Transform Your Business with ‘Small Changes to Big Things’ for Explosive Sales Growth

Damon Pistulka  00:03

All right, everyone, it is Friday and you know what that means? It is time for manufacturing ecommerce success and I am one of your co host, Damon Pistalka. And today we’re gonna be talking about small changes for explosive sales growth. And I’m just going to turn I’m so excited for this. I’m just going to turn this over to my friend, partner in crime. Curt Anderson. Take it away my friend,

Curt Anderson  00:30

Damon, happy Friday, dude, what would man what a great day it is. It’s just a good day to have a great day is our friend Edie Saunders likes to say so let’s just dive in. This is long overdue. We have our dear friend Sidney  Wormsby here today, Sidney. How are you dude, happy Friday, man.

Sidney Wormsby  00:47

Doing well. Thanks for having me here and inviting me.

Curt Anderson  00:50

Oh, what an honor privilege unite connected, we actually connected if I’m not mistaken, through fuse hub, which is the New York State Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program MEP. And so you and I had a great conversation. So this was long overdue, so honored to have you on the program here. But you have a wonderful story. I want to dive into your business, your expertise, we’re talking about operational excellence. But before I go there, I do have one question I’d like to hit you with when you were a little guy growing up little guy grown up? Who was your hero?

Sidney Wormsby  01:25

Oh, well, you know, I wasn’t ever big on sports heroes. I mean, I had my favorite teams and all that. But probably the person that like most kids, the person you look up to your most is your dad. And so, you know, kind of how responsible he was how he was always there and present. You know, I played baseball, you know, in college, and you know, a little bit after. And, you know, he was an excellent baseball player, my first coach, my best coach that I’ve ever had so taught me all that I knew about baseball. But also, you know, most of the stuff I I even do today and the way I live my life came comes from the way my parents raised me. And you know, obviously he was a big part of that. So probably my biggest no hero or heroes, first my dad and then on the softer side of things, my mom, all that I am and the way that I am. I keep seeing them in everything that I do so well. It sounds hokey and mushy. But hey,

Curt Anderson  02:38

we love that answer. We we love that question. We ask that every week and we hear all sorts of different answers. But you were sharing a little bit and I this teed up perfectly, because we were talking about dad before we went live, and you said you know, God bless and what was dad’s name? Hollis Hollis house. House and you know, what an inspiration in the military and I so you know, in the military and just you know, what an inspiration and you shared, you know, some really exciting things like, hey, no matter what you did, you’d be the best at that. Can you just share a little bit what we were just talking about before we went live?

Sidney Wormsby  03:12

Well, actually, we were talking about the the my company name, which is Uirtus Et Decus, which you know, is Latin for either, you know, honor and distinction or excellence and distinction. And I chose that name. Because of two things. One, what I believe I was taught, and how I was raised by my parents to be honorable, to be responsible, and to distinguish yourself, you know, to excellence in the way that you did things. So that was one reason but then also what I wanted to impart in my clients, you know, that excellence and distinction, how do you distinguish yourself from, you know, again, the way that you execute and the way that you deliver? And so, you know, he was he and my mom were, you know, big parts of, again, why I am the way that I am and you know, therefore every time I have a business, I find some way to try and honor them in the name of the business.

Curt Anderson  04:07

Awesome. Well absolutely love it. So very inspiring. Love that answer. Thank you for sharing that. Now you go off to Michigan State for undergrad and I believe you also earned your MBA at Michigan State. Do I have that correct?

Sidney Wormsby  04:19

Yes, correct. That Absolutely. Go Green.

Damon Pistulka  04:24

Party, right. We’re

Curt Anderson  04:25

big you and I share that we’re big. We’re both big 10 fans. And so I just absolutely loved that you. You know we we geeked out pretty hard about big 10 I think we I think we spent like the first hour of our conversation just talking about right while in college sports. But Sidney just share a little bit about your journey at Michigan State and what led you in college so really put you on the path of you know how you help companies today.

Sidney Wormsby  04:50

So when I left high school, I didn’t know what exactly what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to run stuff. You You know, when I got older and you know, was out in the world, either my own thing or somebody else’s thing kind of high up, and I love science and math, but when I first went there, I thought I was gonna be a lawyer. And that very quickly, I couldn’t take science and math, or they kept pushing me away from Simon, based on, you know, the academic program for, for, for law and pre law. And I said, I want to take math, and I’d taken calculus, and physics, high college physics in high school. And so like, I want to take this, and they said, No, you can, it’s another activity I wanted to. But finally they said, Look, if you got to do this, then maybe you should go over to engineering. And so I went over to engineering, because I wanted to take science and math, and loved engineering major originally in mechanical engineering, because it was the most, I thought, the most diverse in what I could do with it after, and it was a great decision for my life, because engineering teaches you how to build things, but more importantly, how to solve problems. And using a regimen or structure around that. And so just a fit with my personality, it fit with my interest. And then from that, you know, involved in manufacturing, my first love in terms of business. So,

Curt Anderson  06:20

you know, that’s a huge distinction. I like that how you’re describing, you know, being an engineer is a problem solver. And that’s really what you’ve built your illustrious career over is helping people solve problems. Yeah,

Sidney Wormsby  06:32

because I went on, as you mentioned, I went back and got my MBA, you know, again, looking at who was running stuff, and what was their background and experiences. And I decided, well, you could have 10 years worth of experience, or you could shorten that maybe by, you know, going out and getting an MBA, etc. So I got my MBA and in human resource management and operations, because again, I liked the manufacturing and production operations piece. But even there in my, in my master’s program at Michigan State, they taught you problem solving, from a leadership perspective. So we did, it was like case, state case based studies, etc. And so you’re always looking at things from what’s the business trying to accomplish. And so when I left and went out on, you know, to work in the corporate world, no matter what my role was, I saw myself to try to solve problems, and I looked at and so I would get involved with things that were typically beyond my job duties, but consistent with the organization needs an expectation, and that won me a lot of praise and acclaim, you know, people liked that I had that view and took that approach. And, you know, I was got rewarded for that as well. So it worked out both ways. Well,

Curt Anderson  07:47

I love it. And you found your career heavy in banking early on, do

Sidney Wormsby  07:50

I have that correct? Well, it wasn’t early on, it was later on, actually. So my first you know, International Paper, meet Corporation, Eastman Kodak. All of those were manufacturing related positions. And I was doing everything within that. I did everything from project management, so capital project management, capital repair, project management, to in house consulting, to product design, or manufacturing, Operation design, manufacturing, strategy, plant management, startups, turnarounds, yada, yada, yada. But it got to a point where I had completed every function on everything on the cost side that you could do. And I really wanted to, you know, move that next level. And that’s when I started, you know, kind of venturing out into the revenue side first and business development. But then the frustration was, well, now I have the revenue side, but I don’t have the expense side. So then into general management with PepsiCo, managing business units for them. And then from there, I wanted to international experience and that’s when I went into the banking. So, you know, first with Citi Group, managing their global operations for one of their software development divisions. Bochy was an investment division, but it was a software development and in house business improvement group, and then you know, their retail banking group that business, you know, in New York City, Queens section in New York City, and then ultimately JPMorgan Chase, doing global product management, you know, for them, so, yeah, got a lot of international experience and banking, finance, one of the things all of those because, you know, International Paper and meat paper, yes, were paper, Eastman Kodak it was equipment and you know, chemical processing, Pepsi, food and beverage. And then you know, in banking, you know, both on the domestic and the international side. It was one of those things where you start learning business is just business. An inventory issue is an inventory issue. I don’t care whether you’re talking about burgers, chips, widgets, gadgets, you know, rollers in vendors inventory, the strategies to solve inventory are the same strategy, they don’t change. So it’s really a question of how good are you at identifying what the issue is, so that you can solve it properly.

Curt Anderson  10:13

Wow, that I’d say that is brilliant. And, you know, if you look at your career and guys, you know, you’re just joining us, we’re here with Sidney, I strongly encourage you welcome you invite you connect with Sidney on LinkedIn guy is just a true powerhouse, man of integrity. Just you know, you make people feel like you’ve been friends with him for 100 years. Absolutely love it. And so, you know, was it? Was it intentional? Like you’ve you’ve worked for the who’s who come? I mean, look, you know, JP Morgan, Citibank, PepsiCo. And you know, me, you know, you’ve worked for the premier companies, Was that intentional by design was a kind of accidental or just kind of fell into it. What did that, you

Sidney Wormsby  10:50

know, it was, it was definitely not by design. No. Everything that I did was intentional. Only in this way. Yeah. I knew that I wanted to run stuff. Right. So I said that in high school, I knew I want to run things. So I looked at every opportunity that presented itself to me to say is it going to give me a tool for my toolbox that ultimately I can run something with, I didn’t look at what city it was going to be in, how much I was going to get paid, whether I would get a promotion out of it, or any of that other kind of stuff. Because that wasn’t important for me. And so when someone presented an offer, and I ended up living, we were talking earlier about No, the code is etc. I started living and working in some, some cities that you’re like, holy smokes, I end up here, and I won’t mention them for those folks who are out there who probably are living in, yeah. But uh, you’re like, Wow, this is there’s not a whole lot of fun stuff going on here. But I was learning something, getting something out of that business experience that said, I’m going to need and use this later. It gives me an experience and an opportunity, etc. And so I was fortunate and that people would see me. So in none of those companies, did I ever go seeking for them? I would meet them somewhere or someone from and they would say, hey, we like what you’re doing over there. Or we you know, we find it interesting what you’re talking about, would you be interested in doing that here for us, etc. So I was pretty fortunate from that perspective. But I tell I’ve been an adjunct professor, I tell my students, and I tell my kids, same thing. Look, if you just focus on doing good, and being reliable and dependable, people, one will seek you out. And two, you’ll end up getting where you want to be. As long as you’re diligent about you know, being there, don’t don’t take the side path. Don’t try to take the easy course whatever, you’ll end up getting there. Because people will see your worth and see your value and will ultimately reward you for it. And if not, you go do it on your own. Yeah. And you know, you’ll reward yourself that way.

Curt Anderson  13:03

Well, brilliant advice. So let’s speed up to your company now. And again, absolute love the name, love the background, you know, kind of a shout out and a tribute to dad, and the discipline the excellence that he instilled in you and your family? How share with folks now how are you making the world a better place? What goes on? What how are you helping companies and entrepreneur entrepreneurs hit their goals today?

Sidney Wormsby  13:27

So I’m a First of all, I’m the, I guess the quintessential generalist, I am a holistic approach to things. So I believe kind of fundamentally, everything is connected and integrated. And that’s true with business as well. So often, I would find when I first started consulting, I was doing projects, somebody wouldn’t hire me for, you know, oh, we had this, you know, this marketing plan we want to do, we had this inventory issue that we’re dealing with today. And you know, one of the things I would always, you know, try to impart on them is, well, that’s connected to this thing over here. Well, after you know, doing that, and then running my own business, you know, for a while came back to this. And when I decided I really wanted to focus on was growth, because growth is the thing where everything kind of culminates and if somebody’s interested in growing, then they’re going to really be interested in all of the stuff that they need to do. And that’s kind of the, the key, you know, the keys to the kingdom at that point. And so that’s what I work with businesses on how to grow, how to grow their revenues, how to grow their profits. And then what goes into that. And one of the key things that all of my involvement with business, in all businesses came to the conclusion. There’s only five things that all growth comes from. There’s lots of activities in a business, lots that are important, but growth only comes from five of them. And so what I wanted folks to understand is if you’re looking at growing if you’re interested in growing, then show me what you’re doing in these five categories and these five areas, and what your processes and systems are for that, because my engineering background says if you don’t have a system for it, it’s not repeatable, it’s not going to happen over and over again. So you need to institutionalize that and systems, process procedures does. So I work with folks on my motto, or My concept is small change to big things. And for those who are in manufacturing, they know the concept of continuous improvement, and making those small incremental changes. And I take that approach that concept and say, Okay, I’m gonna apply that, to these big things, these five areas that all growth comes from, I’m going to look at your processes, look at your systems, talk about the things that we can be doing in there. And all of these are behavior based process based procedure based, so they cost no money. Yeah, nobody has to wait to get a loan, nobody has to wait to you know, to their p&l looks better, to they save up enough money, how long does it take you to say you’re gonna do something different? Well, you can make that decision now. And you can start doing that thing differently, you know, the next second. And so I focused with them on those things to ultimately generate, you know, growth on both the revenue side and the profit side.

Curt Anderson  16:14

Nice. All right. Jamie, that sounds you this is gonna be fire,

Damon Pistulka  16:18

right? Yeah, this is huge, because you know, you are getting to the fundamentals of what really needs to change that is behavior, not necessarily a new system, or things like that, to really control or really help growth. So many times, you go into companies, they know what they need to do, they’re just not doing it.

Sidney Wormsby  16:36

Yes, yes. Or they don’t know what they need to do. And they’ve heard if I had this new gadget gadget gadget. Now, it’s AI, I gotta be an AI for what? What do you what are you got to do with it? Well, I’ve been told that, okay. When I manage, again, executive level at JP Morgan Chase at Citigroup, et cetera, et cetera, when you had budgets, when people would come in and say, I’d like to be able to, you know, get this kind of capital to spin on do with this kind of thing. My first question to them was always, you know, sitting around the meeting, okay, it’s my budget, I get to approve this. Tell me what you would do if I said, No. And that was always my first question. Now, after a few times you around the table with me, they start realizing this is gonna be the question, maybe you get a little better at it. But the reason for the question was this, tell me what you’re going to do? If I say no, I wanted to understand, first of all, how committed are you to this thing? Because if you say, Well, I guess we’ll have to wait till next year, and then you’re not committed to it. Why should I be? That’s for Yeah. But the second is, what I’m listening for, are the things that you’re going to do different if I give you no money, because I know, that’s an understanding of what needs to change. And so when you start saying, Well, I guess what we do, and you start creating a manual way to do it. Now I know you understand what it takes to make a change. And I’m willing to support you in that thing, maybe I’m not going to give you the money yet. Because one of the things I do with my my clients is to try and show them how much power they have, in their own in their own system structure resources, without any more money, without any more people without any more equipment. That look, you have enough right now to make that happen. Let’s start doing things different. And you’ll start seeing growth. And at some point, you can say, Now money is going to help me do that, like in terms of capacity building, or do it faster, etc. But I understand exactly what I need to do and why I need to do it. Because I understand what’s making that needle move. Yeah, that’s

Damon Pistulka  18:39

awesome. Your experience in those in those budget meetings had to be huge, because when you did say no, you probably saw some real innovation happen. And, and that helped them. So I got told no, I go off, I innovate, I get 50% of the way there where I wanted to go without any money. Now when I come back to you, I said I come. And this is what we really need, because we see what we need now, because of what I would see is so many times you would think of something or you want to do something, but if you didn’t have the money, you would find ways to do it. And then you’d realize, boy, I’m glad I didn’t spend that money because we really didn’t need that we needed something else. Right. Right. Right. And now

Sidney Wormsby  19:32

I have proof in the pudding. Yeah, and I’m going to the person for money, a banker, my supervisor, my manager, etc. I’m saying look, here’s how I know that when we spend this money, it’s going to be well spent, because these are the results I’ve got from doing it this way. I just want to wrap this up I want to excel, etc, etc. And you know, again, that’s my style and way so I did that when I was in corporate and people would tell me no, that’s a fun. I’m gonna go do it anyway. Oh, I’ll figure this out, I know that this is what’s going to work. And so I go find out a path around it, you know, and I, you know, work that through. Sometimes they would say, you’re not supposed to be doing that that’s not your role. That’s not your job. And my first question was, would you like me to get the results back? I can get the results back. You know, again, I’m being a little bit, you know, facetious or whatever. But it was one of those things that nobody wants to give progress and improvement back. They’re like, yeah, no, we don’t. But next time could, you know, get the right approvals. And that I wanted to show was, this is the right answer. The right way to do this, I have confidence, and commitment, you know, to doing these things. Now, all I need you to do is to ramp that up, let’s look allocate some money to allocate that budget. So I just use the same thing that I was doing for my staff and my teams, to say, you know, this, this is how you can commit or this is how you can show your commitment, and how you can kind of prove the results are going to be what you’re saying they’re going to do.

Curt Anderson  21:03

This is so good. Sidney, I have a question for you. I’m asking for a friend right now. Is it true? Are you one of those ask for forgiveness? Not permission kind of guys? Is that what I’m hearing? I

Sidney Wormsby  21:13

am, I am that. If you have if you have the strength of your convictions, yep. And again, this isn’t just be a rebel, and a radical and just, you know, blow stuff up for no reason. But it is one of those things that says if you really believe in that, then you have an obligation to go out and show you know, the value and the benefit of that. Yeah. And you’ll find allies, you know, for those kinds of things. So did it never got me fired. But here’s what never got me fired. Got me into some conversation sometime. In my grad school, I had a professor who said, No one gets fired for doing something. Most people get fired for doing nothing. Wow. And that struck with me. And again, we’re in is, you know, big graduate business class and like, I’m never getting fired for doing nothing one that’s just not my personality, but okay. But rarely do you get fired for doing something?

Curt Anderson  22:16

That is powerful advice now, Sidney did I have? I’m taking notes. This is like masterclass was Sidney right now. And you teach all sorts of different courses, I have, like a whole list of things that you teach. And so again, we want to strongly encourage you guys connect with Sidney, he is a powerhouse, you mentioned. So we’re here talking about small things for explosive growth. I think I heard you, you have five steps in your continuous improvement or in your process? Did I hear that correctly?

Sidney Wormsby  22:42

Well, there’s various five areas, I hear me be clear, these are not Sydney areas, these are not so businesses business. So this is every business everywhere. Any consultant, Coach consultant, I call myself a business growth, Imagineer that he’s going to work with you, if they’re not dealing in all five of these areas, then again, there’s a there’s something being left on the table. So someone who only works with you on SEO is dealing on one snippet of, you know, of one of the five areas, they’re not even dealing with a whole one area, they’re dealing with a snippet of the five of one of the five. And so the five areas of growth, and then not going to sound like rocket science, once I say you’re gonna go, Duh, of course, more leads. Conversion of those leads into actual paying customers, deeper relationships, buy more transactions with each of those customers, higher pricing based on the value proposition that you are delivering, and more profits through the reduction of expenses and the efficiency of your operations and execution. All growth in top line or bottom line are going to come from those areas. Now there are those five areas, there are maybe 40 different strategies that you can use, and depending on how you want to break those down, you know, maybe there’s 50, or maybe there’s 30, but you know, basically about 40 strategies within those five areas that you can work on. And that’s why I’m saying SEO as an example is one of the 40 strategies or you know, within the concept of strategies, you know, that you can do, but it’s you know, basically, you know, when I’m working with folks, leads are the lifeblood of any company, you can’t have a sales you don’t first have a lead. So how are you generating that? And if you talk to a salesperson, they’re gonna say, Well, every lead to good lead. No, it’s not no, that’s bumpkins. And so if you’re, if you are out there saying, you know, when somebody asked you so Damon, who’s your target market, everybody’s my target market, you know, everybody needs what I do. You don’t have a clue as to who your real target market is and what they’re trying to solve. And I can guarantee you the marketing communicate thing you’re doing with them is ineffective. Because you’re trying to reach everybody saying everything, and you’re really saying nothing. And so those are the five areas where where people get in trouble, when they’re bringing on a resource that’s going to help them is that they’re bringing on someone who’s very targeted what they do. And therefore, they can only help you with one thing, if I have only one tool in my toolbox, that, you know, the old saying, If I’m a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. And, you know, therefore, I’m just gonna pound pound, pound, pound, pound, pound pound, but I can’t do anything that needs to be twisted, I can’t be do anything that needs to be pasted, I can’t do anything. And so if you’re using that person thinking, well, they’re gonna give me growth. No, they just solve a specific, kind of a tiny issue for you. And you were expecting now your your company to be vastly different. Who’s whose mistake? Is that? Is it the individual who had that kind of targeted knowledge? Or is it yours, because you thought they were going to do everything for you. It’s combination of both. If you promise them with your targeted knowledge, you’re going to do everything, you didn’t really understand things, either you were just doing a sale. And if you hired them for doing that, then you didn’t understand what you really needed, which is why you know, you get those kind of results. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  26:17

yeah. And it is such a multifaceted approach that you need to do if you’re really going to improve a business. I mean, it’s just can’t be. Yeah, you just can’t be a single. Because nothing’s gonna solve it all. Yeah,

Sidney Wormsby  26:30

it’s like if you were building a house, but you thought you only needed a plumber. Yeah, right. Well, plumbing is important in the house. But it’s only going to do two things for me, getting the clean water coming in and taking dirty water going out. That’s all it’ll do for me. Yeah. And so you know, whose fault if I just hire a plumber to build my house. Now, if if I’m going to build the whole house, I can hire a general contractor, or I can be a general contractor. So I can go out in hire a general contractor who will find the plumber, the electrician, the carpenter that vote, all those things, HVAC, HVAC person, all that stuff. Or I can say, I’m gonna be that. And so as a business owner, you have to identify, am I the general contractor? Or do I need to hire a general contractor? And if I’m going to be the general contractor, understand, I need to manage all these activities in each one of these areas. If I’m going to go out and hire that general contractor, then I need to hire someone who can manage all of these areas.

Curt Anderson  27:38

This, drop the migrate. So hey, we’ve got some we’ve got a couple of comments here.

Damon Pistulka  27:43

Yeah, we got some comments here. I gotta get them going. They’re going to shoot alert. Hey, great to see you. Set a cot. Thanks. Hello, Whitney’s here today. Thanks for stopping by today with Timothy. Thanks for stopping in from Kenya. Whoo. And then someone I can’t see your name but niche down until it hurts. I heard that from someone else. That’s Mr. Anderson there.

Curt Anderson  28:07

That’s one of my lines. Sidney. That’s hysterical. So they thank you least somebody’s listening. That might be my mom demon. That might be

Damon Pistulka  28:14

your mom. She comes in every once she pops in everyone’s.

Curt Anderson  28:18

But she doesn’t want to admit that she’s my mom. herself. incognito. So Sydney, this is phenomenal. So let’s dive in. So what are some? I’m gonna go here. We’re talking about small changes. What are some small changes that you know, when you walk into you know, worse? It’s Hey, Brian Higgs is in the house here, dude.

Damon Pistulka  28:37

All right,

Curt Anderson  28:37

Ron, happy

28:38

Friday, my

Curt Anderson  28:39

friend. God bless you, brother. So let’s go here, Sidney, when you’re when you’re you’re going to you know, we target small manufacturers, you know, say that, you know, 3050 100 employees, that type of thing. You know, and we become creatures of habit. We know what we know. And sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. Right. Right. How do you approach we’re gonna some small things, you know, so if there’s a entrepreneur, small manufacturer out there listening to this are like, okay, great, this is wonderful, what are some little steps that I could do to start implementing these big changes? So when I’m working

Sidney Wormsby  29:10

with an existing company in that kind of space, that 30 to, you know, 50 or 30 to 100? And you know, that that, you know, one of the first things I do is really look at the efficiencies, you know, looking at the cost, save, and I tell people very specifically, it’s not a cost cutting, you can’t cut your way in cost to growth. It never happens. It never works. It you know, anybody who tells you that just kick them out of your office right then and there. So, but you can be efficient in and at your expense in your expense management, meaning if I’m buying merchant services Am I asking for the right capabilities or am I overkill? I got everything I got the the you know, the In the super deluxe package, and all I really needed was the basic fundamental package. So I’m paying for stuff I’m not using, or It’s same with telecom service, etc. So I’ll first go in and start looking at on both the the cost of goods sold. And on the, you know, the fixed expenses, where are there opportunities for real saving? So in one case, I was working with a beverage manufacturer on their cost of goods sold, found them new suppliers and vendors started looking at the specifications for some of their ingredients. Why why are you using organic on that? Is that important in the features of your of your beverage? Well, no, that’s what was being used when we bought the place that we’re just, you know, continuing on, well, would there be a need for change? Well, ultimately found out they didn’t need organic, you had them switch to that to, you know, a more basic fundamental feature that saves tons in terms of their operating expenses. Same thing with telecom and some other stuff. So we’re gonna first I will first work with them on that, let’s look for some areas and ways. And I just did a, a workshop for score down in Orlando, around financial management and understanding financial system. And there’s some very basic ways most people don’t look at their numbers don’t know their numbers. And if you don’t know your numbers, you can’t grow your number. So I tell them, first, start understanding them. And there’s a couple of basic fundamental questions that you can ask yourself to really understand your numbers. They’re not complicated. And so I will look at my numbers on a regular routine basis. So I started understanding, look, is this is this to the standard I want? And if not, why not? What’s causing that if this the trend that I’ve been seeing? And if it is, you know, is that the trend that I want? Or, you know, what, when something blips, you know, why did that blip, occur, good blip, or bad blip. So a lot of times, we have a good blip. And I used to see this all the time, when I was a corporate good blip happens. And people are like, Yes, we did this, pounding their chest, and I’m like, they have no clue next month is gonna be back down. And they’re gonna have to try and explain that. And I’m waiting for the next month going. So last month, you said it was this that it up, but this month is about what happened? Well, I homina, homina, homina Homina. So if if I truly understand what is causing that, then I can change that. If I know, this is what made it go up. And I want it to go up. I’ll do that over and over and over again. Yes, if I know, this was what made it go down, and I want it to go up, then I say stop doing that. Let’s change something else. So I spent first, you know, the first few weeks just on that to find the sake. But then the next thing that I do almost always always is on, you know, the more popular term might be branding, I call it market dominating position. So I helping them identify what’s and you just use the phrase niche down until it hurts, right? So it’s understanding what is truly unique about you that no one else can say. And when you understand what’s truly unique about you that no one else can say, then you start understanding well.

Curt Anderson  33:11

Right, on a cliffhanger.

Damon Pistulka  33:14

Yep. Let’s see what happens here. This is a wonderful thing about life.

Curt Anderson  33:19

Man, that was I like I don’t know about you. Right. And yeah, and so this was this was phenomenal. So you know, talking about your unique value proposition? And what really separates? Yeah, that really separates you from the market. And you know, Damon I don’t know what you thought of, you know, when it comes to a book, right, blue ocean strategy right there. Right. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  33:46

that’s a huge one. It’s a huge one around this. But, you know, he said something here too, and I’m sure he’s gonna get in here soon. But you know, being a general contractor for your business, right? It’s, it’s how you really, as a business owner, if you’re that person in that decision, if it’s not someone else on your executive team, are you going to take the time to learn what you need to learn to be a good general contractor for resources for your business? Or should you hire somebody like Sydney to do this? That is a huge decision point that I didn’t really consider until we were talking today. Right. Right. Well,

Curt Anderson  34:23

and it’s a great point, and you don’t I love the hammer analogy, right? Yeah. Our dear friend Jeffrey Graham taught me that you know, yeah, you know, whatever your expertise is, that’s what that looks like. When you bring in a consultant and say they’re an expert at you know, Facebook ads. Yeah, we you know, if I’m an expert in Facebook ads when I come to your business, well guess what problem you have a you need Facebook, or you know, whatever, you know, the hammer, right? Yeah. And you know, even though if we need to turn a screw or you need Windows, put it in or you need something other than the now, that is a great analogy. Now, one Think that was phenomenal that I don’t know, if I really digested this, you cannot cut your way to growth.

Damon Pistulka  35:06

I was just gonna say that because that is that is something that actually I’ve been talking with clients about a lot a lot recently because, listen, we need to get efficient, but it’s never gonna replace good sales, right? And that’s the thing that he just hit on really well, we can save some money by being more efficient in what we do. And that will carry forward as we as we get all the way. But not you can’t save your way to being an exceptional company.

Curt Anderson  35:34

That’s right. So Sidney, dude, you left us. I had our pens ready for like right on the edge of

Sidney Wormsby  35:42

the best laid plans of mice and men. So I think I was you were asking I was on to the part of talking about the the next step that I felt focused on after they expend saves, etc. And the real thing is about understanding what’s unique about you, and so that you can then really understand why you are able to help someone else. But then you have to understand their pain points. What’s the problem they have that they don’t want? And what’s the benefit that they want that they don’t have? And then how do you use what’s unique about you to eliminate those two pain points. Most people don’t know what’s really unique about them. They they have all these features and functions that they’ll talk about our gadget will do this, our gadget will do that our gadget that we’ve got 30 years in the business, we’ve got it, we got the best train people give a lot of platitude, but they really don’t know what’s truly unique about you. And then if you don’t also then understand what is it that they really want? What’s their pain point? What are they trying to get rid of, if you understand what your unique about you, and you can start talking about how you use that, to get rid of that problem to to bring that benefit. Now you have a message that you can start communicating them communicating to them, but you also understand them well enough to know the other things that are important or critical to them about that they’re dealing with. And you can start bringing that information and resources to them. Oh, I know you’re looking at that at our these kinds of things or issues from our last conversation for you and your business, I found someone or I know this, I saw this article, I thought this would be useful for you. We’ve added that as a feature to our product and our service. Now you can start really connecting with those folks. And they’ll start finding value in what you’re doing. And you’ll start so when we start talking about excellent customer service, and better product design, all of that fits then into product and service design, you can’t design an effective product, if you don’t know that. If you start doing that, it will start feeding into your pricing strategy. What your prices could be should be based on the value proposition or what they shouldn’t be based on that. It’s like why are you only charging that when you’re doing all this? And so all of the other questions that are going to come up on all these other answers that you need to have for your business, start from that market dominant position, assessment, understanding knowledge, and so I will always work with them kind of second. And if it’s a startup business, I start with that first. And so those are the two key things, everything will flow from that. And I do the savings one one because it’s money in the pocket right now. Yeah. And everybody likes money in the pocket right now. Yes. And also to be, you know, selfish, it also shows my value right up front, you know, I just saved you 20% On your expense lines, I paid for myself for the entire year that the director etc. And now let’s get on to some other work. And so it serves both purposes to be on

Damon Pistulka  38:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, and you you laid it out, well, Sydney, that that, first of all, as an outside resource for that business owner, they want to know that you’re going to provide value coming in looking through the costs and finding things that are going to help them in the beginning to be more efficient with their spending is a great way to show that value initially and it gives you the time to really understand the business enough to work on the other things that they don’t see that helps to drive that long term value. The long term value is where where they make the most benefit, but that beginning part of finding those early wins really allows that that owner and that team to go okay, Sydney is helping us now let’s keep going and doing what we need to do because and then ultimately you drive much bigger gains over time. Yep,

Sidney Wormsby  39:33

yep. It’s the when you start talking about you know, leadership for change and change management it’s one of those things that’s yes, you have to build the the need for change the burning bush the burning building the burning you know, whatever you’re in burning hospital that that but to your point there, Damon then you have to find find the small little wins up front. Yep, that keeps people you know, focused, motivated, etc. That allows you to, you know, to talk but now to to require the pain that they’re gonna have to do in some other area. Yeah, no, there’s gonna be there’s gonna be work and I always tell people, there’s no food us there’s no growth. Yeah, just sprinkle on. And there you go. And so there’s going to be work. And if you’re not interested in doing the work, you know, then don’t think about growth don’t talk about growth. Yeah, exactly.

Curt Anderson  40:25

Damon, we got some comments. Yeah, we would inject a couple of good ones here. Yeah. Whitney Whitney said,

Damon Pistulka  40:31

she said, all this is fire right here. And then she said, You can’t save your way to grow. That was a good one. And then Gail said, you know, most people don’t know that what is unique about what they do and what they offer. And that’s a huge thing to be able to differentiate yourself. But also know your company know what you really do well, and and oftentimes, people don’t take enough opportunities to talk to their existing customers and go, Why the heck do you do business with us? What is really special? Why didn’t you use somebody else? And we

Sidney Wormsby  41:02

get so focused on the sale. versus, you know, the old saying, Seek first to understand before being understood, we don’t take the time to really understand, you know, who is it we’re going after, and what’s important to them. And if I’m doing that, then I’m really being a better service to them. I’m being a better person, you first and foremost, but I’m also being a better service to them. And ultimately, it’s going to be a better service to me, because I know why I’m doing what I’m doing. And I can explain it to my staff. Do you know why we do this? Do you know why we turn that knob to three, not to four, because when we turn it to four, here’s what happens. And here’s what our clients say, oh my gosh, never let that thing get to four. Yeah, so now what they’re dealing with on a day to day basis, and there used to be this concept now to how old I am. It was called the House of Quality. And what it did is it actually took from the end user, all the way back to the line person showing how this was the feature that they wanted needed, thought was important. Here’s the the product description piece that led to that. Here’s the vendor that here’s the the knob at the machine that gave that temperature that gave that color that gave that that, that. So now when you’re talking to operate when you’re creating SOPs, I understand this is why that’s important and critical. And if you can’t do that, then you can’t if you can’t get your people committed and motivated to excellence. They’re just doing a task. For whatever. What difference is that three or four? Well, yeah, difference. Let me tell you, here’s what happens. The world goes to heck in a handbasket. And here’s why. And that did not. And if it doesn’t go to heck in a handbasket, then don’t tell them, Don’t turn it to four, because they’re going to do it one day just to see, and they’re gonna say nothing happened. So I shouldn’t listen to anything else you have to say. So you’re very clear and directed on this is what’s important and critical. This other stuff doesn’t matter, you know?

Damon Pistulka  42:57

Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. We got one more comment here. I want to hit real quick, Sam. Rick said, Hello, hi, everyone. Hey, Sam, and rob my here today, you that is that is so true. And we used to run into that in manufacturing, you know, you could be you could be running a process. And it’s really important when you’re doing like you talked about beverage industry. And we’re in the molding industry, where you’re going to make 10s of millions of something every single day, your process control we used to do. And I’m not going to get too technical here. But we used to do design of experiments, to really see what effects of temperature, pressure or time all these kinds of things would go. And we would set these parameters. Because then Damon who watches the machine controls or we set the controls on the machine. So they have limits, it would automatically stop or beep and tell people that, hey, there’s something wrong, we’re outside of our normal operating limits. But what you can do by understanding those things, like you said, as you can create very consistent products. Yep, yeah. And it’s so interesting, when you look back on what you’re talking about, and you think of things that are around us every single day. Now, I always like to look at automobiles, in the 50s an automobile, you’d be lucky to get 75 to 100,000 miles out of it. Maybe if you’re lucky. Now, just about every automobile, you expected to run a couple 100,000 miles if you want to drive it that long with reasonable maintenance. Well, the designs have gotten a little better, but the the consistency of the manufacturing has got so much better, that everything just works better. And it’s crazy how that that adds up over time, and how that can really make a huge impact on your entire entire organization.

Sidney Wormsby  44:42

So there so I’m glad you mentioned experimental design because that’s one of the concepts that I use to explain why the five things because the these are the five variables that you need to work on fixing control to drive growth. But there’s it’s also So in total quality management concept, it’s CP cap capacity, or process capability, when you’re looking at what’s your process capable of, and all quality really is is saying, my process does this, my customer wants this, I’m good. As long as I’m keeping this within this, I’m good. And but to get there, what I always do is I try to take variability, and just tamp it down. Wherever that wherever it is, you know, if customer wants to be up here, and your variability is way down here, that’s fine, we’re just going to tamp it down. Because if you do that, if you can tamp it down, then you can control it. And once you know what it takes to control it, we can move it anywhere we want to move it. But if you can’t control it, then you can’t move it either. And so the easiest thing to do is just reduce the variability. But that starts with understanding what’s going on what you’re trying to do, etcetera.

Damon Pistulka  45:58

And that works in every business. And I don’t care what part of the business, I don’t care if it’s if it’s a daemon cleaning the bathrooms, you know, the process, and you measure the results, you can improve the process and the outcomes. And it’s just so critical. And you talk about your five areas, it works in every area, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to get more lead, you’re improving conversion and the other areas you talked about. And and that is where so many businesses as they start, we have to work on a chaotic, getting things going. But then we need to build those processes, because otherwise we don’t have any idea we don’t can’t get real control over the processes. And that’s where they stay, they stay kind of in that chaotic thing. So because because we’re afraid

Sidney Wormsby  46:43

to do anything for fear that will blow everything up, it’s like, because you don’t understand it. Pricing is one of those areas. Again, one of the areas where all growth comes from that people generally don’t want to touch it, they you know, getting the I do a talk about you know, X number five, number seven number of effective pricing strategies, and one that you never want to use, right? Most people don’t want to do anything to increase price, because they’re afraid they’re gonna lose every one of their customers. But the math is pretty powerful and straightforward. It says, look, for a 10% increase in price, you’d have to lose about 25%. It’s either 25 or 35% of all your existing clients. Yep. Do you think they’re gonna, that many people are going to leave for 10% improvement or increase in your price? Not likely, no, I’m not telling you go run out and increase your price 10% Right now, but I’m just saying there’s sensitivities that we think are attributed to things that we don’t know, and therefore we make bad or wrong decision.

Curt Anderson  47:46

Every decision is emotional, right? It’s either fear or greed, right? Or those those are our two main motivations, either fear or greed. Man, city, time is flying by I know, like, We’re way over. And I know we could talk forever. One question that I would love to ask you, you know, vast, illustrious, incredible corporate career that you built, took the leap of faith jumped in entrepreneurship. Through your career, what is the best advice that you’ve ever received? Maybe that you’d want to pass along to your younger self, or a young entrepreneur, or even an old entrepreneur like myself? What is the best business advice that you’ve ever received?

Sidney Wormsby  48:24

So I’ll give you the best one that I received. And then I’ll give you two that I learned. From my experiences, the best that I ever received, came from a supervisor that I had that was really about feedback, and listening to feedback. And he was giving me a review and was a really good review. But one of the things he said he wanted me to work on was my communication. I’m thinking, I’m a great communicator was he talking about? And you start talking about, you know, when you know, when you’re in discussion about via, you know, get get, somebody says something to you, he goes on, I can see your brain is, you know, in motion trying to come up with a response back to him. Because sometimes when people give you feedback, you just need to say, thank you, I’ll think about that. And I’m like, All right, I can do that. But when I started doing it, all of a sudden, I started realizing how much more present I was with what they were saying, because I didn’t need to respond. All I needed to say was, thank you. I think about that. And so that was something that helped me out a lot, but it fit into that, what I started to learn about the again, Seek first to understand, you know, that I don’t need to have everybody understand me. If I understand then I can, you know, figure a solution for whatever’s, you know, needs to be done, etc. And John, so that was great feedback that I received. John Moore was his name You know, one of the best supervisors, you know, I had, the other is more of what I learned. And it was around being that dependable, reliable, responsible. And I learned this by accident, and then I applied it, and found results from it. Early in my career when I was with International Paper, they used to use me a lot to kind of show new engineers around to, you know, when they were coming in to interview and that did, and there was one I was showing around, and they had a change in schedule, and they asked him, you know, you know, could you take them, or we need to get into this place at it. You want us to, you know, take care of this, have this person call you? Or can you do it? I said, No, no, no, you know, I’ll figure it out. I’ll take care of it. The words, and the guy stopped me, he goes, this is why we like you. And like, cuz I’m taking this guy to lunch and doing well, what is that? So I’m thinking, Oh, what do you mean? And he goes, you know, because no matter what comes up, you know, you are responsible and reliable enough that you will take care of you get stuff done, you know, nobody has to babysit, you know, but, and that was the way we were raised. Now to be kind of self reliant, not independent, but self reliant. And one of the things I started learning through corporate life and life in general, people love folks to be dependable, to, to be rich, that they can rely on them and depend on them. You know, so not that they are dependent on but that they can be dependent, depended on. And so that’s one of the things I give as advice to people in their career. Look, you want to move go somewhere, be the person that they depend on, rely on, you know, that nobody is irreplaceable. But if they find you hard to replace, because you get so much stuff done, you know, good things will happen for you. And so, you know, that’d be the big advice I give.

Curt Anderson  52:01

Phenomenal, man. Were you 30 years ago, I couldn’t use that. So no, no, city. This is fantastic. Gang, I want to thank you so much for spending time with us as we start winding down. First off, David, let’s give a big shout out to everybody that joined us today. And thanks, everyone. And thank you, thank

Sidney Wormsby  52:18

you for taking the time to you know, listen, for those who are out there. We appreciate that.

Curt Anderson  52:23

Absolutely. And so is manufacturing for men. We have a lot of folks that have joined us here today, Sidney, how about a big round of applause for Sydney worm’s V for just dropping the mic multiple times, just shedding all sorts of brilliance and wisdom with Sidney, I just I cannot express my thanks. Any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with folks as we close out as we wind down?

Sidney Wormsby  52:47

Um, I guess the only thing that I would reiterate, is that if you’re wanting to grow your business, you have enough right now. It’s you. So there’s power in whatever you have right now in terms of resources. It’s about your process and procedures and behaviors. So if you can change those things, and if you’re willing to change those things, your business can be transformed. So

Curt Anderson  53:14

awesome, awesome. Another, you know, and that the feedback comment is perfect. We just had that on Monday, Damon same thing. Like you know, feedback is a gift. I know I’m not great at that you want to be defensive or you know, push back on it. But I love that just listen and say thank you what a great way. A Sam jobs a comment here for us, Damon,

Damon Pistulka  53:34

big lessons show positive attitude to feedbacks. That’s a big one right there. Thanks for dropping that, Sam.

Curt Anderson  53:40

So I guess we’re gonna close out thank you very much, Sidney. We appreciate you sharing your time, your passion, your enthusiasm, your brilliance. This was just absolutely phenomenal. Damon as we’d like to close out and tell everybody just go out and be someone’s inspiration just like our dear friend Sidney was today. And we’re going to be back here on Monday. And so please connect with Sidney on on, on on LinkedIn. First off, connect with him, chat with him, learn from him. And again, Sidney. Thank you for sharing your brilliance today. This has been one.

Sidney Wormsby  54:12

I really appreciate the opportunity. And I look forward to another one later on. So if I can ever be of assistance.

Curt Anderson  54:19

Awesome. All right. Let’s take it away. Damon. All

Damon Pistulka  54:23

right, everybody. Thanks for being here today. We got Sam and Whitney and Gail and Schuler and sidecar. And thanks so much for being here today. I hope I didn’t miss anybody will always appreciate you stopping by and dropping the comments. Thanks for Sidney coming by and dropping so many golden nuggets of wisdom. If you got in late, go back to the beginning and start this thing from the beginning because you will appreciate it and learn a lot from it. We will be back again next week. Have an awesome rest of your week.