into that, so a steady history of significant growth every year, and how well is the company managed. And then if I want to get the best return and selling the company, I don’t want to go to a traditional, if I can help it private equity firm and get the lowest possible price, I want to find a strategic buyer. And that’s what I did. So even though when we sold the company, our multiple was literally more than three times what most aerospace companies were getting. But because we found a strategic buyer, with their channels globally, within a couple of years, it’s like they paid half what normally you would pay for an aerospace company, because they could just leverage their channels and our capability to grow wildly faster and get the return that they want on the business. So there’s a lot of factors that go into it. And I would say even if you’re not planning on selling, you want to make your company worth the most money at any point in time because you don’t know what’s going to happen. And as you position it that way, when it does come time to sell. And this is totally what it was, for me. An equally good if not better option is keeping the company and not selling it is we’re making a ton of money before we sold the company. And when some of the and I control the stock, I own the majority of it the only other shareholders or people that worked inside the business, that when they were thinking and acting like an owner long enough and getting results, I would give them an opportunity for equity. But if they ever left for any reason whatsoever, or no reason at all, they’d have to sell the stock back to the company. And so that’s why I set up I own the majority of it, I controlled all of it. And some of those folks came to me and said, hey, we’d like to sell we think Textron is a great strategic buyer. I’m like okay, if you really want to do that we can go down that road, and then I can move off to take this operating methodology to 1000s of other organizations out there. And that’s really what I want to do and, and the whole purpose of execute to win my company, e Tw is to basically strengthen communities by improving workplace cultures and I saw it firsthand in my business, my businesses Is and now you go out to the tens of thousands of employees that are currently impacted well over 100,000. And it’s going to be millions over the next few years. With our operating methodology, well, that great culture is permeating out into the families and I’m watching it everywhere the same thing is happening. And virtually every client that that we work with it adopts the mind methodology. Just think about making your company valuable. And when I look at most businesses out there that want to sell, they’re just painting over cracks and all kinds of stuff to make it look as valuable as possible, but it’s not real. Ours was real. And they ran at us three or four times. And I kept saying no. And before they bought us for this incredible multiple, and an incredible piece of value for them as well, because we were real, and they wanted it. So that that would be my advice.

Max Branstetter 25:55
So this time you segued perfectly. And I’m gonna let you have it. So it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions in this interview now, but let’s get into your MIND. And by MIND, I mean your methodology, Most Important Number and Drivers, for starters, how, for anyone who has never heard of it, how would you subscribe? How would you subscribe? How would you describe in simplest form, what the MIND Methodology is?

Lee Benson 26:22
Sure, it is a very intentional way of running an organization to create value as fast as possible and accelerate that over time. And every organization should be designed to create value, there’s a product or a service and even in the nonprofit world, there’s an impact that you want to have. How do we increase the value that we’re creating and accelerate that over time, that’s what the mind methodology is. So actually wrote a book published it last year, called your most important number. And I highly recommend that folks read that if you want to keep all team members focused on improving what’s most important, it’s a it’s a great methodology to ensure that happens. There are a lot of operating methodologies out there, you know, things like 4DX, or OKRs, or Scaling Up and literally thousands of operating methodologies to intentionally create value faster, but the challenge with most of them is they make process more important than what is most important. And with the mind methodology, every decision and every action or commitment made by team members is through the lens of improving what’s most important. And in a nutshell, every single organization and every team within an organization will have one most important number that does two things above all others that says your company or your team is winning or losing. And the second thing it does is it will drive the majority of the right behaviors. So you may have one most important number for a team or the organization. But you’ll likely have five to 25 additional things that you’re tracking and measuring that are subordinate to that number. But you’re only measuring those other things that make better decisions to improve your most important number. And in the for profit world, it’s going to be either some version of profit or cash flow, it’s usually cash flow, if you have a capital intensive business in the nonprofit world, its impact. So you have the most important number. And then mine stands for most important number and drivers. And drivers are categories of work that your team should be really good at leveraging to improve your most important number. So we want to have the most important number, we want to make sure everybody’s doing the best work they can do to improve it. And that’ll be inside the drivers. And then a really simple way to think about it is alignment decisions and accountability. Is the team fully aligned and everything they can do to improve what’s most important, and you list all that stuff out. Second, are they making the best decisions to do the right work at the right time in the right order? Because you could have 100 things to do, but two of them might create more value than the other 98. And then the last part around the accountability side, is everybody doing what they said they would when they said they would. And so we’re constantly strengthening this, but the mind methodology is all about continually improving alignment decisions and accountability.

Max Branstetter 29:21
And I’m so glad that you have that philosophy that you know, processes everywhere. Like there’s a role for process and business but it shouldn’t be the main focus that you see in some of these other methodologies out there. I mean, I still have tremors from the corporate world of just like oh my god, this process is taking you know, it’s become so time consuming that it does it takes your eye away from the prize. So it’s a really interesting way to go about it. No matter what type of company you are, how do you best go about finding what is your most important number?

Lee Benson 29:57
The discussion has to happen with it. team. So if it’s if it’s for the overall company as a senior leadership team and you pick, you know, EBITDA, or net profit or whatever that is or cashflow, you need to have that discussion around is this really the most important number that reflects whether we’re winning or losing the game? And will it drive the majority of the right behavior. So you have that discussion, you play out scenarios, and then you come up with drivers, and you come up with other measures that help you make better decisions. It’s fairly straightforward at the top of the organization. And but as you start going out towards the front lines, you know, this works, by the way really well for solopreneurs. Because their team will be suppliers, and contractors and mentors and all that. But as the company starts to grow, yeah, 50 employees, 100 employees, maybe 200 employees, and we have clients with tens of thousands of employees. You have these other teams, and one example that that always stands out is is HR. So what would the most important number be for for, you know, the HR department? And usually they say, right out of the gate, oh, it’s gotta be retention or engagement. I said, Okay, well, let’s play that out. My most important number is retention. And we want we’re saying this, above, all others would say we’re winning or losing Angela drive the majority the right behaviors. So I’m running HR, we’re three years down the road, I’ve got 95% retention, but 50% of our employees can’t perform in their role. But I’m winning on my most important number. So that didn’t drive the majority, the right behaviors, and then what we what we turn it into, and this is my favorite, most important number for HR, when you’re big enough to actually have that function is percentage of seats filled with capable people, if you have if you have 1000 employees and 800 of them are delivering or over delivering on the outcome based responsibilities for the role. But 200 Aren’t your 80%. And so now we’re driving all the right behaviors, let’s do a better job of recruiting a better job of training, giving leaders the tools they need to be successful, et cetera. And you can go to every single department and come up with them, you know, marketing, generally, it’s qualified leads, what is a qualified lead, you know, sales, closing, profitable sales. So coming up with that most important number, and then the team having the discussion around what’s the best work we can do to improve it. And it’s such an easy, simple, elegant way to create value as an organization of any size you’ve got, let’s just say its profitability at the top. And then every team has a most important number that they’re super focused on. And that becomes their goal. Where are you at? Now? Where do we want to be in the future? And anywhere along the way are we on track at risk are behind, and when there’s improves, if you’ve designed it right, it always improves the next level up most important number. Now, when you’re leading an organization, you can just look at this dashboard and see which ones are falling behind which ones are over delivering. And anything that’s a little bit behind to a lot behind. Fantastic, you can see it and lean in and help them you know, get back on track. And at some point in time, every single function is going to be holding the organization back more than all the others. That’s just the game. I call it the organizational structure bottleneck game. And, and whenever that happens, everybody can see it. And you can get the best and brightest brains in the company around helping them solve for that going forward. It’s a fun game, it should be a fun game. It shouldn’t be oh my gosh, I’m I look bad. No, don’t think that way. We are designed to create value. Let’s go for it. And we have each other’s backs.

Max Branstetter 33:33
And how easy is it to I guess roll out the mind methodology. If you’ve been used to doing business in a very different way?

Lee Benson 33:42
Well, what I found, even the solopreneurs when they when they read the book, your most important number, or small company founders and owners, they just changed the language, how will this impact improving what’s most important, and that changes things significantly for them just in that just changing the language and how they focus on it. Now, if you want to roll out, you know, this very simple, elegant way of creating value. We have clients that are between 500 and 1000 employees and in all cases in less than a year we get it all the way to the frontline. Like every team has this. It’s not it’s not that hard to do it. And they’re more focused than they’ve ever been. And they’re usually transitioning from some traditional goal setting way of running a business like everybody said two or three goals every quarter, get it approved by your manager, rinse and repeat every quarter. Well, what does that feel like for every employee? It just doesn’t feel very good on paper it I guess it can sound good, and that’s why so many people are doing it with this. I’m on a team. That’s the number that says we’re winning or losing the game. Everything I do and my team members do is about improving that number that feels really good. And I don’t have to continually reset goals and Ma’am, I’m going to be assigned a lot of commitments or action items that were I’m contributing to it in different categories of work based on my role. But it feels really good. I’m on a team, we’re going to win. That’s the score. These are the things that I’m doing to improve it. That feels so much more natural and so much better than come up with two or three goals every quarter. And when I go into organizations that could be 10 employees, 1,000, 10,000 employees, when I audit the goals, 95% of them are just not very thoughtful. It’s like a goal for the sake of a goal. And sandbagging is everywhere, because they only want to put down with a no they can hit as opposed to our number is x for the team. And we’re here today. We want to be there in a year. And we need to stay on track all the way through and we’re fighting for that constantly. Just it just works better.

Max Branstetter 35:54
Speaking of a track a speaking track for that, for that matter. BREAKING NEWS: I am super excited to announce that I have been accepted to speak at Podcast Movement 2023 in Denver! For anybody who who knows me I have a Podcast Movement tattoo – no, I’m just kidding. But Podcast Movement, speaking there has been an absolute dream of mine ever since I got into the podcast space and learned about Podcast Movement, and went to the first Podcast Movement I ever went to. I’ve been to a few of them since and it is the coolest thing in the world to experience for anyone in the podcasting space. I have wanted to speak for a while and this year 2023 It is actually happening and cannot be more excited. So super excited to share that news. My session is called “Energize Your Guests with Their Best-Ever Show Experience.” So I’ve been working on that, really excited to share it. If you want to join me in Denver, or just experienced Podcast Movement and all it has to offer, you can register for the conference at PodcastMovement.com. You can sign up for any future Podcast Movement events there as well if you’re listening to this at a later time, but for 2023 It is August 21-24 in Denver, and yes, I will be there I will be speaking you know, you can run on stage and shut me up if you want. But super excited to share that news. So PodcastMovement.com. And yeah, see you there. If you’re, if you’re if you’re in Denver, come say Hey, and if you’re traveling Denver, say hey, as well. And, hey, okay, I don’t know how to wrap this up, that bodes really well for the speaking session. But let’s get to the music world because we might know the music world even better than he knows the aerospace space. So let’s switch the gears a little bit, let’s get to more you on the personal side, how you stay inspired how you stay creative, as a leader, and many times I love asking entrepreneurs, you know, what do they do in their free time to stay creative? stay inspired. But in your case, I know, you’ve mentioned it, you’ve alluded to it. Music is a huge part of your background and what you do, you know, especially in like the early days, what you would do at night, you know, 300 nights a year just unbelievable. So what when did you first get into actually playing music and performing in the first place? Yeah, I

Lee Benson 38:29
was five, six years old when I started playing guitar. And I took lessons for six months back then. And it wasn’t very inspiring learning “Jingle Bells” and “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.” So I just started teaching myself and I heard songs on the radio and I would I would learn that stuff. And even even back in the band days when we played covers, we did originals. And we had a lot of that too, and record label offers. And it was it was a great experience. But most of the time, I could just listen to a song and within five or 10 minutes, I can play it you know, so, you know, learn that way. So music is is one hobby profession, all of it rolled into one that’s threaded throughout my entire life. I don’t remember not knowing how to play guitar. But there’s so much more that goes into it. The work I do here with a mind methodology at any point in time. I’m working with 15 to 20 different businesses. And they’re completely different. They’re global. They’re and services. They have products that are different, you know, finance restaurants, and that is super energizing for me because it keeps my brain going to the gym every single day. I think people stop using their brains. And when I’m in there working with a client and I’ve got quite an internal team and we have a very large and growing team of externally certified folks to implement the mind methodology in organizations. But when I’m when I’m in here working there’s a couple of hats that I’m wearing one I’m a leadership performance coach that helps that Helping them install an operating methodology. But I’m also an equal brain in the room with a senior team or any team at any level, coming up with ideas and pushing the envelope to create value faster, totally different than most consultants that come in and check all the boxes and get paid regardless of what happens. Our mission at ETW is improving our clients most important numbers. That gives me a lot of energy. Music gives me a lot of energy. I love going on long hikes. I used to run marathons and ultra marathons, like a fun day for me would be hiking down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, having lunch and hiking out. And I just had my knee replacement surgery, but I expect within four months, I’ll be able to do that stuff again. I love it. So, you know, when I think about creating value in the world to kind of get at your question here. There’s there’s three macro buckets, there’s material, and everybody should be good at that. So they can at least support their lifestyle to create whatever value they want, live the way they want. And the second bucket is emotional energy. And I think that emotional energy is a scarcest commodity on the planet, people will say that, well, time is a scarce commodity, well, I’d rather only live 25 years on nine or 10 from an emotional energy standpoint than 125 years on one or two, what a miserable existence that would be. And so I believe, you know, probably one of my superpowers is energizing a room energizing teams, you know, bringing this emotional energy. And you and I both have met tons of folks out there that you can be in a great mood, they come in the room within five minutes, we need to go take a nap because it just sucked everything out. Yeah, yeah. See you later. And so yeah, positive emotional energy is wildly important. It feeds everything else. And then the third macro bucket is spiritual. It’s different for everybody, connectedness, you know, reflecting you know, could be Jesus, you know, teachings, whatever that is for you. But for me, emotional energy is the most important one because it energizes everything else.

Max Branstetter 42:06
I love that saying, I don’t know if you have crafted that or that was just off the cuff, but keep your brain going to the gym. That’s awesome. Like, everybody knows how important it is to go to the gym and keep yourself in shape. But not many people probably think about the brain side of that and the mental side. And I’ve always thought that I mean applies to working out as well, like, when people are don’t want to work out or like dread going to the gym. I’m like, Look, it’s I think these days enjoy it more for the mental aspects than the physical aspects. It’s just a great way to blow off steam. And it’s like an important part of the day. In terms of the music and writing music played as well as the clients you have. I can see how that variety really keeps you energized keeps things going. But your your guitar talent of hearing music on the radio, and then being able to play it within 10 minutes. How in the world did you craft that? musical genius talent?

Lee Benson 43:07
Yeah, well, if you think about it, it’s really not that hard. Like you. You just said, Hey, how in the world do you craft that that musical talent. You just said something and I repeated it, I could say something, you can repeat it. So think about playing music, you hear something, you repeat it. So for somebody that, you know is not a musician, they’ve never done that before. They haven’t developed their ear and gone through it. But it’s literally no different than you and I having a conversation you repeating something for clarity. That’s really it. And you can develop that it’s so much easier to learn a song today because there’s a YouTube video, somebody’s doing it right in front of you if you want to go even faster, and then there’s more musics available and all of that if you read music, but that’s really all it is like I’ll hear something and I don’t think about the notes. I think about the emotion being conveyed back to this positive emotional energy. Imagine an artist that produces the song and it touches a billion people in a positive way. When they feel it, they feel energized. They’re there. It’s so great. And there’s other songs that can de energize right so I hear the emotion and I always take whatever I hear if I just want to learn somebody else’s song if some fellas are coming over and we’re and we’re jamming on the weekend, I always try to take it to the next level because I hear the next thing just go deeper and deeper and deeper on the emotion that you can convey. And there’s literally a billion ways to play one note it’s it’s incredible like how can you hear 100 singers sing exactly the same thing their pitches right but one of them makes you cry That’s it right and it’s the same thing with guitar piano any any instrument there’s a few out there that wow they really get how to convey the emotion and and that’s what I that’s what I hear it’s what I feel it’s what I listened for. I don’t think about the note

Max Branstetter 45:00
And when you hear stuff and are able to play it, it’s the way you’re describing. It sounds like almost one year, the way you do impressions, like if you’re trying to do an impression of somebody’s voice or like, Mimic, you know, facial expression or something like that, you’re watching, you’re listening, and then you’re replicating it, it sounds like that’s kind of the approach that you take to funneling that into playing the music on your guitar,

Lee Benson 45:23
and then take it to the next level. How do you get even more emotion out of it? And let let that fly? So yeah, yeah, this value creation journey that I’ve been on, which again, really trust, struggling to develop a capability to develop confidence to create value, that’s energizing, if you’re stuck, and you don’t have a process for figuring that out. That can be pretty de energizing can it can not feel good. You know, folks talk about the glory days. And you know, I wish it used to be like this or that I think my best days are always in front of me. And I’m 61 I feel like I’m 25 Most days, it just keeps getting better. It’s one big blended life. It’s not, you know, divide and conquer or balanced between this or that it’s one big blended life, let’s, let’s have fun, let’s enjoy it. Let’s do challenging things. Can’t be happy 100% of the time, but you can increase your fulfillment quotient over time. And and you’re gonna have ups and downs as you go through it. But just living that way makes me pretty, pretty motivated. I mean, I have days where it’s like, I don’t really want to do this. I think we all do. But for the most part, I’m super energized. At the time of

Max Branstetter 46:39
this recording, the most recent guests before you who I interviewed, it was exactly 61 years old as well and mentioned it and so I think I think there’s a trend here. I really enjoy hearing and learning from 61-year-olds. I don’t know what it is about that age, but it’s like, it comes across very well. And podcast. Appreciate it. Let’s wrap up with some rapid fire q&a. You’re ready for it? Yep. All right. Let’s get wild. What is your favorite all time? cover song to play on guitar?

Lee Benson 47:12
Well, that’s a tough one. Let’s go. Classic. My whole life Smoke on the Water.

Max Branstetter 47:18
Absolutely. That’s a Yeah, that’s a common I just I remember it from when that I was a kid that movie school rock came out. And that was like one of the first riffs that they teach people on guitar. It’s just classic. It’s amazing. You know, back to your point on how you can play, you know, a note or like there’s billion different ways to play a note. Like there’s just something about the way that those few notes string together that just withstand the test of time. So that’s that’s a great answer. Besides the Grand Canyon, which is pretty damn cool. What is your favorite part of Arizona?

Lee Benson 47:56
The desert, Grand Canyon is magical for me. But just overall the desert is so beautiful. What is

Max Branstetter 48:03
a? I call them weird talents. What’s a weird talent or party trick, you have something that really in the grand scheme of things is minor. But you just have a really good knack for it. And why don’t you say guitar?

Lee Benson 48:15
I’m not sure it’s appreciated all the time. But it’s my interesting dry sense of humor.

Max Branstetter 48:21
All for dry humor. It’s terrible. And then you spent some time at the Jack Welch Management Institute. What’s the story you can share from interacting with Jack or corresponding with Jack?

Lee Benson 48:35
Yeah, we when I first met Jack, it was 2008. And he was teaching a two and a half day management course on all of his stuff. And he facilitated the whole thing from breakfast all the way through dinner drinks afterwards. And on day one, we’re in the room and I’m coming off maybe only a 10 $12 million year back then. And everybody else was managing a billion dollars in business. And the first exercise day one, I’m at the front table. He’s right there in front of me at the podium. He goes each table, pick one company and state your mission and values. And then we break and we discuss it and nobody at my table knew their stuff. And again, big companies. And so he calls on us as a first table. I said well, here’s the mission. This is why we created it. Okay, great, what are your values and why through values out and we went to behaviors for these reasons. And there was this really long, uncomfortable silence and I thought I’m just going to squirm out of the room here. This I probably don’t belong. And then he said that’s perfect. I wouldn’t change anything. And then as he went around the room I got why he did that because everybody else had marketing slogans, nothing that team members could sink their teeth into. So we go to lunch the first day and there’s the jack table on a podium and everybody’s up there and their ties, you know, waiting for Jack to show up and I didn’t get selected. So I’m setting another table. I take a bite of salad and then he sits right next to me and goes I’ve done this 1000s of times nobody’s ever gotten it right till you how the hell do you do it? And that starts Good our relationship and he was growing, you know, JWMI, the Jack Welch Management Institute, fastest growing at the time eMBA program on the planet, I think it’s still in the top three or four. And, you know, he passed not too long ago. But he and I became really good friends, I shot lots of leadership videos, help write curriculum, you know, for the school, wrote one course called Leadership and action and had alumni and students come out and, and spend a couple of days in my aerospace business with me. And so I was I was just really a super fan, fully aligned with all of his stuff. But he, he just became a great a great friend, you know, it’s like I tell kids today, if you’re passionate about something, there’s mentors everywhere, and if your passions are aligned, you can literally meet just about anybody on the planet in that space. And, and Jack was the guy that’s like, I’m, I can meet any business leader anywhere, this is the guy want to meet. And I just went out there and did that. And because our passions were aligned, you know, we were like two people solving for the same problem and doing it better and better over time. And we that’s longer than a quick story. But I miss my friend, we had lots of great conversations,

Max Branstetter 51:11
you can take as long as you want. Yeah. That’s an incredible, incredible person to be friends with and learn from and sounds like he learned quite a bit from you, as well. So really appreciate the story there. Last one, what’s your secret, the secret sauce for being able to keep going when it’s like an ultra distance marathon or 50 Mile High, like super long distance, physical exertion like that.

Lee Benson 51:35
I did do the first three Arizona IRONMANs. The reason I do that stuff is when you get to a place where you want to quit with every fiber of your being but you push through it, you find the new limit, because we don’t know what we can do. Nobody, I think has any idea what what they’re capable of. And so that’s why I would do that. And you could argue the same things happen in business, it gets really, really hard. Most people give up, you get through it, you iterate in the right way, and you create value and you’re successful. That’s what keeps me going. And I talked about it earlier, trusting the healthy struggle and valuing the healthy struggle. And that’s what keeps me going.

Max Branstetter 52:15
Well, you’re the words you’ve shared today, I think will keep many going and going going. I’m very inspired, really enjoyed speaking with you, Lee, really appreciate you coming on. And you know, sharing everything, business life, personal life and beyond. I don’t even know what the beyond is, but I just throw it in there. But where is the best place for people to connect with you personally online, as well as where they can learn more about your book, your most important number and the mind methodology.

Lee Benson 52:47
Yeah, if you want to connect with me personally, just go to LinkedIn and do a connection request, I’m happy to interact with you. And then if you want to learn more about the mind methodology, go to the website, which is the mind methodology.com. There’s information on the book information on the methodology. If you have an organization and you want some help implementing something like this, we can definitely help you we have a pretty large team that does this work day in and day out. But first and foremost, I just recommend read the book. It’s it’s really straightforward. And just changing the language significantly changes the results within organizations. And one thing that I did in the audio book is I did 25-minute interviews after every chapters to give you more insights, background and all of that. And I even put a guitar solo all the way at the end of the book I couldn’t resist doing that was just an impromptu three minute thing that I did. It really lays out the mind methodology where it came from how it was developed. And I wanted something with a mind methodology that would work for 80% plus of all teams anywhere any type of organization that’s something that only works when a superstar leaders in the room I want it to work for everybody. And I believe that’s what we’ve done. So highly recommend reading the book your most important number

Max Branstetter 54:13
and really appreciate including that guitar so I think every audio book should have at least one guitar so I think you’re starting a new a new trend here. I love it. Last thing, Final Thoughts, stage is yours, it could be a quote just kind of words to live by whatever you want. Send us home here.

Lee Benson 54:29
Do less better.

Max Branstetter 54:34
Lee doing less with better with those Final Thoughts. Lee, thank you so much for coming on the podcast sharing your incredible story tips methodology, most important numbers, all the most important numbers. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast and then quiz each other and and try to determine each of others. Your This is a heck of a sentence. Try and find each other’s most important number. How about that. You can also find us on Goodpods where there are awesome podcast recommendations. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That’s at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Now, you heard in the middle of the show the announcement on Podcast Movement, I’m sliiiiiiightly excited. And the other announcement, which is super exciting, but also bittersweet. We had to make some decisions as it relates to scheduling. This episode, Episode 242 with Lee Benson. is the last episode of the Wild Business Growth Podcast before Dana and I embark on our honeymoon. So we are crazy excited about the honeymoon. We’re going to Italy, we are going to Florence, Rome, Positano and Amalfi Coast, even stopping in London at the tail end to see Dana’s cousin Emmy and her fiance Ben, shoutout Bemmy. Anyway, what that means for the podcast, I thought about creating more and more and more episodes and releasing them while I’m gone. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be truly, truly, truly unplugged and totally focused on the honeymoon. So with that in mind, taking a little little a few week break with the podcast, kind of scary because, you know, I’ve taken a week off every now and then if there’s like a big personal life thing for good or for bad, but never taken three weeks off in a row. So for the next three weeks, if you’re listening to this in real time, there won’t be a new podcast episode, but there is a huge, huge growing growing number of backlogged episodes. So backlog backlog, backlog of episodes. So if you are craving more Wild Business Growth Podcasts, plural, then it might be a great time to catch up on some older episodes that you never listened to. Some of the longer ones that will take up more of your time and some of the fan favorites are the Episode 200 and Episode 100 Specials. Those are always great, have “Best Ofs,” bloopers, hilarious moments, awkward moments with myself of course. And if you have listened to every episode already, then thank you so much. Send me your address and I will come and give you a hug. No, but thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You’re the best. Alright, so to recap, Dana and I are going on our honeymoon. No new episodes for the next few weeks, but we will be back in early July 2023 with more awesome and Wild episodes. Be good until then and you can follow along on Instagram @MaxBranstetter or Twitter @MaxBranstetter if you want to follow along on our honeymoon. Alright. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!