there's no way I don't believe there's a way to really scale a business up where
you're just having to play CEO in COO together in one role where there's not
some separation where you have kind of like an outside guy and an inside guy
that's also another distinction I see
welcome to MODERN ONTRAPRENEUR today we have Dan Roitman who founded his first
company stroll while in college and ran that company for 15 years he turned
Pimsleur into the second largest language-learning brand in the US and
close to a hundred million dollar product line for seven years in a row
stroll was on the Inc 5000 the Philadelphia 100 and internet retailers
top 500 list today Dan's a consulting company growth harmony which
holistically helped 7 and 8-figure companies grow to the next level thanks
so much for being here hey thanks appreciate it yeah so tell me what you
feel like is your unique skillset and how that helped you grow from like your
college dorm room into $100,000,000 your business I think that one of the most
powerful things that I've been able to do is really understand what I'm good at
what I'm not great at and then ultimately shift all my energy towards
the things that I'm good at so when I think about you can you Killa T as a
leader I mean you really have to make the decision whether you're more the
visionary type or you're more the operational type then there's many
labels for this there's a book the the self-made billionaire of fact and it
talks about kind of the producer versus the performer there's a book called
rocket fuel that makes a distinction between the visionary and the integrator
but in any case there's this dichotomy where if you're really good at big ideas
big relationships just basically thinking strategically you know you
you're kind of moving towards one side right and then if you're great at
operations making sure that everything is taken care of in terms of like the
planning the details overseeing execution plans and all that that's more
like a CEO role so we really made that
distinction early on so I really got to focus on those things that I was good at
I was able to I'm great at marketing already because the participant I
developed but also I was great at building a network of friends that were
incredible marketers and I got to see exactly what those businesses were
testing and implementing and it gave allowed me a lot of times to connect the
dots the things that we were doing and giving us opportunities to be able to
test and implement those things so we always had an edge so I feel like my my
unique ability and what one I mean pretty clear on what they are but one
major one that helped us a lot was really pattern recognition seeing seeing
something out there and then being able to connect the dots to something we were
doing and being able to implement that and we just had endless gains and as a
result of that so in it stroll were you the like CEO visionary guy or were you
in charge of operation I was a PL uh-huh and so in that role did you I mean I
would I typically think of the CEO role as more like longer-term bigger picture
vision where this organization is going and like what are we going to test next
more as a marketing operations type role but it sounds like you were actually
like going out and getting the ideas and like handing them to marketing execs I
have that works well I mean I think you're in partnership with everyone I
guess I kind of see it as you there's certainly the like in an organization
it's kind of a pyramid where you speak the person that's helped to be able to
see further than everyone else and different levels like one person sees
five or ten years out the other person sees maybe three or five and you know
down to the daily level I need to pack these boxes write them out there's
certainly that dimension but I would expect that everybody like an your
management team should have strategic capability jaques thinking capability
yeah so I mean you want to be among equals on once and so they at least have
some layer of it ah but then but then beyond that I mean it's it's I mean
somebody needs to have the freedom the flexibility to not be trapped by the
organization no way I don't believe there's a way to
really scale a business stuff where you're just having to play CEO in co o
together in one roll where there's not some separation where you have kind of
like an outside guy and an inside guy and that's also another distinction ICS
it so you have the luxury and the freedom to be able to think more
creatively you're able to spend more time on the outside and contemplating
things that can help the business grow and get to the next level and then you
bring them in some things or at the strategic level like hey have we
considered going into these markets that we considered going to these product
lines and then I mean if you have it all depends on where your niche leader has
their own kind of proficiency that they're really great at so if you came
up and I mean I I knew all roles when I came up I had to do tech I built our
systems initially and then I structure different departments and all that but
what passion really always was on the marketing side so then awesome and if I
see something tactical I would at least bring it into the organization and
they're you know you kind of have to make sure that so one thing I've noticed
is that most if you're in a high growth business a lot of times most CEOs feel
like even if it's growing dramatically fast it's still growing too slow because
they have so many additional ideas they've come across or they've thought
of but they might want to bring into the organization but the organization is
still digesting all the old stuff right and so that's where there that there's
that disconnect but that's a good thing because you won't always have like an
excess number of ideas and growth initiatives that could come into the
company so but if you don't have the freedom of that luxury you can't do that
take the time to like you know think and because I can be out there absorbing
what other people are doing if you're always in the line of fire and so forth
if you can't create that separation I feel like it really limits you right
so now you've transitioned out of strolls and are starting this
consultancy with your executives yeah so you took your your sort of SWAT team and
are now thinking that it's going to be a good idea to go into other businesses
and kind of like bring your special sauce absolutely yeah yeah what is that
special sauce as specifically brain so with the people
I have on board I mean when we think of direct response companies direct to
consumer it could be an individual could be a business owner but really direct
marketing / e-commerce companies I mean the reality is you could I mean based on
everything I've seen in our company and many other companies I mean I could I
could come in and squeeze the revenue dramatically I mean just really have
ideas that could grow that but the reality is the organization would
explode because usually that's not what holds the company back and um you have
certain things where there's profit opportunities that are holding a company
back but then it's the operations side to them at least that's what I've seen
one is you need to if you're going to grow revenue also need to be able to
attain chaos and chaos can come for direct marketing companies it's a lot of
people don't know how to measure the numbers or they know it on the front end
but they don't know it on the back end or if they know it on the back end they
don't know what it is at a contribution margin level so like when you fully cost
all the orders how much how much is actually contributing towards operating
towards over operating expenses towards overhead so even then if you know that
they might not know lifetime value by acquisition source and even if they knew
that they don't know how to do how to like tie that into the financials to
know what the cash flow impact is and they don't know how to forecast so
there's this inherent limit they don't know if the leverage their cash to be
able to scale their business and so even if you can solve a lot of these things
and there might be something else like on the technology side so when you get
into all the aspects of an organization it's like if you can holistically look
at it because you have like great leaders in all those areas operations
technology analytics marketing you can really take a precision approach to a
business and figure out what things and even be done first but what also needs
to happen so that the organization is going to be able to keep up with the
with the new you know enhanced revenue yeah so that's kind of what we want to
do we want to be able to take seven-figure businesses from them into
eight-figure businesses take a figure business it's tournament at nine figure
businesses and basically you know right now it's kind
like on a partnership basis in terms of you know taking a fee and then adding up
side and long-term it's probably really just acquiring companies and doing it
for ourselves so I feel like if we can create incredible case studies with
people from a consulting standpoint then it puts us in a great position to choose
what we want to do next we need to work with clients and help them get to the
next level or you know who knows I mean there are so many opportunities out
there raising a fund doing it ourselves yeah so a lot of those things that you
just listed the things that kind of like business owners don't know are some
pretty advanced ideas that like quite frankly probably a lot of the people
that are going to watch this are not also don't know and and and are and like
probably didn't even know they needed to know and and because little businesses
aren't thinking you know about like matching the you know they're you know
customer acquisition channels and the cost of goods sold to a projection model
and you know but like there's not you're not there yet right what about those
kind of things at what point do you think that those kind of skills need to
be in a business to not like really be screwing things up well because that's
about it it's not necessary to be like thinking about that stuff from day one
right no no you look at all depends on the market so I had the opportunity to
be invited by in Gilbert ins team to see Quicken Loans in 2012 so we kind of flew
to Detroit and got to go in their offices and meet their team and they
have this bronze sculpture on the wall which is basically a replica of a
whiteboard they had at the end of 2008 during the housing crisis where they
were really concerned about you know where the economy was going and where
their business could go and so that like all these executives got together and
and basically plotted out two different ideas on the whiteboard and somebody
said hey well let's look at our entire funnel the entire all the touch points
in the business and so they took turns they went up and basically plotted out
the funnel plotted out the metrics and they
and that exercise that if they plugged certain weeks they could transform their
business and I mean today they're uh they're a leader you know in the home
mortgage industry and what we realized and seeing that is wow this is something
we had to do when we were in the millions and they did this in the
billions so it all just depends on the market but it's like when you look at
your business really analytically you can find what you can find pockets of
opportunity that can just transform it so I feel like it's you you I mean the
bottom line on all the stuff I mentioned really is just how can you spend more
money to acquire more customers so that you can just increase your reach in
terms of like you know if you've got a great product service how can you help
more people with it that usually just takes a larger advertising budget to be
able to let people even know that it's there I mean just because you build it
that's people will come that's the hardest part of the equation
at some level on once you've got the basics down so then it's really just a
maximization enabler right so that that's really what it comes down
to so it's never too early to be thinking about the the the level of
detail you're talking about well I mean the whole point of when you have a small
business and especially with when you're looking at online media and just a scale
opportunity exists the it's really proof of concept on the fundamental model and
margins of the business I mean the rest is just adding zeros and that's kind of
the way I think about it I mean even with Quicken Loans I mean they just
happen to be selling something very expensive they're getting thousands of
dollars right from we're giving clients oh I mean already by Nature you know if
you add zeros they're already in a huge huge business and huge market so so
really just proving out that that it's just having the proof of concept and
then scaling it up so I do think it matters I don't think you have to
approach it you know you approach its size it's got to be size appropriate you
can do things very simply in Excel but it's more of a thinking ability to
around it yeah and I could even if I didn't have certain metrics I could you
know put together things in a spreadsheet and just create placeholders
in a strawman basically at least fill-in knowledge
that already this even if I don't yet have firm numbers and then later just
have people running things and figuring it out but you just like you said I mean
it's about knowing what you don't know right so that way you can make better
decisions and at least then you're aware so it's all about awareness first right
and that comes from learning and you know your podcast and and different ways
to get perspective yeah so what are you learning right now what is next for you
I'm learning all the time so it's I was have trouble like even if somebody asked
me what you're really excited about what am i excited about why I'm actually
really excited about working with clients
cuz I'll tell you what I mean one thing the thing I missed the most right now is
solving problems I mean whether it's revenue problems operational problems I
mean such a creative thing that you know just really energizes me and so that's
you know I'm just really excited about you know finding people being able to
help them and apply what we know and have learned and you know what we're
still learning because I mean I feel like knowledge I mean these days if you
figure online the there's new new things happening every two years it's kind it's
kind of like Moore's Law applied to the internet because every two years or some
new advertising channel that opens up or some new feature on something that
unlocks a whole new wave of advertising possibilities or some new technology or
whatever so all these things are changing all the time so in most
industries if I believe they're changing like 15% a year your your knowledge is
obsolete in five years mm-hm so I mean no matter what you need
to stay on the forefront I maybe that's an extreme view of it but you need to
stay on the forefront of things so I'm constantly learning and it's more like
what can we how can we apply what we know and then also through networking
what we're seeing and do it and seeing out there and and help people with that
knowledge as well yeah interesting so if you go back to your college days and
give yourself a piece of advice about this this business you're going to grow
what would that advice be will be you why would you start with you know
because I started in college and I'd say get your degree
don't you'll get a job place I don't know it uh I guess what I would say is
you know really the the real enabler in a business is talent uh-huh and it
sounds like such a cliche I mean I remember when I won the Indian why award
and by I gave my acceptance speech and I was like God I know this sounds like
such a cliche but it's so true I mean you your people make you and so the more
you can learn I think the most important thing is as early as possible hire great
people mm-hmm I mean I'm lucky that I think I did that but at the same time
there are points that there were points where I wish we would have just spent 30
K more a year too hot when we had two different people we could have hired to
hire the better person mm-hmm and you know you're so cash constrained
especially when you're growing are that it's hard to justify those extra dollars
but in reality I mean when I look back about a catalog like all the million
dollar mistakes that we've made and I traced it back really just back to
talent there's certain people they didn't have the skills that to do it and
then it just cost us a lot of money yeah and so I feel like if you can surround
yourself with great people and be willing to pay for talent and then you
know you have to look at salary surveys a lot of people they they under pay
people and they're not like even they're not even like reviewing what everybody's
being paid and making adjustments even proactively just to make sure they're
staying competitive and they kind of look at it like oh well somebody's not
squeaking let me just not pay them what what they're worth in terms of what the
market is saying they're worth so I feel like I feel like maybe in certain points
having chosen people and having been willing to do that I'm sure in terms of
other things it's it's also thinking about that from a talent standpoint
overall I mean there were ways we could have just saved millions of dollars a
year if we had just thought of like well let's just only get you know $200,000
plus town or $100,000 plus talent and focus that
um in one country where we can get the best of the best and then do other
functions where we can get the best of the best for dramatically less than what
we were getting you know average talent for in the US and so taking more of a
global view at sourcing yeah so not necessarily outsourcing it doesn't have
to be or not to be outsourcing but like international expansion of the team yeah
just basically go going where where where the best talent is at the right
price right and and and also then having more reach because there are certain
regions where you can't just even find certain people so by nature anyways you
have to either I mean we've had to relocate people yeah we were in
Philadelphia multiple times you know just to go to
find certain talents so it's just thinking a little bit more globally
about things and that even goes to like points in time where we had products
made in one place versus we could have done it another place and all that just
allows you then to put the dollars back into marketing or do more with your
organization and so but you have to you have to be open to it
mm-hmm so that would be one one thing I would do differently yeah
so then think forward and you know towards like the end of your career or
life even and and and imagine back what would you like your your legacy to have
been well you know I think about this far more today in terms of just helping
more people or yeah I guess just after my last company I mean thinking spend a
lot of time thinking about like the the just business in general what is value
what is what's the future of business and I mean I'll give you quick antidote
and I'll explain it but essentially I believe that all businesses today need
to be five-star businesses with at least four star to five star products I mean
that's just like the starting point so it's um I really believe that I mean we
think about people think about legacy and so forth I mean there's the certain
things on the personal side like you know have your kids have incredible kids
like I want them to be kind and I want them to be irreplaceable I mean if I if
I were to boil down all the other values that they could have I mean those would
be the two because if they're replaceable then they're contributing to
society and they're they're producing more than they consume and they're
they're just you know benefiting humanity but then at the personal level
I guess I kind of leave it as like if I can help more people improve their
businesses if I can have businesses and employ a lot of people I really believe
that the greatest form of charity is you're helping people to fish for
themselves or you're helping them have a job for themselves you're creating jobs
it's not just yes you can invest your time and energy in specific causes and
doing that and that that certainly is is valuable and so forth but it's I
actually believe that you know we're at a time where if you can help create more
jobs where people are losing jobs because of automation and where the
world is going and you can inspire people to make themselves more
irreplaceable I mean that to me would be it would be a great legacy so those are
the things that I'm thinking about these days and it's also like how does
business help society more maximize profit but not just for the shareholder
it's also for stakeholders and like you know kind of I just believe there's a
better model business to so thinking a lot about that now how that manifests
itself I'm not sure yet but those are the kind of things that are bouncing
around in my head yeah beautiful what do you think it means to be a modern
entrepreneur how are things different today than they were in the past change
yeah everything's changing so quickly and I mean it's both exhilarating
because I mean I mean when could you ever build like honorably not a company
not a company such a short amount of time yeah
but at the same time I mean when you look at like the what is at the fortune
500 I mean the average length of a company on there it's like 15 years and
it used to be 75 years Oh kidding yeah so you're dealing with a
world that's just changing so rapidly so it's the skill sets I think and this
goes back to the legacy question I mean I believe the future is about being kind
of an idea creator and I be a connector and an idea coordinator
so it's like you know I feel like it kind of starts at that level and how do
you create value as opposed to just um
which is a little bit different than maybe what most people are prepared for
because there is so much change coming so modern entrepreneurship for me is
just about dealing with change adapting you know connecting the dots
pattern recognition that kind of thing great thank you so much for being here
Dan absolutely something would you Center wall oh absolutely
great
hit rock bottom - uh-huh like if there's something in your way
that a pattern that's going to let you not be successful and for me the pattern
that I had that was not loving me be successful was too much complexity pack
writing stuff not taking on too much yeah and not doing any one thing well
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