This is the full transcript for Episode #344 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Rob Herzog – ZogSports & ZogCulture, Sports Leagues for Adults. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Rob Herzog 0:00
Two roads diverged in the wood, and I took the path less traveled by and that has made all the difference.
Max Branstetter 0:21
Hello, Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to Dana. The odds are one in 365.25 that you are listening to this and Dana’s actual birthday. But as always, Dana’s birthday. Welcome back to Wild Business Growth. I’m your host. Max Branstetter, you can email me at and this is episode 344, shout out Henry Aaron, and today’s guest is Rob Herzog. Rob is the founder of ZogSports and ZogCulture. And ZogSports, as you may know, is the adult co Ed social sports league that has leagues for every sport you can imagine. They’re in six states. They have made these leagues and experiences possible for millions of adults. And in this episode, we talk what inspired Zog to create Zog sports, how he and team has built an infectious, beautiful culture and organization that has since been sold to volo sports and even the close call that Rob had on 911 which is you just have to hear it. It is Zog, enjoy this year. I you already. We are here with Rob Herzog, founder of Zog sports, Zog culture, all things Zog that you see everywhere you look, especially in the tri state area and beyond, we’ll call it. But Rob, pretty surreal having you on here. My wife, Dana, really, really enjoyed your kickball league back when we lived in Hoboken and in her leg is still sore because she kicked the ball over mama Johnson field. So really, really cool. Thanks so much for joining. How you doing today,
Rob Herzog 2:11
Rob. I’m great. Max, thanks so much for having me. I’m so glad Dana had such a good time. Every time I hear a story like that, it reminds me of, like, why I started this in this entire endeavor.
Max Branstetter 2:20
Yeah, exactly, exactly. For you started for Dana. It was really, really thoughtful, but Right, exactly. So we’re going to get into all things Zog, sports and beyond and and dive into your mind, your personality, a little bit like that. But before that, I have to ask another thing that’s pretty crazy to think about. So we’re recording this a little bit after the 24th anniversary of 911 and you know, doing so many interviews like this, every now and then 911 comes up and people share their stories. You have just an unbelievable story that needs to be told. Can you just take us to the morning of September 11? 2001 Sure.
Rob Herzog 3:08
So morning of September 11, I had a brand new job. Maybe been in it about two months. I was basically, kind of the, I don’t know, call it VP of operations of Marshall mclennans internet groups, a big fortune 200 company helping them build internet products. Not exactly the job that I had wanted, because I was a small company. I wanted to build something, but I thought this will be a great opportunity to build something and really learn wake up on September 11, I had just come back from vacation, and I wound up doing a whole bunch of things that morning that I never would have done otherwise. So first of all, my office was on the 96th floor of the World Trade Center’s north tower. That morning, I took the local train instead of the express train. I dropped off my laundry, I picked up my mail, because I’d been on vacation, all these things that basically delayed my arrival at the World Trade Center by probably five to 10 minutes. So I arrived, I basically walked down the street south, and I came around the corner, I heard a noise. I looked up, and there was a gaping hole in the side of the building right where my office had been. And I was standing there as smoke was just kind of billowing out of the building, and I, like, counted down the floors from the top, and I figured out that, like, the center of the hole in the building was exactly where, like, directly where my office had been. And so the experience that day was, I tried to get closer to the building. I don’t I didn’t even know exactly how long I was there. And then, you know, second plane hits. Everybody runs. And I, you know, just really lucky, because 297 people from our company who were there did not survive. If I had been there five minutes earlier, I would not have survived. And so after a long bout of survivor’s guilt of, what am I doing on this planet? Why did this happen to me, I basically, kind of came around to a few really, kind of founding thoughts that wound up changing the rest of my life. One was that you can’t predict what’s going to happen, and some things are just, you just have to accept what happens, right? They’re luck. They’re not luck, good luck, bad luck. You know, kind of who can tell. And so four months later, Max, I’m sitting on a beach, literal beach, and I have a drink in my hand, and I’m feeling very sorry for myself. I’m like, Wow, what a bad year I had. I closed down an internet company I was helping run. I laid off 30 people who reported to me, including people I personally recruited. I was unemployed for four months. I got a job I didn’t particularly like, and then 911 happens, and I’m like, wow, that is just a terrible year. Then I looked up at the sky, no joke, all blue, one, small, puffy, white cloud. I looked at my drink. It’s a pina colada. I call this my pina colada epiphany moment. My drink was exactly half full, and I just started laughing. And I look at the cloud, I’m like, really? And so I go, Okay, you I accept your challenge. I go, what are the good things that happened this year and the good things that had happened over the course of of the year, where I’d stopped traveling for work, and I’d started, I started playing Rec Sports again. I’ve forgotten how much I loved the camaraderie of being on a team. The second was I, I just I saw all these I saw all these people after, after 911 really wanting to, really wanting to give back, really wanting to kind of have a place and and kind of heal, and I felt like they didn’t really have that. And then finally, I had met my wife playing co Ed softball. And so you combine those three things, and I basically, all of a sudden, like, ran back to my hotel room, and I said, I’m gonna go start a business that does recreation, though it does a charity focused recreational sports league for grown ups that didn’t really exist and in the way that I wanted it to work. And so, like, I ran up to the room, I wrote a, you know, wrote, like, 16 pages of notes. I went back, and nine months later, I launched business. So that was the founding story of of Zog was, you know, my pina colada epiphany.
Max Branstetter 7:48
You should trademark that. Before we get to Zog, real quick, can you just share what it’s like having survivor’s guilt? Because I feel like so many of us like, I think it’s a very common term, but it’s unique to actually experience it.
Rob Herzog 8:05
So survivor’s guilt comes in a few different buckets, just in terms of kind of how it manifests. The first is internal, where it’s why me, like, Why did I survive? The second is just guilt of looking externally, of why did those people not survive? And then finally, is like the piece where you try to kind of reconcile, what am I supposed to do with this information? And so it is not easy to overcome. It is something that every 911 by the way, I go down to Ground Zero, and I go, thank first responders to saying, like, hey, on 911 I was running this way, you guys were running that way. And so I thank them for what they do. And they, you know, are incredibly for the most part, very appreciative. But most of them are so young that, you know, some of them weren’t even alive. The the survivors guilt is something for me, the way I kind of got through it was that it had nothing to do with deserving or not deserving. Did I deserve to live. Did those like it? So I had to, had to just get rid of that concept. And it was just it. This is all random. This is all luck. And so the real question was, I got this second chance, and what am I going to do with it so that the part of the way I overcame it was action, was acceptance of the fact that it was unpredictable and it was luck, and then doing something about it. So the fact that I wound up doing something and creating all this, this, this community and connection and charitable contributions that really did you. Uh, monetarily and emotionally impact. Uh, post 911 New York was, to me, really, really meaningful and a really help of survivors guild.
Max Branstetter 10:12
Thanks for sharing that. That’s, um, I obviously it’s, it’s more deep than when you think about with, like a an entrepreneurship podcast, but it is truly a beautiful story how that infamous day fueled and created something beautiful as terms of what turned out to be your business, and connecting so many people and organizations and kids and adults together, let’s switch it up. Let’s, let’s get to Zog. And I think Zog sports. And for anybody listening who’s not from like the greater New York area, like if you live in the city, or you live in Hoboken or Brooklyn, anything, it is so common to see people wearing Zog sports T shirts and, like, people wearing those bright color, different color T shirts. And you’re like, oh, okay, so they’re doing some sort of, like, you know, intramural or rec sports league. So it’s pretty cool. Like, you’ve built quite the footprint, I must say, by now. But you hinted at before how you came up with the idea and when you first launched it, how did it click in your mind that this isn’t just something that’s kind of like something to do this year, this is actually something that we can build a business around and expand our footprint here.
Rob Herzog 11:31
Many entrepreneurs start with identifying a problem, and the problem is often personal, right? So it’s, what do I want? What do I need? And so many entrepreneurs have a bit of a shortcut in terms of the learning process of the ideal customer, because the entrepreneur is the ideal customer. So for me, I was the customer. So the beauty of shortening the product cycle for Zog was I basically built what I wanted and needed, and so what I wanted and needed was decent level of competition, but not crazy. I knew I was going pro in something other than sports. I knew that I didn’t want to have fights and arguments with the other players or referees. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to talk to people after the games. I wanted to socialize. I wanted to meet new people. I wanted to build community. I wanted to actually have shared experiences and connections, which is how people make friends. And so I was the customer. And so the inspiration of Zog was really understanding what I wanted, but then also testing it with what a larger swath of the population would want. And so, you know, then it starts with, with trial and error, right? It starts with, you basically put a minimum viable product out there. And, you know, we launched our very first season with touch football. We then did volleyball, we then did touch football and softball, right? And then, you know, we, and then we continued to grow, and only after many years of really testing the product and making sure the product was consistent did we actually expand to other cities. And because our thought was, we’re a service business, and if the service is not consistent, and the service and the and the experience for our customers is not consistent and not Well, exactly what we want, then it’s really becomes a commodity of like, oh yeah, we just organize volleyball games or soccer games or whatever it is, as opposed to the experience that we actually really wanted to be differentiated.
Max Branstetter 13:58
What have you noticed about the differences in terms of different sports, like how much the experience varies when you’re when you’re launching a new one into the mix.
Rob Herzog 14:06
Different sports have different personalities, and there is a personality of participant in the sports, and that, interestingly, Max, has really changed over 24 years. 24 years ago, many people used to just play sports because they had been exposed to all sorts of different sports growing up. They’re like, I’ve never played volleyball before. I’m just gonna play volleyball, right? Oh, I haven’t played soccer since middle school, but I feel comfortable enough to play soccer. Now, most of the soccer players actually won’t play unless they’ve actually, you know, played in high school, you know? So they’re like, more experienced soccer players, and so people are less willing to try sports that they have never played before. It’s something that we continue to try by having levels of competition. It’s something that we continue to try to, you know, bring people into to really have this recreational social experience. And. Have been very successful at that. But different sports have different personalities. Like, you know, for you know, for example, we kind of almost would break down sports into more competitive sports, Real Sports, right? Like, and then kind of middle sports, and then, like, purely social, right? So it would be, you know, soccer, basketball, kind of at the top, and then in the middle it would be, you know, kind of your softball and your and your volleyball, kind of in the middle, and then you would have your your your bowling and your kickball and your cornhole and your and by the way, pickleball actually rain, you know, is our biggest, fastest growing sport. But even pickleball actually has levels, right? There are some people who are like, I want to be a pickleball just I find some people are like, no, people are like, No, I’m playing pickleball. So it really, it some of it depends on the person, and that’s why you really have to listen the customer, and you have to have good people on the ground, on site, who actually try to make the experience as good as it can possibly be. If you know and listen to the customer, make sure the levels of competition are appropriate, and really make sure that people are actually having the level of competitive experience that they actually
Max Branstetter 16:05
want to have. We used to play pickup pickleball and Hoboken, and we did a couple of times in one of those times there this group of guys that are this, this duo of guys was, like, so intense that they just totally sucked the fun out of it, you know, like, all of it, you know, it’s like, we’re, I would say, like, pretty good at pickleball, and could play with, like, a lot of people, but these guys was, like, a ball from the court next door, like, went on to the court in the middle of the play, and like, they just kept playing, and like wouldn’t stop, and like wouldn’t give it back to the other people. Was like, oh my, some people are so cutthroat. So I see, I see that we’re talking about the levels of competition there Max
Rob Herzog 16:41
the story that I’ve told for years is, you know, I feel so incredibly grateful I did some math recently just of how many people’s lives we touched. And it’s like well over a million people that have played in our leagues over all years, probably closer to two. And I used to say that if I could handpick the customers who choose to play Zog versus other recreational sports outlets that are out there, I would say, if I could hand pick about 95% of the people I would I would hand pick, and then I would just say the other 5% need therapy.
Max Branstetter 17:14
That’s awesome, yeah, and millions of athletes of Zog leads, if that’s the name. Really incredible growth there. What would you say has been, like, the biggest drivers of actually expanding this thing and then, like, achieving that crazy level of scale?
Rob Herzog 17:32
The first is really knowing the customer. It started with me, but one person is not is not a business that is not scalable. So how did I then hire people who cared about the same purpose that I have, right? And so my purpose is, life is better when you have real personal connections, feel like you’re part of a caring community, and infuse a sense of play and fun into life. So I had to hire people who believed what I believe, then I had to train them and give them the tools to go out and execute and improve the idea. And they became the people who were closest to the customer. And then we hired more people, they became the people closest to the customer. So the key to growth starts with really knowing your customer. Then it starts with really having that consistent purpose, that North Star, then actually having a culture where everybody knows that they’re driving in the same direction. Everybody knows the behaviors that are acceptable, the core values that are acceptable to doing your job. How do you do your job? How you do your job is as important Max as what you do. What you do is getting a great field to play soccer. Is making teams and a good level of competition. How you do it is caring about the experience that people have when they’re there, the customer service, the communication, the personality of the people who are actually at the field on site. So the scaling starts with that, and then it becomes a little bit more quote business scaling, because you now have that foundation of purpose, values, of kind of behaviors and how you do things, and then you figure out how to scale what, right? The what, then becomes, okay, what can we automate? Right? So you have to know you can’t just, like, start a business and just start automating stuff. I mean,
Max Branstetter 19:54
you could, but I feel like probably a lot of people are
Rob Herzog 19:58
these days. Wait so. But you have to know. What you’re automating and why? So the way we did it was we basically spent years figuring out how, like, what exactly we want to do, and then we built software, then we automated, then we figured out how to scale certain functions of the business, right? So that’s when we automated. When we automated was, oh, okay, in order to scale, to get from one city to six cities, or to get from 20,000 people playing a year to 100,000 people playing a year. What like? What do we need to have? Because we’re we’re not gonna have five times as many people working for us full time, right? So how do you scale? And so a lot of scale was around automation. A lot of scale was about consistent process and but that only came once we knew what we wanted to do. Yeah.
Max Branstetter 20:44
So how do you do that? So let’s say your your customer base increases five fold, which, I mean, sounds like a dream to any business owner, but also, like, if you’re in the weeds, that also sounds like a nightmare on like, the back end or automation side of it. Like, what were some things that you’re like, hey, we need to smooth this out real quick, as we’re expanding new cities back
Rob Herzog 21:04
very, very long time ago, you know, we were like manually creating schedules. And if you have 20 leagues, you can manually create schedules. If you have 100 or 200 or 400 you really can’t manually create schedules. You know, that’s just an example. We basically built some software that would have templates in it, where you plug in the templates and it automatically, you know, generates a schedule, and then it automatically published a schedule. And that is, I’m not going to call it seasonal work, but it’s, it is. It’s cyclical work, right? So the season starts, let’s call it. Let’s say you have five seasons a year that kind of maybe started slightly different times. That’s five times a year where you have like, one to two weeks of intense schedule making. Well, it’s only 10 weeks a year that you really need someone doing that full time. How do you smooth it out? Right? So that’s just one example, you know. And sometimes it needs to be a little bit custom, right? There is some software out there that that did it. But for us, you know, earlier in our in our development, we had everyone’s charity on the schedule, right? So everyone picked a charity that they played for. Our motto was, play for your cause. And it was like it was came right out of 911 of, hey, we’re playing, but we’re going to donate, you know, kind of 10% of proceeds. It was kind of my concept of post 911 giving back. It was also my concept of, like, tithing, and we’re going to give 10% back. And, you know, we wound up donating, over the years, like, you know, over $3 million to charity. And so we needed on the schedule to basically have the names of the charity on schedule. So when your team played my team in touch football, we went and met each other as captains of the team beforehand. And the introduction was, Hey, I’m Rob, hey, I’m Max. What charity Are you playing for? And so that became part of our secret sauce. Of you want to talk about taking those those pickleball guys you want to talk about taking their level of competitiveness down. It’s like you’re not playing for a trophy, you’re not playing for money. You’re playing to donate money to your charity. So it’s just a little reminder that actually takes people’s brains and it makes their brain kind of go, right? This is a recreational, you know, Football League, soccer league, softball league, et
Max Branstetter 23:21
cetera. Yeah, that’s a really nice reset. And I guess happy hours afterwards don’t hurt as well.
Rob Herzog 23:27
Competitive Flip Cup boat races are very, very helpful to making a good happy hour and building camaraderie. I can’t tell you how many people met each other at games and at post game happy hours. And we have hundreds of photos where people ask for us to send shirts so that everyone at the wedding who was, you know, was on the blue team, the Aqua team, the green team. Like was, We’re all wearing shirts for a photo at the wedding.
Max Branstetter 23:56
And you yourself, you said you met your wife playing softball, right? I met
Rob Herzog 23:59
my wife playing softball, not? Zog, yeah. But yeah, second base, shortstop, yeah, she’s got game. Wow.
Max Branstetter 24:07
You guys could turn a mean double play, yeah? All right. Well, one of the other fascinating aspects of your business, that seems kind of like a logistical nightmare, but obviously you guys have mastered it over the years, was like, if you think about any like soccer field or softball field or park in, like, a busy city area, like, that’s exactly what it is like these places are busy. Like, it’s hard to get on the field. It’s hard to reserve time on the field. How in the world did you figure out a way to like reserve and like book these fields? So you say, Hey, you guys actually have a field to play tonight, and do that at such scale.
Rob Herzog 24:42
Maxwell, we were talking kind of before we started the official recording. I told you how much I love developing relationships with people, how sometimes I just leave my house and just look forward to talking to random people. I think that every conversation you have could. Be interesting educational. You never know where people’s backgrounds are. You never know where they’re coming from. I find people interesting, and I really, really like people, and I am a total extrovert. I get so much energy from talking to people. So it started with Rob walking around and developing relationships with the people who manage the access to the facilities, once I figured out my angle and my approach and the charity angle and the fact that we were going to be a really kind and caring renter of these spaces, and then we basically were getting spaces to be referrals for new spaces. It’s a long term relationship building game. But then what I did is I then ran training for everyone who ever would go out and talk to a facility. And I ran training for that for many, many, many, many years. That was one thing that as a business, as a as the CEO, I held on to because it was so important. So I wrote up training. I wrote up, you know, how do you approach? I wrote up, even when you walk into someone’s office, what can you notice about the office, right? So, if I walked into your office and I saw a baby picture, right? And I know I have kids, and I was like, I see a baby picture on your desk. I might go, oh, you know, Oh, tell me about debate. Like, boom, I develop a relationship with you because I see something, then we have something in common. So it’s so much of it is about developing relationships. How can you make these people? There’s no benefit to these people to rent space to you. They don’t get any money from it, right? So there’s no reason for them to help you. So how do you, how do you develop the relationship? Then, well, you actually have to work on developing the relationship. So I ran all that training. I really worked with people, and then I hired people who had that desire to develop relationships with all sorts of different people, you know, I used to call it a, you know, Building Block Strategy. You get one field, never lose it, right? So you may, you get the field, you get the gym, maintain the relationship, right? By the way, this, this goes for clients too, right? This goes for any business, right? Just because you got a client, doesn’t mean you keep the client right. By the way, much easier to keep the client than get a new one. So a lot when I do CEO coaching and kind of business advisory for, you know, scaling and PE backed firms as well, and that’s one of the things that I preach, is sure your sales engine is very important. But what are you going to do to keep those customers? And so that’s a lot of what we did in order to in order to build and scale. By the way, we did not go 5x in one year. We basically, though we did hit our numbers talking about, you know, kind of our wild business growth. We hit our numbers every quarter for 18 years. Wow. Right from from founding up until covid. Well, Cove is a whole nother story. That’s all another check, exactly. But, yeah, we hit our numbers every year, and the numbers were never easy, but the numbers were never so ridiculous that they were unachievable.
Max Branstetter 28:15
I really like that Building Block Strategy, like, can totally get behind that. It’s it’s not the LIFO or FIFO version, with clients start small and and add to it. And actually, I hinted at it before, but because Zog sports and like the shirts and the logo is, like, so omnipresent when you’re when you’re rocking walking around these towns, how did you, I guess, enable that, like, make this brand something that can spread and and be a great, good place for word of mouth or word of T shirt like that.
Rob Herzog 28:46
Well, the T shirts themselves, when someone is wearing, when a group of people is wearing a t shirt, and they’re playing and they’re having fun, and a group of people is walking down the street and going to a bar, and then they’re in the bar wearing the t shirt, people will be in the bar and they’ll go, Oh, those people over there having fun. Oh, what are they wearing? Oh, they’re wearing Oh, they’re wearing a shirt. So somewhat, some what
Max Branstetter 29:04
we did unless they’re not wearing a shirt, if it got really wild, but that’s a separate story. Yeah.
Rob Herzog 29:09
So one of the things that we did over the years was we actually really encourage people to wear their T shirt. We had rules put in for like, tie breakers of people wearing T shirts, or you couldn’t get the special at happy hour if you weren’t wearing your T shirt, right? So there were a bunch of kind of rules, and I’m not gonna call them tricks, but encouragements to actually wear the shirt. So that was number one. But number two is, how do you have a brand? Zog, means nothing, right? So Zog my nickname since I’m eight years old, right? So, but the brand, the whole brand, is not about Rob, right? Rob started it, but Rob, Rob is no longer the brand. The brand is Zog, and the Zog brand represents what and so when. We had to tell people what it represented. Have consistent communications about what it represents, and then you have to execute it, right? What is the purpose? What I said before, Zog is about community. Zog is about connections. Zog is about reminding you that leave your job and have fun. Have some play. It’s harder and harder to remember now, especially with people working at home, it’s like, what what we do is even more needed than it probably even was maybe 24 years ago when I started.
Max Branstetter 30:36
So let’s switch gears a little bit more. We’re going to Zog our way to sometimes I call this inspiration and creativity, because I always love diving into the minds of founders and hearing like, what, how you stay creative, how you stay fresh, how you stay unplugged. And actually, we were chatting a little bit before I hit record, and you’re at a really fascinating point in your life right now. Because what we didn’t quite get to but I do want to hear about, is the fact that you’ve since sold your business. So that’s one major change earlier this year. The other part is that in the past few weeks, you became an empty nester. So a huge, huge change. As the tears start flowing down your face, I know I’m gonna try. I’m gonna try not to cry. You’re welcome to cry. Is, you know, open. This is a safe space here. Zog, I guess with those two big changes in mind, can you just take us through, like, what’s kind of going through your mind right now, and how are you how’s this experience been for you so far, when your day to day for a couple of decades is no longer nearly the same as it was.
Rob Herzog 31:43
So let me start with being so proud. I feel so grateful, Max like that. I found my why in life, and then I went and did it like almost no one has that. Almost no one I know is as lucky as that, so now I consider it luck, right? The pina colada epiphany was about luck, right? But being able to look back and being so proud of what we built, it’s not what I built, what we built. I didn’t do this by myself, right? An unbelievable team, which I’m going to get to in a second, unbelievable team who helped me realize my vision. All along though, I was able to actually build the life that I wanted to build. So if you think about being an entrepreneur, and all the other entrepreneurs who’ve been on your show, they have different goals, right? Some may not be able to articulate their goals, because their goals may be only business for me, one of my big goals was being able to be present for my kids and not travel so that I could coach every one of their sports teams. So, for example, I coach 79 youth sports teams, and I only have two kids. I coach 79 youth sports teams from the time they’re in kindergarten through, call it, you know, whatever, ninth grade
Max Branstetter 33:11
or so. Real quick. I have to interject here because we were when we were chatting beforehand, I was telling you about my dad. So shout out Greg. And you were like, it sounds like your dad, and I should hang out my dad was the coach of every single one of my youth sports team, and my brother growing up as well. So you got two peas in a pod here,
Rob Herzog 33:29
I tell you, we’re gonna hang out when you look back about kind of all the changes, first of all, looking back and really having, like, almost no regret is like such an unbelievable grateful place to be, I would change nothing in what we did. And the fact that I can say that, and that is not generally the way my brain works, the fact that I can look back and say that, is amazing. So let’s talk about selling the business. So I had a few criteria if I were to ever sell a business, and I had no intention of selling the business, it was, it was not part of the goal. I loved what I did. I loved the business. I loved our I loved our team. I loved the continued purpose. I loved the fact that, because people are working from home, our purpose is even more present and needed or services or even more needed than they were before, and I got a whole bunch of interest after, there was one of our biggest competitor, very well run, and respectable competitor named volo had gotten some money from outside, and I then, we then started getting a ton of interest. And private equity was reaching out to us, and everyone I was talking to wanted something that I didn’t want, right? They wanted to invest money, walk away and say, grow the business. But then we’re going to kind of puppet string, control you from outside, and we’re going to tell you how to grow and tell you what to do. And the part of being an entrepreneur for me over all the years. One of the things that I did is I never took outside money, so I never had anyone telling me what to do, right? I would listen to my team, but no one outside made me do anything. So when it was time to go to a new city, we talked about it, could we do? What kind of resources? What would we invest at, whether it was technology or a new city, or marketing, or whatever it was, and then we went and we executed. And so only after we started talking to our biggest competitor, we realized we were completely aligned in what our goal was. And you know, when a competitor is a competitor, right? You know, you kind of do, you don’t know them, because we’re all competing. We’re competing for the same space, we’re competing for the same customers, and they have the same philosophy of kind of fun and connection and community as we do. And they also have a big charity angle to what they do. They have an amazing youth sports foundation where they run kids programming. And so after getting to know them, I was like, this is the perfect landing spot for ZOC. And I said, I said, I really had. I had two major criteria in coming up with if any exit at all. And number one was a landing place for the business. A landing place where Zog was not going to become a financial, financial analysis driven organization. I wanted a place where out what we built, whether it continues with the Zog brand name or it uses the volo brand name, it was going to build on the communities that we built, and they are already true to their word. They are investing. They are caring. Not everything is going to stay the same, and that’s okay, but they are caring about building community. So that was number one, and number two was my team. My team is amazing. And one of the things that we talked about during you know, negotiations was how good my team is, and you really should keep all of them, and I don’t know what will happen going forward, but for the most part, they hired almost every single person on our team, and all those people are just loving the new opportunity, and they’re finding the experience to be worthwhile. It’s a new chapter. It’s a new opportunity. There are different resources, and so I really couldn’t be happier with having found a landing spot for Zach. For me, personally, it was 24 years of I mean, my job changed over the years, right? It went from like I was the guy who was developing relationships, one on one, on site at facilities, you know, getting them to, you know, rent a space, to us, to, you know, kind of managing an organization with just under 1000 people, employees, including, uh, kind of referees and etc, like that, over, over the years. So, like I, you know, at some point, I knew all of our full time team, but I didn’t know all of our part time teams, certainly. And so it was time, it was time. It’s time for me to take everything I learned. So one of the things that’s most amazing is you learn a lot in school, and then I learned more running this business than I could have ever imagined, about people, about prioritization, about how to actually solve a problem and how to actually get something done that is not what you learn in school. And so I’ve learned so much that I feel that I’m on to the next phase of my career where I want to share all of that experience and all of that wisdom with other entrepreneurs and help them grow their business so that, that, you know, kind of what’s next. That’s one of the things I kind of think is next. And then on the on the empty nest side of things, and again, I’ll try not to cry, is I have a very, very close relationship with both of my sons, and they are ready to go out into the world. They have the tools to solve problems without their parents there. My wife and I are not helicopter parents. We don’t generally solve their problems, but we’re very involved in their lives, so they feel very comfortable calling us when they need us. And I know that we have done, of course, we made mistakes, but I know that we’ve done everything we can to try to make them the best versions of themselves at ages 18 and 20. And so I feel great about it, and I also feel great about that we still have a really good relationship, like, I still play fantasy baseball and fantasy football, and we like, we still talk. The kids are still watching that, you know, the Yankee games, and they’re calling me. I’m like, oh my god, I can’t believe so and so came in and, like, blew the lead, you know. And I also hear about my younger sons playing college, college baseball. My older son is is playing tons of club sports in college. And so they’ll call me and tell me how their games are and what happened. And I helped my old son twisted his ank. And he, like, calls me and he’s like, how do I fix my ankle? Right? So we still have a great relationship. So it’s something I’m really kind of proud of of having built the legacy of Zog, but also having built a relationship with the kids at the same time. You can’t get that time back.
Max Branstetter 40:14
I’m trying to put myself in your shoes, and it’s crazy, you know? It’s like we all go through different chapters of life, and but it’s crazy how you have two, like, two giant changes at the same time. And so I’m just curious, like, if you have any advice for anybody who is entering a new phase where, you know what, actually I have some more free time in my day. Like, what do I do with this?
Rob Herzog 40:38
By the way, you want to talk about change, though, there’s other changes to communities that we were part, that I was part of, for example, my work community, my partner, COO Mike, you stalk him like a million times a day for 16 years now, I talk to him like every three weeks. It’s weird. He’s one of my favorite people in the whole world. And, you know, I’m not talking to him, so all of a sudden you have a community of people who you don’t even maybe you don’t even realize how much you rely on them. So that has dissipated. I still talk to people, but it’s different, same school community for 15 years. All of a sudden that community’s gone. We still talk to people from the community, but we’re not going to back to school night where we’re like, you know, there aren’t events that we’re going to so it’s really hard. So what I’ll tell people going through that is, just recognize what’s happening. You don’t have to solve the problem right away. By the way, this is 18 years of insight meditation practice and kind of self reflection also kind of coming out in my answer here, recognize what’s happening and recognize that it’s something that is not within your control. You don’t have to solve the problem right away now. You also need to see how it makes you feel. You need to see, is there something I can do? Oh, I have extra time in the day. Well, forgive yourself if you get to the end of the day, you’re like, wow, I said I was going to do X, Y and Z. I didn’t do any of those things. Maybe that’s what you needed in that particular day, right? Maybe you needed to do nothing today, right? I had a bunch of days in the last couple months where I said, You know what, today I’m going to do all these things. At the end of the day, I hadn’t done them, and I basically forgave myself. Now that’s hard to do. Type A personality driven entrepreneur. I have a to do list. I get the to do list done. And then some days, sometimes you have to just forgive yourself, because sometimes your brain just needs to relax. Sometimes your brain just needs to reset, and if you allow it to do that, sometimes thoughts will come. Sometimes ideas will come. Sometimes it’ll be a simple idea where I was like, Oh, wow, there’s a whole bunch of guys from our like school community that are that I that I really liked. Well, I need to set up get together. So I just set up, like, a recurring, you know, wine tasting group, right? So, but I had to do that, right, like, and I’m the connector, right? So it’s gradual, it’s a gradual change process that you don’t need to fix all at once.
Max Branstetter 43:23
I see a Zog wine coming in the future. I think there’s something there. Well, I’m gonna mess up your day one more time. We’re gonna wrap up with rapid fire. Q, A, you ready for it? Ready? All right, let’s get wild. I’m gonna lean forward. Here we go. Please do the closer to the camera, the better. All right, let’s get wild. If you could be that childhood dream of being a professional athlete in any sport. What sport would it be?
Rob Herzog 43:54
Professional baseball? Shortstop. I love baseball. I love the fact that the shortstop touches the ball more than almost anybody else. So there’s a kind of a concept, as a leader, you’re always involved in the play.
Max Branstetter 44:08
You also find your wife at shortstop too,
Rob Herzog 44:10
exactly, exactly. I also love the fact that baseball is so cerebral, and you are thinking before every play, so you’re not just doing and kind of the way my brain works is it’s not, I’m not just a doer. I’m a thinker doer. And so I love the fact that in each player trying to figure out how to get an advantage of where should I position myself, what should I be expecting? How can I out think the kind of the opponent on things, and then, by the way, at the tail end of that career, I think I’d like to go to Japan and play, because their community of professional baseball in Japan is ridiculous. It’s kind of like Premier League Soccer, where they’re chanting, they’re singing, they’re totally sold out. It’s a completely different baseball experience. I think I’d like that.
Max Branstetter 44:58
Oh my god, yeah. I would love to go. I mean, Japan in general is definitely on the bucket list, but Japanese baseball league just seems so fun. And the what’s the name? The team name always cracks me up. The the ham fighters. Oh yeah, yeah, where a lot of these MLB pros come from? Oh, my God, the names are amazing. All right, you actually had experience getting formal education, as you said, at a couple different Ivy League schools, one for undergrad, one for grad school, which I mean, obviously Ivy League has a reputation of being pretty ruthless and beautifully challenging from an academic standpoint. What was the biggest difference about undergrad and grad school at a couple different Ivy League schools?
Rob Herzog 45:34
All right, so the first difference was, was me. I was a completely different person when I went to undergrad than when I went to business school. So when I went to undergrad, I was, oh, wow, I’m going to the school. I went to Brown I went to the school. Everyone’s smart, you know, do I belong here? Imposter syndrome, and, you know, by the time I was there for like, a few weeks, I was like, Oh, I totally belong here. I’m as smart as at least some of the people here, but and what I loved about Brown was, like, so many opportunities to learn, but everybody was like finding themselves. And so if everybody’s basically spending time finding themselves, there’s a lot of kind of uncertainty, and it’s also such a diverse population. So that was kind of my experience, kind of undergrad. But then when Rob went to business school, I basically I was different person. I had much more focus, even though I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just had much more focus professionally. And so therefore I was, you know, kind of, if you if you narrow your interests, there’s kind of a narrow population of people, and so there’s you just have something, you just have more in common. So what I’ll say is also, besides me being different and being, by the way, much more confident, much more comfortable in my own skin, much less worried about what people thought of me. I mean, like, literally just that, in that, whatever it was, like, seven year period in between beginning of undergrad and the beginning of this school, like, I was just completely different human. The other difference is, in undergrad, everyone’s pretty much the same age, right? Business School is a much bigger age difference. Like, the age difference of people coming into Business School is between like, let’s say like, 25 and 35 right? Or even 40. So massive differences in experience, massive differences in world view, and so really a lot more kind of real world what’s going on. So there’s a lot less focus on ivory tower. In school, class, learning and in business school, so much more of taking what you learned in the classroom and figuring out how it might apply to the rest of the
Max Branstetter 47:47
world. Oh yeah, can totally see the application. Well, I can apply that to a few No, I’m just going totally random, totally different. Note, what’s a pet peeve? You have something that just ticks you off, but really it’s not a big deal in life.
Rob Herzog 47:58
The word no. Huge pet peeve of Rob, don’t say no. Like, if I, if we’re having a conversation, and like, I, or anyone asked, starts to ask questions, don’t say no before you even finish. I’m open minded, and I actually really love listening, and I love, I love learning about other people. Don’t say no, don’t, don’t really have a close mind, by the way. The other one litter, man, I see people walking around. They do, like, drop garbage. I’m like, this is your community. This is your mom. Like, please don’t litter, right? So this is my public service announcement, please don’t litter.
Max Branstetter 48:28
So then if there, if there was a sign that said, Say no to litter, your head would be in a pretzel, because then there’s two things going back and
Rob Herzog 48:34
forth. Nox, you’re allowed to say no to litter. Yeah, exactly.
Max Branstetter 48:37
All right. And then what is a hidden gem in the Upper West Side. This could be a restaurant. It could be a thing to do. Could be a bar, which is something that like, really is a pretty cool spotter thing. Wow.
Rob Herzog 48:48
All right, this is a good one, alright. So I’m so fortunate to live midway between two of the greatest parks in the world, so I’m halfway between Riverside Park and Central Park. And so what I’ll say is hidden gem Riverside Park, bringing a little bit of your own happy hour down there and watching the sunset. Hidden Gem there is the North Woods of Central Park is has some like hiking trails, and there are certain times when you’re on a trail where you actually feel like you’re like hiking in a national park. So again, it’s only for a short period, but, but again, just hidden gems of outside nature. There’s also this unbelievable tulip garden on like 88th Street that, like, for two weeks, is one of the most beautiful places in the whole world. So, yeah, those are, those are couple things. You know, some people might pick a restaurant or a bar or something like that. I those are, I would go, I’d go with, uh, kind of something a little different.
Max Branstetter 49:56
I appreciate that. I mean, everybody flies to, uh, Amsterdam, and. In Holland for tulip season. But who knew in the Upper West, there’s, you know, a couple. Wow, great. All right, last one, this doesn’t have to involve you, but it can. What’s like, the funniest moment you’ve ever heard about something happening, like the funniest thing that’s ever happened at a Zog sports competition,
Rob Herzog 50:18
and we have a couple of famous ones where, like, Bill Murray showed up and, like, decided he was gonna, of course, he did, I think, like, play kickball. Like, I like, that was, like, kind of amazing. He was just wandering around, found us, and then wound up playing in the game. So, you know the, I mean, you want to talk like every person at that game. Remembers when Bill Murray showed up and played.
Max Branstetter 50:43
Bill Murray strikes again. It is unbelievable how there are endless stories of him doing that. And he’s just, I mean, like yourself, he’s, he clearly just loves interacting with people and love, and he’s very cognizant that, hey, he’s, I’m Bill Murray. People like me want to hang out with me. Why not? You know, make their day so really cool. Well, Rob Zog for short. Thank you so much. Just absolutely like yourself and other people have loved talking with you and really appreciative for taking the time today, but then all you do to create a beautiful business and and be the brightest part of so many people’s days. So thanks so much for coming on. Where’s the best place if somebody wants to connect with you online or learn more about Zog sports as well as culture. Where’s the best places for them to do that?
Rob Herzog 51:25
So first me personally, new email address, Robert at Rob herzog.com, or and, or, obviously, LinkedIn, super easy to connect with me there, you know, kind of on to the next phase of career, specifically around kind of helping companies grow on, kind of strategy, culture and actually people and as terms of the business, you can still find Zog everywhere we are by going to ZogSports.com and for ZogCulture, going to ZogCulture.com but also going to VoloSports.com Zog in some of the cities, is already becoming integrated into the into the new combined organization. And so that’s just vol Oh, so yeah. So that’s what I would that’s probably the best place to find info about ZogSports, ZogCulture, Volo, who also has a bunch of other amazing programs, and then me easy to find happy to talk
Max Branstetter 52:24
smashing. I try to mix up the words because they say perfect and awesome, so much that smashing felt right today. Last thing, final thoughts, could be a quote, words to live by whatever you want, just short and sweet, take
Rob Herzog 52:36
us home here. Favorite quote, Two roads diverged in the wood and I took the path less traveled by and that has made all the difference. My boy, Robert Frost,
Max Branstetter 52:51
my boy, Robert Herzog, thank you so much, Rob for coming on Wild Business Growth, sharing the ZogSports, ZogCulture, and beyond story and thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning into another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow Wild Business Growth on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on YouTube for the video versions. YouTube is @MaxBranstetter You can also learn all things podcast production, the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, as well as anything else about this podcast or me at MaxPodcasting.com and until next time, Let your business Zog Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!
