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The biggest shifts in a business often come from decisions no one else sees.
Future Proof is a show for business owners facing the pressure to grow and the weight of legacy, often at the same time.
Hosted by Scott Eckart, each episode features honest conversations with leaders who’ve made bold moves, stepped into succession, or redefined success altogether. You’ll hear what they were up against, what they chose, and what they’d do differently now.
If you're thinking about what's next and want to build a business that lasts, this is the show for you.
Scott Eckart (00:00:02):
I'm Scott Eckart, and this is Future Proof, a show for building something that lasts. Let's get into it. Hello, everyone. Joining us today on Future Proof. We have Bryan and Stephanie Neale, the founder and CEO of Blind Zebra, located here in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Bryan Neale (00:00:19):
I believe in abundance. I keep it in tension. I think big. What do people need? Outside sellers need to learn how to sell remotely. And I had a whole bunch of outside sellers who had no idea how to sell remotely. And I had some inside sellers that did. And I'm like, okay, we're going to start doing this. I'm going to teach you guys how to sell remotely. Our theme
Scott Eckart (00:00:36):
For today's show is building an operating system for your life and your business. You will hear from Bryan and Stephanie about how as married entrepreneurs, they came together to build a very successful enterprise through work-life integration.
Stephanie Neale (00:00:50):
Can you have it all and feel like you're doing it all 100% all the time? I don't think so. And I think there are seasons in life where we go in and out of needing to give more at different places. For me, what has worked is just allowing a flow. The biggest lesson has just been the freedom of doing it your way.
Scott Eckart (00:01:11):
Welcome to Bryan and Stephanie Neal. Can you say hello, guys?
Stephanie Neale (00:01:15):
Thanks, Scott.
Scott Eckart (00:01:16):
Hello, guys. Yeah. There you go. So glad to be here. Yeah, thank you. So owners of Blind Zebra, so we have the founder and CEO. So excited to have you guys on Future Proof. And I just wanted to describe Blind Zebra quickly. I love, love, love your mission, Making, Selling Simple. But I'd like you to fill in a few gaps from there. So Stephanie, what would you add to making Selling Simple?
Stephanie Neale (00:01:43):
We have a systemized way and a group of tools to help make selling simple. We also want to make selling feel good. So one of our primary tools and one of the first things we teach is our guiding principles, and those include just ways of showing up. The first three being intentions, so having good intention, abundance and detachment, and having that foundation has just really changed my sales life. So I'm excited that we get to help others change theirs using the same thoughts.
Bryan Neale (00:02:09):
Yeah. Bryan, what would you add? I have to start by saying, I am so happy to be here and I'm so proud of you. I tell so many people to start a podcast and I told you this and you did it and it is the real deal and I'm so thankful and happy for you. Thank you. Making selling simple. I was raised in sales in the '90s and it was really hard. It was conflictive. It was antagonistic. I hated it. I was so stressed out my first sales job. I was having anxiety like panic attacks. Terrible. And all I wanted to do was make ... It shouldn't be that hard. It's just two people talking, working through a process to see if it's good to be together. That's all it is. It took me all of 25, 28 years to figure out how to finally do that, which tells you how kind of mucked up selling is.
(00:02:56):
There's so much resistance around making it easy.
Scott Eckart (00:02:59):
Even the word. Even the word sell. Really? People just start to bristle. It's
Bryan Neale (00:03:03):
Weird,
Scott Eckart (00:03:03):
Isn't it? Terrible. It's weird. Yes. So blind zebra. I mean, that's an interesting name, right? So share with us because that's a very cool story. Background of the
Bryan Neale (00:03:11):
Name. So people always ask me, why did you name your company Blind Zebra? Well, I have a side hustle that's more than a side hustle. I've been a football referee for 37 years. Wow. Just finished my 37th season and I've refereed every level of football there is from Pee Wee leagues all the way up to the big leagues to the National Football League. And I've been there for 12 years and even got the good fortune to referee of Super Bowl. So I've done all that. It's a big part of my life. I wanted to put that part of our life in the brand just because it's part of who I am. And I wrote a line down the middle of a piece of paper and on the left side I wrote adjectives and on the right side I wrote nouns. And I thought, what do they call referees?
(00:03:51):
So on the nouns side, I went like blue, ump, ref, zebra. I'm like, okay. And then I went to the adjectives and most of them were things you can't say in a brand. And I was like, I can't say that, can't say that, can't say. But blind, I'm like, you know what, that's okay. And I just circled the word blind and the word zebra and just sat there and looked at it. I'm like, "That's kind of cool. Blind zebra." And that's how it happened. There we go. That was it.
Scott Eckart (00:04:14):
I love that. Yeah. Most names I think for companies are either an accident or they come to you and then you know and it sticks. And you were with Procter & Gamble and diapers and paper towels didn't do it for you. And Steph, you worked with car dealers and you managed sales teams.
Stephanie Neale (00:04:31):
Car dealerships and direct mail, which is what I was selling. Also didn't do it for me long term, but I was there for a really long time. And the sales or the dealership owners and the general managers were my greatest teachers in early sales and in pushing through things and grit for sure.
Scott Eckart (00:04:47):
And you survived to tell the story. And Bryan, you mentioned earlier that you were proud of me and I appreciate that. And this is a full circle moment for me. I mean, it really is. I get a little bit emotional on that one and also have your words ringing in my ears about something. And I think we do things oftentimes because people believe in us. And so I would be remiss in saying, "I don't know that I'd be this far unless I had your belief. So I want to say thanks on the air." And that it is a privilege to have you both in the studio because you run quite the schedule and getting you in here was interesting. Talking to Kelly and saying, "Okay, he's got a game probably preseason. That's not going to work and this. " And between all of the events that you do and working in there, there's a lot going on.
(00:05:31):
And so you are a team, which to me in working in family business, which I've done for many years, sometimes you can't get family members in a room together and talk about the weather and they don't get along, much less running a company. So Stephanie's CEO, Bryan, founder working together. If you have a bad day, then you got to go home together, make dinner, do whatever, you've got children. So you are a dynamic duo. Where did this formidable team meet and how did this happen?
Bryan Neale (00:06:02):
It was our second marriage. Our first marriages weren't so hot. And like what happens sometimes, we met at work. You find your person and your people and then you have a friendship and you have a mutual admiration and those sorts of things. And then it turns into more than that. And that's what happened with us. And we'd always talked about working together because we have very complimentary skills. And as we were married and it was our second marriage, we agreed that we weren't going to split our assets another time because that's a thing when you get divorced. And we didn't want to hurt other people and we didn't want to hurt ourselves and we didn't want to do that for more reasons than just losing half of our cash.
(00:06:35):
So we committed like if we're going to do this, marriage is first and the business is second and we'll never compromise that. And the moment it starts to go left turn or out the door, then Steph would go get a job. I'd carry on by myself and have the NFL and life would be good. It's been a thing. I'll speak for myself personally. I've never grown more than I have with Steph as my partner in life. And I now know what it's like to put someone else first, which I never knew, which is part of the problem I had in my first marriage. And that is how we do the business also. So the times when we have a dust up, which we might've had one this morning, Scott, there may have been a bathroom conversation where there might've been tears and some pouting, all the things just before we came over here.
(00:07:24):
And yet here you are. Thank you for coming. And you just learn like looking yourself in the mirror. And I'm thinking after we had that and we got it back together, but I start to think, and I think I'll let her step speak for herself, I started to think, how could I have handled that differently or better? How could I have said that? What am I saying that's causing stuff to feel that way? I could never have said that 25 years ago. And so that journey, both a combination of marriage and business together for us has been more about human growth than business growth or it's all together.
Stephanie Neale (00:07:52):
That's really well said. Yeah. I think there's just a maturity in life and then professional and personal. And you wish sometimes you don't have to go through the experiences that you do. I always say, I wish we could just download to our kids all the things that we've learned from mistakes, but you can't. And where we've landed today, I think it's been a really cool blend of personal development, therapy, and also some really great business tools and some business guidance and leaders from people like you on valuation and how we think about that, as well as the operating system that we run on and mostly just the commitment that I do think that we have to each other and the complimentary skills. We've done it our own way. There's a lot of advice about, "Oh, well, at five o'clock, take off your work hat and do this and that and have certain times that you do different things." And we have just found together that it's all blended and we can go in and out and we are both comfortable to say now like, "Not right now.
(00:08:48):
I can't do that right now." And the other one, be very respectful. But I agree that it has been so much more meaningful and fun and we've worked our tails off to get to a place where we work really well together and it just makes all of it more fun to chase the end goals
(00:09:02):
Because we're doing it together.
Scott Eckart (00:09:04):
Well, and the one thing I appreciate about the two of you, and I don't know all of my guests, as well as I know you all, you do have boundaries and they're good. And I know you get other coaching too, right? And we all have coaches, which is important. Just in terms of getting scheduled and you protect your family, you protect your marriage and your relationship, getting to spend time with you guys, it's for real, right? And being able to see that upfront and up close and personal. And so it can be done and that's the encouraging thing, right? How special is that to be able to work as a couple? Because we joke about, "Oh, my work spouse." You spend more time in waking hours, that is, with somebody else at an office or a school. And you come home and if you think about I have 30 minutes to eat and then a lot of people get up early and they might be in bed by nine o'clock and think about the time that you don't get to spend with them and how great it is that you all get to do that and have those experiences throughout the day and do that.
(00:10:03):
So well done.
Bryan Neale (00:10:05):
Can I ask you a question on that?
Scott Eckart (00:10:06):
Yeah, please.
Bryan Neale (00:10:06):
Because you work with, and when you worked with us, you did a really great job of what I would say a holistic view of all the things. So financial part was part of it, but there was way more than that. You did such a good job. I've never been around an advisor that gets that part, our marriage and our life and that sort of thing. Is there anything that you see working with family businesses that like ours, whether it's brothers, sisters, moms, dads, or spouses that is a fatal flaw, if you will?
Scott Eckart (00:10:35):
Yeah. So one of the things that happens is a lack of respect and they don't allow people to be the age they are and they don't allow them to change. That's the biggest thing and they freeze them in time. And so one of the things that I find most detrimental is that when they don't allow them to emerge as a leader that they are and they try to freeze them in time. And it's particularly true the older one gets and they also don't know when to step aside and that can be the most damaging thing. And I think that they sometimes are maybe threatened by Gen two's success. And there are so many new technologies right now and so many new things that I think they can be threatened by. And the most beautiful thing I see is when they set up their children for success and then that engenders a deeper love and then they do come back to their parents and ask them for advice.
(00:11:34):
It's really interesting, right? So when they set them up for success, then that engenders the communication and it doesn't shut it off. That is
Bryan Neale (00:11:44):
So insightful. It's insightful. We see a lot of family businesses too. I've never thought about that that way and you're so right. Now I'm playing my clients in my head. I'm like, oh my gosh, we see it happen.
Scott Eckart (00:11:56):
Well, and I had one of the sadder things that happened, but it turned out okay, was going through the discovery process, like you mentioned, Bryan, a dad mentioned to me with tears in his eyes and he said, "It's got my greatest fear is that my children only see me as an ATM and they're adult children." And sadly, he had given them probably more than they needed. And I think because he thought that's what he needed to do and they had significant wealth, I would say. And I said, "Well, hey, Thanksgiving is coming up. Let's try something that I do as an exercise." I said, "Why don't you list a set of affirmations?" And he's like, "What are you talking about? " And I said, "Well, when you're at dinner, maybe during pie and coffee or something, why don't you prepare a set of affirmations and that's things that you think about them that are true that are positive." So your son and two daughters, I said, "Just kind of keep them at the table and say, here's the things that I think about you that are positive.
(00:12:57):
When I think of Bryan, I think of your smile or I think of the way that you treat your children and that kind of thing." But I said, "Expect nothing in return." I said, "If you as the patriarch, if you take the lead, if you open the door to lead with affirmations, they may or may not respond." But I said, "You must take the lead on this and set a new tone for discussion for that. " I said, "Do you think you could do that? " And so he said, "Well, I'll try." But until you do that, until the patriarch or the matriarch sets a new level of communication, and sometimes the damage is done and sometimes they can't go back and because the trust has been broken and they simply can't do it, but it is possible to make that work. So Bryan and Steph, one of the things that I like to focus on are pivots, and I know that you've had some significant ones over the years.
(00:13:49):
In 2021, there was a pivot you brought in EOS, which for those that don't know, is the entrepreneurial operating system. And you made a very specific choice to integrate that into Blind Zebra into the sales operating system. Steph, I'm going to ask you to talk about that first and then Bryan, you can add in. But why did you do that and why was that a significant pivot? Because I know it's part of your story. It's part of the Blind Zebra narrative.
Stephanie Neale (00:14:16):
Earlier when we were talking about making our marriage work and making the business work, I casually reference advisors, mentors, and programs, and I give EOS a ton of credit because the two of us, we were figuring out how to work together. We had built a good size team very quickly and we're trying to figure out how to scale and we were kind of just going and growing and we did not have a solid foundation. I came up through sales leadership. Bryan's always been an entrepreneur. He's very visionary. Neither of us have any experience with scaling and building the kind of systems that companies need. So we heard about EOS from multiple people and it was just one of those things and the book Traction that it's based on. Lots of people had suggested that we read it. So we took a look and we met with a couple of the implementers that come in and help businesses like ours get going on it.
(00:15:04):
And we decided to just take the leap. And for us at that point, it was a pretty big investment. For the size that we were, it was a big investment and a big decision. So we went all in. That's one thing if I were coaching people on any kind of strategic system, especially EOS, is you've just got to commit. And so we jumped in and it allowed us to operate in the roles that we're in and it gave us the foundation that we needed as a business.
Bryan Neale (00:15:29):
I would add there was a pre-pivot. And the pre-pivot was when Steph came into the business, we were little, but we wanted to grow something together. So I gave myself the title of CEO and we gave Steph the title of CRO, chief revenue officer. And then there was one other person in the company. And so we're going along. So I was in charge of the company, she's in charge of sales, and we're going, going, going, and it was not good. Lots of friction and couldn't figure out why. We were driving to a family vacation in June, I- 69 between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. And I said, "Why don't you be the CEO?" I hate being the CEO. I hate leading people from a tactical standpoint, managing people is probably a better way to say that. And I don't want to be in charge of anything.
(00:16:09):
You like to be in charge of things. And we had 14 clients at the time. We put her in the CEO seat and me and kind of the now visionary seat, and we went from 14 clients to about 90 clients in about 18 months under her leadership. Okay.
(00:16:24):
Ta-da, we found the problem. I was the problem, but I was the problem personally. It was in the wrong role. And I can't handle all the delivery. And I'm saying to her, "I'm going to walk off the set." There's a book called The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. Yes. I had an e-myth problem. If you know what that is, that means you're the technician and the owner. Yes. You're the deliverer and it's not sustainable, not scalable. So that's when we had a house of cards like we got to fix this. And that's what made us pivot then to EOS from that kind of series of events, which we're so thankful that we did
Scott Eckart (00:16:52):
That. So Steph, you're in the car and he says, "Hey, let's swap." What did you say to him?
Stephanie Neale (00:16:58):
I said, "Okay." I was excited because I felt in the role that I was in and the role he was in, I felt like I was constantly waiting for permission for things. So there's all these things and all these decisions that need to be made. And I don't like getting in trouble or feeling like I do things wrong. There's a lot of therapy that can underlie all this. But when he then empowered me with the opportunity to make those decisions, I think that's what made it work, but I was terrified. Even though I like being in charge, I like somebody to go to, somebody to give me help. And this was a role that I'd never been in before and I had no boss.
Scott Eckart (00:17:31):
So what did you do? Where did you go?
Stephanie Neale (00:17:33):
Well, Bryan and I are both big believers in peer groups in general. I didn't have that at the moment, but I was very intentional about building my own. And so there's a couple women here in town that sit in similar seats. We have found each other, a couple of them organically. And then isn't it funny how we all run with people that are like us? So a couple of us, there was one group that we formed that there were two of us that got together and we said, let's both bring three or four friends and we're just going to have cocktails once a quarter. And so we get together at Northside Social, there's eight or 10 of us, whoever can make it's there, and it allows us the opportunity to have these conversations to be, I know it's kind of cliche, but to be vulnerable with each other.
Scott Eckart (00:18:12):
It's not cliche. Not at all.
Stephanie Neale (00:18:14):
You can just bear all. And so I think just that opportunity of intentionally building networks and people around you and understanding that you can have peer mentorship. It doesn't always have to be, you've gone before me. It's, we're going through this together and we're facing similar challenges.
Scott Eckart (00:18:32):
That's such a great point. I read just the other day that it was from an Italian diplomat who said that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. And so a lot of people want to take credit for success, but failure, right? I used to run from it and want to bury it and be embarrassed by it, but now I embrace it. I'm like, let's talk about that. Why didn't that work? And for me, getting to the point now where I invite feedback, and I know you guys are really good at that, right? And I know you talk to your clients about that. So Bryan, you're shaking your head. What's your thought on that?
Bryan Neale (00:19:09):
I agree completely. I have, I don't know why. I have a very high tolerance for failure. Failure doesn't do anything for me. The failure is in not trying or not taking the step. That's the only failure point that I see. The only failure is not starting. And so you can't fail. Once you start, you cannot fail, is the way I look at it. If a business owner is listening to this, I'll tell you how I felt. When I started my company by myself and I had clients that had big businesses, I thought they all knew what they were doing. Right? I did. Every one of them. Me too. They all know what they're doing. Here's the secret. Nobody knows what they're doing. Nobody. Nope. And you'll know things from your experiences, but that still doesn't mean that you know what you're doing. It just adds to the soup of, I don't know what I'm doing, but I know a couple of these things, but I still don't know what I'm doing.
(00:20:01):
There is no book that you can read that says exactly, it doesn't matter. Traction, e-myth, they're great books. There's no book. And so I think as a business owner listening to this, you have to really recognize that the people that you think know what they're doing, they don't know what they're doing either, just maybe at a different level or different time in their life.
Scott Eckart (00:20:20):
And vulnerability actually invites, it's a place of strength actually, and invites others to then say, "Thank you, Steph, for saying that because now I now have permission to now share something else and maybe what I've learned will help you and what you've learned will help you. " And I think that we see failure as softness or other stuff, but I just wish I had learned many years ago to embrace it, to talk about it, to try new things. And in rocket fuel, which goes along with traction and was the first time that I ever gave myself permission to not feel bad about being a visionary because I thought I was just flaky because I was idea du jour, right? And like, why can't you just pick an idea and stick in your lane, Scott? Why do you have to keep having ideas? But with ideas, you don't do new stuff.
(00:21:09):
And so yeah, so rocket fuel and traction go together and they're two awesome things. So we have our visionary here, Mr. Bryan and our integrator, and that's why you guys are dynamic duo.
Stephanie Neale (00:21:20):
And we would not have a company if we didn't have both of us because I am batted at ideas and definitely looking way out into the future and he's really good at that.
Bryan Neale (00:21:30):
And you're only flaky to integrators. That's right. You're not flaky to visionaries. I'll riff with you all day on the next idea. I will go there with you. And so you have to consider the audience. When you hear that kind of feedback from people, I always ... It's not right or wrong, good or bad. It's just their view of the world. And you have it in the visionary integrated relationship. So when I come up with an idea, it just happened yesterday. I said something and Steph said, "Well, and it was a very detailed part of the thing that used to bother me. " I'm like, "You're reigning on my idea." No, she's just integrating it. She's like, "That's going to be a tough thing to do. " I'm saying, let it be. It's a great idea. They're all great and they're all easy to implement, right, Scott?
Scott Eckart (00:22:07):
Sure. And I have to be careful. I don't frustrate the team, right? So there's that. Bryan, your turn. Mentors. Who has imprinted on you? Whether it was NFL, football, I know you've had some great folks in there who have pulled you along the way. I
Bryan Neale (00:22:21):
Mean, the list is so long because I have business mentors, I have life mentors, I have spiritual mentors, I have football mentors. In my spiritual life, Dave Sicklesteel, who's a great friend who owns a company here in town, when I was going through a really dark time in my life was one of the greatest just spiritual guides, mentors, and loved me in a way that I needed to be cared for by a friend or mentor at that time. My freshman football coach, Mark Anderson, was the first one that showed me what it was like to be someone, a high achieving person, the dreamering, high achieving person, and the work that goes into it. You have to work to get your thing and the detail that work. Garth DeFelice is my football mentor. He lives in California. He calls me one of his little puppies. I'm like, that's what he does, but I lean on him for lots of things.
(00:23:09):
And then business wise, a gentleman, unfortunately, who passed away way too early of Lou Gehrig's he's Bob Poorman who owned a company called Shepherd and Poorman. And then Harding and Poorman is a printing company. Yeah, I know Bob. Bob was so great. What he mentored me and more than anything else was the concept that people want to help other people. I was very bashful. I go to a church, a Catholic church. I call it the Northside Catholic Mafia. It's a lot of business owners, really wealthy people that go to this church. And he said, "You go to Immaculate Heart." I'm like, "Yeah." He goes, "Do you know how many people own businesses there?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm friends with a lot of them." He goes, "You never talked to him about working with them?" I'm like, "No. No, that's church." He said, "No, Bryan, they want to help their friends." And lo and behold, he pushed me way out of my comfort zone.
(00:23:51):
I went there. I still have a client from a conversation I had that would be 11, 12 years ago at an eighth grade spaghetti dinner because Bob pushed me there. It was great.
Scott Eckart (00:24:03):
And probably not very good spaghetti, but it was worth it.
Bryan Neale (00:24:06):
It was for the kids.
Scott Eckart (00:24:07):
Yeah. For the kids. Yeah.
(00:24:08):
Well, it's so true. I always tell people that, especially my passion project is mentoring younger folks, young yopros. I call them young professionals. And I always tell people, I said, "People need to meet you. " They just don't know it yet. They do want to help, but you have to call them. I always tell them, I said, "Anybody who actually will pick up the phone and takes the time to set an appointment, I will meet with them." I don't care if they're selling cutcoa. Knives, it doesn't matter because we want to help people and they don't think that. They think they have to sit on their own or figure it out on their own. But I just wish in our community, especially the business community, that people would realize that we do want to help, but they just need to ask. So let's switch a little bit.
(00:24:51):
I want to ask you both about work life integration. We hear about the word balance. I don't think anybody's balanced. I'm sure not balanced. Steph, I want to start with you. Work life integration, you're a mom, you've got football practice and all the things. Can you have it all, Steph? I mean, how do you do it?
Stephanie Neale (00:25:09):
I was actually on another podcast with a couple of local leaders, Courtney Mulford and Amber Fields, and we had a very similar conversation. Can you have it all and feel like you're doing it all 100% all the time? I don't think so. That's just my take. And I think there are seasons in life where we go in and out of needing to give more at different places. And I will say there are times in my life when I wish I would have integrated in a different way, but no, I think that for me, what has worked is just allowing a flow. And that was really hard. I'm an inside salesperson, sales leader, CEO. I like sitting at my desk. I have my to- dos. I have my calendar. I work in a flow and I book my day back to back to back, which I would do not recommend. So if somebody need to be picked up at school or something from home pops up an appointment, then to me, I used to get flustered with that and it would make me feel like I wasn't doing well at work because I had to take part of my nine to five to do that.
(00:26:04):
And Bryan's actually helped me a lot with that, as well as the flexibility of being a business owner. So anybody that's listening is thinking about being a business owner, it is one of the perks for sure. But yeah, I've just become okay with things are going to come in and out and some nights I'm going to work on the couch with my laptop and some nights I'm going to sit and watch TV with Bryan or with one of the kids. And so I think it's more for me. The biggest lesson has just been the freedom of doing it your way and not beating yourself up for one side or the other.
Scott Eckart (00:26:33):
Okay. Great. Bryan, work life integration. What does it look like to you?
Bryan Neale (00:26:38):
I do believe that whatever you want it to look like, it can look like. You just have to work a process and a system to get it there. I was lucky enough, Steph talked about we're very coach oriented. We like coaches. So I was in Dan Sullivan's strategic coach program for two years. I learned the Dan Sullivan entrepreneurial time system, put it into play. It was very difficult. You have to keep trying and find your way into it. I love that quote. I heard from a woman named Sherry Leviton. She's a sales coach on LinkedIn. You can either find your way out of something or find your way into something. It's easy to find your way out. This won't work for me. This is too hard. That's easy. Find your way in's harder, but if you do that, it typically works and it's way more rewarding.
(00:27:16):
I found my way into the entrepreneurial time system. We got five kids. We got this blind zebra business. We do keynote speaking. We've got two podcasts and I referee in the NFL. Pretty busy. We're all busy. And that's all. I mean, can't you add a little more? Come on. Well, I do. I play piano every day. Yeah. You've got your music room. There are times. I do. When I feel lazy, I can lay on the couch. And it's only because I work a system. That's the only reason I can do that. So people think they can do it, but they don't want to give into a system. They think that's giving in. They can't go on vacation without checking their email and their phone call. I have a snarky phrase. I say that's inflated self-importance. You really think that you cannot not take a phone call when you're in Aruba on the beach.
(00:27:56):
Well, you don't have a system. It's a system problem, not a victim problem.
Scott Eckart (00:28:01):
Yeah. Sometimes working with business owners, my greatest challenge is just getting time with them, right? And sometimes they tell me the litany of all the things. And I have said to some of them, I'm not sure if you're bragging or complaining right now. Bravo. Right? Because it's kind of a badge of honor. And if you take that away, am I important or not? Because part of this whole thing in being a business owner is the melding of self-worth with that. And if you take that away, maybe I'm not as valued as maybe I think I am. There's a great new book out called Mattering, and it's a holistic book, but my interest in it is in working with a business owner. The biggest challenge to them letting go, whether it's succession planning or exit, right? Because succession is the longer process exit is kind of stage left, I'm done, put the for sale sign up and somebody takes it, is do I matter?
(00:29:00):
Because everybody knows me as CEO or they know me as this. But if I'm not CEO, do I actually matter? And will people talk to me or did they only talk to me because I was the head of an organization? So can you respond to me on that? I mean, what are your thoughts on this idea of mattering and self-worth?
Stephanie Neale (00:29:20):
Yeah. I was that person 100% early in my career. And I do think that it's more common early, but it can afflict us all the time. And then I got fired and I was 15, 16 years into my career and I boomeranged back to a company. So in total, I'd been there 13 or 14 years. If you ask me to list my mentors, a broad majority came from there in one way or another. I was called into an office on a Tuesday, I think, and just told that I wasn't needed anymore. I was like, "Wait, I did all the things. We hit the goals. The team is awesome. I don't understand." And the phrase that I actually told my therapist A year later I think was I felt like I got kicked out of my family. And that, especially as a business owner now, is a me thing where I'm putting so much of who I am into this role.
(00:30:12):
And at the end of the day, it's a business. And business is fun and it's important and it's serious and we can serve others through it. But at the end of the day, the importance is who you are as a holistic human, your spirituality, your family, all of those things. And so that, I mean, I was all over the place for about six months. You were talking about pivots. That was me trying to decide. We'd already decided I was going to join the business. It was going to be June 1st of 20. And we decided that mid-May of 19, two weeks later, I was fired. So if you're looking for a moment from God or from whatever you believe in, it was there. But it still took me all that summer of interviewing and thinking about if I wanted to take the life or not.
Scott Eckart (00:30:56):
Yeah. And I was also invited to leave a company as well. You were. Yeah. And my thing was, well, no one tells me what to do. I will tell you when I'm through with you. No one breaks up with me. Man, was that tough? And having to go home and tell my family, my son was only in second grade at the time. And I remember thinking, okay, how do I spend this? How do I ... I was talking to my wife and I'm like, they're going to be devastated. Their lives will fall apart. And we're sitting at dinner and I'm trying to use all these fancy words. And Scotty was second grade and he leans forward and he looks at me and he goes, "Daddy, did you get fired today?" I was like, "What? How does he even know that word?" And I didn't know what to say.
(00:31:35):
I go, "Yeah, son, I did." And he goes, "Okay. Can I have more chicken fingers?" I mean, it was a non-event, right? And here I thought their little worlds were going to collapse. Just didn't.
Stephanie Neale (00:31:45):
Because that wasn't your role to him.
Scott Eckart (00:31:46):
You're a
Stephanie Neale (00:31:46):
Dad.
Scott Eckart (00:31:47):
I'm still dad. And so this whole idea of who we are, what we do, and we got to pull those things apart. And so in my role, I spent a lot of time talking with folks about this idea of mattering. And I want to get going on that sooner because I'm telling you, they will not let go. And even a great financial deal that makes all the sense in the world on paper, if they don't start thinking about mattering and how they're going to reengage post-sale, they're not going to do it because they're scared to death. And if we don't talk about that, it's going to be a rough landing. It
Bryan Neale (00:32:23):
Is so profound.
Scott Eckart (00:32:25):
Any thoughts on that?
Bryan Neale (00:32:26):
Yes. And I've done a lot of personal work on this, especially relative to my refereeing job, because it's a cool thing. Yeah. And there's 125 NFL refs. I mean, the odds of becoming a ref like one in 49 million and working- There's
Scott Eckart (00:32:38):
Only 125?
Bryan Neale (00:32:39):
And they stay for a long time because you can do it for 15, 18 years. There's not a lot of spots. So I have a needle source stuff. And Blind Zebra, it's the name of our company. Oh, Bryan, you're the NFL ref. Oh, cool. Have you ever worked Super Bowl? Yeah, all this stuff. All these stories. Want to see my ring? Exactly. It's all the things. Correct. Oh, I forgot to wear it today, Scott. I'm sorry. No, I'm kidding. And here's what's going to happen at some point. I've got written down that I'm going to referee until I'm a certain age, and then I'm going to go season to season based on how I physically feel and how we decide we want to do life. And then I'm going to be done. And when I'm done, guess what's going to happen to the NFL? Absolutely nothing.
(00:33:14):
It's just going to keep going without me. I used a perspective thing for our crew. We do a cool little thing in NFL on Sunday mornings. We do a non-denominational devotional meeting. It's one of my things. I lead our crews that I have done for the last six, seven years. And I did a kind of, it just doesn't matter concept. And so I read the names of the Super Bowl referees from Super Bowl one through six. I said, I'm going to read some names. You guys tell me who these guys are. I read the names. Anybody? Nobody. Nobody. And I'm like, those guys are all Super Bowl referees. He didn't know that. I'm talking to NFL refs. None of them knew them. Wow. At some point, that's it. No one remembers us. We have this time on earth and then we have these interactions and then it takes about a generation and a half to fade.
(00:33:58):
So our influence is also limited here. And so to me, you've got this little time and this little circle of influence, do the best to feed people positive things and make them- I
Scott Eckart (00:34:08):
Love
Bryan Neale (00:34:09):
That. It's
Scott Eckart (00:34:09):
It? Yeah.
Bryan Neale (00:34:10):
That's it. And then it's over. So it doesn't matter if you're CEO, NFL ref, financial advisor, podcaster. It's great now. Feed it forward and then it doesn't matter.
Scott Eckart (00:34:18):
Steph, I know that you've had some great experiences over your career. Can you talk about folks that have imprinted on you, either informal or formal mentors?
Stephanie Neale (00:34:29):
Yeah, of course. When I go all the way back, I was just telling our team this story. We did a little exercise and I had never thought about it this way, but one of my earliest mentors was a woman named Lana Stafford. I have no idea where she is today. I think she worked at one of the dentists office in Newcastle, Indiana where I'm from. She was a seventh grade cheerleading coach. She gave me confidence in a time in my life when I felt like I was not worthy of much. And she showed me a path to being confident, to being good at something, to feeling good about myself as a human. So I'm so, so grateful to her. I think she put me on a path to being a leader in the future and to wanting to be involved and jump into things. So she was huge.
(00:35:09):
Second one for me is Karen Casey. Karen, just a couple years older than me. She was my first boss. And the job we were in, you were supposed to get fired on day 90 if you didn't have a sale.
(00:35:20):
It was that cutthroat. And they just went through and that was the process and it worked. We had a great sales team. And it was day 90 and I did not have a sale. And she pushed for me and said I had it and I was so close and this and that. She helped me keep my job and it went on to be a 10, 12 year career for me. And she also, along the way, taught me a lot about sales and organization. She was really helpful. And then my greatest personal and professional mentor, I always get a little emotional about this one is Lori Grass and I've talked about her on multiple podcasts and it's funny that people come up to me and say she was one of mine too.
Scott Eckart (00:36:00):
Wow.
Stephanie Neale (00:36:00):
She was just one of those people like Bob Poorman. She just impacted all of us so much. And she was in my life when I was getting married for the first time. I was having babies, baby. I was by my first house and puppies and there was this whole group of us, five or six of us young women that were all in that phase together. And she showed us how to balance as well as we could, our life and all those things. And she taught me how to lead. And we lost her 2018, I
Scott Eckart (00:36:27):
Believe,
Stephanie Neale (00:36:28):
42 young. Fairly,
Scott Eckart (00:36:29):
Fairly recently. Yeah.
Stephanie Neale (00:36:30):
And I was fortunate to get to work with her twice. So at the end of her battle with cancer, we were working together again and she taught me a whole new round of things. So that's what makes me so passionate about being a mentor too, to others. And if I could have that, any level of impact on another human, that makes a lot of things worth it.
Scott Eckart (00:36:49):
Yeah. I know that people have asked me from time to time, Scott White, bother. And I just say that when I was, I guess, 19, there was a gentleman named Rick who I met when I was a freshman. And my definition of mentor is someone who sees something in you that you don't see in yourself. Not a family member, not related to me, and I just could not figure out, why are you helping me? And to this day, I know I would not be where I am without that person stepping into my life and literally changing the trajectory. To your point, Steph, you don't know who is watching you, number one. Number two, you don't know the small kindnesses or the things that you've done that could have big impact along the way. And to me, that's the interesting thing also about business and also about being a business owner.
(00:37:44):
You get to set your own culture. I think the thing that people forget about being a business owner, yeah, we have a lot of risk. We have to pick on a lot of things, but there's so many other great things you get to do and that's one of them is to set the culture.
Stephanie Neale (00:38:00):
Can I ask you guys a quick question about mentors? Please. So Bryan speaks on this a little bit. Have you ever told your mentor that he was that to you?
Scott Eckart (00:38:07):
I have. And I was able to have them up to the house. It was many years later and through much emotion, was able to say that and his wife was there and I don't think he really understood maybe until that moment how I truly felt.
Stephanie Neale (00:38:26):
Bryan always encourages people from the stage to take that chance to do that.
Scott Eckart (00:38:30):
Yeah.
Stephanie Neale (00:38:30):
Just them knowing means a
Scott Eckart (00:38:32):
Lot. And to Bryan's earlier point, so much of what we're really talking about is time because the world's richest person and the world's poorest person have one thing in common, and that's the number of days that we have. And how we use those is really the question. And so there are certain things we can do. And so I like to remind business owners of that and just say, "Okay, are these things really important? Is this something that is really that important or do we need to maybe potentially focus on something that is? " So on that note, I really want to maybe see if there's any other kind of bigger moments in the life of BZ as you look back and you think, okay, this was kind of maybe not at the time a big deal, but it turned out to be some decisions that you made that proved to be good ones, maybe not so good.
Stephanie Neale (00:39:20):
We made a decision to change our business model. People in the integrator type seat or the more ops-minded humans experience these things very differently than the visionary thought leader in the business. So we had been running, running, running, scaling, growing, and we realized it wasn't working and it wasn't going to work for our clients either. What we were doing was getting great results, but the model long-term, as soon as Bryan or we had a couple of other coaches at the time, as soon as they left, a lot of it started to fade. And we were like, "That's not what we want. We want to have lasting impact and we want to be able to scale this business." So EOS, as we've talked about several times in the conversation, was a starter point or an inspiration, that's what I was looking for, for Bryan as our visionary to say we had something very similar to that system for sales.
(00:40:08):
And so he set out with our product team over about 18 months and then some developing the program and we as a company started to pivot toward being a product sales company almost because we were selling a program instead of coaching and services. And I'm in charge of the books, which is frightening. I'm in charge with our controller, but I'm looking at the numbers and I'm thinking it's going to take a while before the weights balance before this side of the business is going to equal that side of the business. And I was worried about it. And our visionary, CC's longer term and he's just this way, was less worried about it. But that kept me up at night was, oh my gosh, and the idea of letting go. So we talk about detachment a lot in our business and in sales, it's really important to not get too attached.
(00:40:55):
So just being detached enough to allow things to go with the faith and all the work behind knowing that something was coming. And so then it was about another 18 months after we launched, we have one client now in our old business model. So we almost 100% turned over our revenue model, which is really exciting and also was really scary. I thought
Bryan Neale (00:41:18):
It was fun. I didn't scary at all. He did. Of course he did. Of course you did. And I absolutely, what Steph said was the truth. I couldn't, as we're running on EOS, I think we've got this for sales and I'm an EOS disciple. I am all in. We pay for all the things. It's thin on sales. I thought, man, there's a gap to be filled here. So wrote this thing and I had this vision. At some point, all of our clients will be on this operating system. We had 92 clients, about 70 of them were on a customized individual syllabus. I had to remember each client's thing and I made the syllabus with them, which was great service. They love that. "We need this six months, Bryan. Okay, sure. Well, there's 50, 80 of you. " And
Scott Eckart (00:41:57):
Not
Bryan Neale (00:41:58):
Sustainable. Oh my gosh. So brutal. Now everyone's on the same system. We have one left and I'm hanging onto that one too because I just love them.
Scott Eckart (00:42:05):
Sure, why not? But that's great.That's genius.
Bryan Neale (00:42:07):
Yeah. The COVID moment was good. When COVID hit, everyone's freaking out. No one knows what's happening. I was at a client in Atlanta. I'm in the Atlanta airport. Everyone's kind of making jokes like, "Maybe we should stand apart from each other." And then it went down and I thought, "I'm going to go out of business. Nobody needs sales coaching now because everyone's stuck at home." So I panicked and then I'm like, hang on, do what you teach. I believe in abundance. I keep it intention. I think big. What do people need? Outside sellers need to learn how to sell remotely because they didn't know how to do that. And I had a whole bunch of outside sellers who had no idea how to sell remotely. And I had some inside sellers that did. So first thing I did, like I said, failing is not acting.
(00:42:49):
I bought a TV studio from Amazon, 180 bucks. I bought some cheap lights and a cheap camera and a whiteboard that I'd scribble on. And I'm like, "Okay, we're going to start doing this. I'm going to teach you guys how to sell remotely." And then there it goes. And then the clients just kept adding and adding and adding and adding, doing it that way. So that was a pivot moment where I thought, "We're done." I'm like, "No, we're not done." We went from 14 to 92 clients. All that was happening at the same time with putting Steph in charge of the CEO seat, pivoting to a remote delivery, and then the next pivot was the operating system.
Scott Eckart (00:43:20):
Well, and my education took off because now I could teach on Zoom and all these companies were in panic because their people were panicking and they wanted my courses like never before. And it was all on Zoom and it was perfect. Probably I taught more classes in Zoom, thousands of people across the country because I could. And my message was just one of it's going to be okay. I mean, I taught classes on personal finance or whatever, but it's going to be okay and here's why. And so ours just went hockey stick. Boom. The other thing I'm fond of saying too is kind of going back to the whole failure deal, when I started out and I talked to young people thinking about getting in any kind of entrepreneurial mode or especially what we do is that if I'd known how hard it was going to be, I would never have done it.
(00:44:08):
But if I'd known how well it turned out, I would have started sooner. And my only point in that is you got to do the hard work at some point. And I remember my daughter, she was in fifth grade or something or seventh and she said, "Dad, I'm never going to be, in her words, as successful as you. " She kind of look around. And I just wanted to say, "Honey, you have no idea when I would look at your mom over dinner and be like, I don't know how we're going to pay the mortgage this month." Of course, we didn't share that with giddos because they were pretty young at the time and we just let them kind of go on their way. But I just think that this idea of running away from the failure and the hard stuff, you miss the stuff we need to learn.
(00:44:50):
That's where you grow the muscle and you get stronger. And I just wish there was a way to help people embrace that a little bit more. I don't know. Maybe I'm just talking out loud.
Stephanie Neale (00:45:01):
No, I agree because without it, you don't learn. If life just keeps going along la-di-da, you just keep moving. I just was reading something about looking for the failure and speeding up failure. We talk about that a lot. But that was something I didn't used to be very comfortable with at all. And when I look back, I just spoke at Purdue and I did- Oh, you
Scott Eckart (00:45:18):
Did. Okay.
Stephanie Neale (00:45:19):
I got to speak on anything I wanted, so that's dangerous. But one of the things I did was my five biggest failures. And when I look at my life personal and professional, I want to learn so much through those. Yeah. And I hate to fail. Bryan can tell you. I hate it still. So I can look back and say, "That was a good thing." But man.
Scott Eckart (00:45:36):
Good for you. It's tough to look forward. Hear that some time. So Bryan has the longest running podcast on ... The internet. Sales.
Bryan Neale (00:45:46):
Sales podcast.
Scott Eckart (00:45:47):
Yes. Ne podcast.
Bryan Neale (00:45:47):
Sales podcast. Sales podcast. The longest running sales training podcast and podcast
Scott Eckart (00:45:50):
History. Yes. That's the lead in. And I just think that's amazing. Tell us a little bit about that, please.
Bryan Neale (00:45:55):
Yeah, thank
Scott Eckart (00:45:55):
You.
Bryan Neale (00:45:56):
There's some good lessons for listeners. It's really for anything, but even I'm a big proponent of ... Every business owner should have a podcast. I just firmly believe that because it's the best medium to share your true self and your true story and to let people get to know you and understand who you are and how you think and that sort of thing. To attract people in, but also to let people opt out, say, "Oh, I heard Scott and Bryan and Steph and I never want to meet those people ever again." Okie dokie. Okay. So I was a radio geek in high school. I loved radio. All forms, AM, FM, for the younger generation, there's a radio in your car
Scott Eckart (00:46:28):
That you can actually listen to. Little nobbies on it,
Bryan Neale (00:46:30):
Right? And AM stands for amplitude modulation and FM stands for frequency modulation. And there are some nuances about that signal that makes sound better. But I listened to AM radio as much as I could, all these things. Then I was in a Boy Scout explorer troop, which is a specialized vocational Boy Scout thing for a radio station in my hometown, Newburgh, Indiana. And a bunch of high school kids got to basically take over the radio station for periods of time and I loved it. Then my good friend who's named Dave First, it's a stage name, I grew up with him from seventh grade on, was a sports director here at Channel six. He now works for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He's their director of communications and everything. And he and I would broadcast our high school basketball games when we were in junior high. We bought Mr. Microphones, which is another throwback to the younger, older people that know that this is, this little microphone you turn on and you can run it through your radio and your friends can listen to you.
(00:47:22):
We would fake broadcast our high school basketball games. And then we got tapes and cassettes and we did the whole. We loved it. Flash forward, I get out and do business. I always, always love radio. And I meet Bill Caskey, who was my business partner, one of my mentors, my podcast partner. He majored in radio and television at DePaul University. He loved radio and TV. He came to me one day with an idea. He's like, "Hey, I think we should do a radio show here in Indianapolis." I'm like, "I would love that, man. I'd love to be on the radio." So WXNT 1430 AM here in Indianapolis was a news station at the time and they had a slot available from noon to one on Saturdays. Well, if you look at Nielsen ratings for the listening viewer audience, the lowest rated hour of all seven days of 24 hours is noon to one on Sundays.
Scott Eckart (00:48:06):
No wonder it was open, right?
Bryan Neale (00:48:08):
Open. They're like, "You can have it. It's your have to pay for it. Bring an advertiser. Don't have to do that. " So we did a show called Business 360 and we talk about business issues and then some guy from Greenwood who was 87 years old, that's a suburb of Indianapolis would call and talk about what Kroger was out of stock on that day. That's how wide the audience was. I was reffing football at the time, college football was on Saturdays. I couldn't do the show with Bill, so he had to carry it and it just sort of fizzled away. Then he came in one day and said, "Hey, have you heard of this thing called podcasting?" I'm like, "No." And Bill's 13 years older than I am. He's very tech forward. He goes, "I guess it's like a radio show for your iPod." He said, "You want to try to do it?
(00:48:46):
It's pretty easy. You just record it and you upload it to the system." And I'm like, "Yeah, let's do it. " So we bought some microphones and we sat in the office, none of this tech or anything and just started recording episodes and we just loved it. We loved it. And so we've done one episode a week for 19 and a half years. Our 20th year will be in September of 2026. We started in September of 2006. Let me tell you an impact story if I could. So I'm on LinkedIn also. So now we're 06, 07, 08, and podcasting took off outside of the US first. Australia- I did not know that. Yeah. You're way ahead of us in podcast consumption. And so I knew I was getting LinkedIn requests from people across the world that listen to my podcast, which I thought, oh my, this is bizarre.
(00:49:25):
We're just two dudes in Indianapolis, Indiana. So I had a business deal in England and I looked all my podcast people up on LinkedIn and I said, "Hey, I shot them all a note." I said, "I'm going to be at the Heathrow Airport Intercontinental Hotel Bar at 6:00 PM on Thursday. If any of you podcast listeners show up, I'll buy you a beer." 19 people showed up. One guy came from Scotland, six hour train ride or something like that. I could not believe it. Then it's weird. Then I'm like the star. I'm like, "Huh?" Well, me? It's okay to meet you in person. What are you talking about, man? I'm Bryan. But what it showed me was, it's not free to produce a podcast, but it's not much that can have massive reach to the right people at the right time. And I'm like, I'm in on this for good.
(00:50:11):
And here's the magic. Here's the magic. If you're going to do a podcast, the only thing that's magic is you keep doing it. That's what you told me. That's all it is. Just keep doing it. Worry about how many downloads you get. Don't worry about any of that. You're creating this library of goodness for the world forever that can live without you when you're
Scott Eckart (00:50:28):
Gone. And thank you for adding so much goodness today. Yeah, you guys are awesome. So thanks for that. So as we are wrapping up, couple things. You are in so many different locations and businesses and you have your ear to the ground and you're very business forward. What are you hearing right now? So that's part A. Part B is, what are you most excited about?
Stephanie Neale (00:50:53):
I think we're hearing a lot about AI and how that's going to impact sales and selling. And I just don't believe that anything is going to take a person out of the mix 100%. So I think all of us are just going to have to continue to evolve and figure out how to make these new tools work with us. The second thing that kind of goes along with that, and when I look at sales specifically, people aren't saying it this way, but it's happening. They are moving their sales engineers into leadership positions. They're moving their ops leaders into VP of sales roles because people are realizing, and this isn't a shameless plug, that sales can be an operational function. It is much more of a process than it is the personality. And the personality is awesome, super helpful. But if you can run a really nice, tight process using AI, using all the tools that are now available to all of us, it wins more often than it doesn't.
(00:51:51):
And you get higher velocity of deals through the pipeline and you get to answers more quickly and all those things. So it's been really interesting to see. I didn't notice it until we had, I mean, multiple clients move ops people into these and they're doing so well. Wow. And if they have the right tools, it doesn't matter that they've never sold anything because they know how to run a process
Scott Eckart (00:52:11):
And
Stephanie Neale (00:52:11):
To follow steps.
Scott Eckart (00:52:12):
That's
Bryan Neale (00:52:13):
Fascinating.
Stephanie Neale (00:52:13):
And sales reps, we don't always know how to do that.
Bryan Neale (00:52:15):
That's right. What do you add to that? I'm hearing AI. What I'm hearing is, and I'm going to go to the Gen Zs. Those are my kids.
Scott Eckart (00:52:24):
They're
Bryan Neale (00:52:24):
In their 20s and they're getting into the workforce. They despise AI. Do they? They're the most authentic generation.
Scott Eckart (00:52:30):
Okay.
Bryan Neale (00:52:30):
They see right through BS, right through it. And Gen X, baby boomers, millennials, we're just going to set them aside for a second, but say that
Scott Eckart (00:52:40):
Termingly.
Bryan Neale (00:52:40):
We were taught like this fake kind of business.
Scott Eckart (00:52:43):
Grip and grin. Yeah.
Bryan Neale (00:52:44):
They just don't do that. And so both I'm hearing AI and I'm also hearing Gen Z's hate it. They don't like fake. They don't like automation that's fake. They want real, which is counterintuitive what people think about them. I love the Gen Zs. They also
Scott Eckart (00:52:57):
Drink less, by the
Bryan Neale (00:52:59):
Way. They way less. I love this generation. That's two sides of a coin. I hear us, the Gen Xers saying, "AI, AI, AI. I'm hearing these Gen Z's like, I don't know. " So I'd be careful with that whole thing.
(00:53:12):
And then I'm most excited too to go along with that is the authenticity that's starting to occur in the world that we can lose the mask, we can lose the game, we can lose the manipulation and just talk human to human, openly, free of selfish intention and objectively decide if working together is a good thing or not. I'm so looking forward to that. And I feel like our operating system facilitates that. And I think it's refreshing for both sides. I have a vision that's understated that people don't hear. I have a vision that at some point, anyone who buys anything in a business in the United States will give favored attention to someone who's running in the blind zebra sales operating system. It's a buyer system because it's so authentic and real and efficient. And so if you're a salesperson, you're certified on our system.
(00:53:59):
At some point there'll be a sticker in the window of the CFO that says, "Hey, if you run on BZSOS, come on in. "
Scott Eckart (00:54:06):
Well, that's how we're going to get to 2030X, by the
Bryan Neale (00:54:08):
Way. Great. Amen. See? Let's talk about you. What are you hearing and seeing and things like that?
Scott Eckart (00:54:15):
Yeah, great question. So what I'm seeing is a dearth of leadership development, sadly. And there is a hesitation on the part of legacy owners so that whoever started it, it doesn't have to be somebody in their 80s, right? But I refer to the legacy or the founder, there is a dearth of training. So for example, they'll look around and they'll be like, "Okay, I have a kid, but he can't take over." And so one of our visions in Velocity coaching is to create an academy. So I would call upon my friends here to say, "What would you add to that? " Because you could be guest faculty and come in because there is a dearth for next gen because they're so afraid of things like debt and taking on that because there is an aversion to risk, right? There isn't authenticity, but there is an aversion to risk because of all what's happening financially and they are not equipped to be able to come in.
(00:55:12):
So I'm excited about all of the opportunities, but when I have helped business owners shop around, for example, for these people that take over, they don't want to do it. They want the paycheck. But this idea of being the entrepreneur, there is a dearth of that. So we are working on a leadership academy in order to ... What does that look like? And I plan on staffing that with folks like yourself who can be the people that ... Because to me, the credibility gap goes way down when folks like yourself come in and say, "Okay, here's the deal." But they look at it and they see some mystery. They see, well, you guys are just good looking and you're an NFL ref, and of course everything you touch turns the gold. They don't know the story. They don't know. And so because they don't know, they're just not going to try.
(00:56:00):
So I'm excited about the opportunity, but at the same time, what happens is in the wealth transfer, the seven to 10 trillion that's changing hands right now and the silver tsunami, right? That liquidity is really locked up and it's going to change, but it may not go well, but there's enormous opportunity for this next gen if they're ready. They just want to hand it to them, but who are they going to hand it to? So that's what I'm seeing. So I'm excited, but I'm also like, "Hey, come on gang." Because you know what the average age of a financial advisor is? Do you have any guess?
Bryan Neale (00:56:38):
I'll say 52.
Scott Eckart (00:56:40):
Close. 55. Yeah, it's 55. Yeah. 55. Way too old. Think about that, right? It should be in middle 30s and it's not. My point is we just don't have enough people coming in all of these industries that require the entrepreneurial mindset in order to be able to take it up.
Bryan Neale (00:56:58):
And do you see, and I'm seeing this, I'm going to brag on you a little bit, of the financial advisors that I know, lots of them. There's no part of this conversation that has sounded like we're talking to being interviewed by a financial advisor, which I think is a huge compliment. No, seriously though. But do you think is your industry changing and how are you part of that? When I was in my 20s, everybody had suit and tie on and they're coming at you to sell you a whole life and that was the thing, you know what I mean? And they wouldn't let you go. And then cold call, Merrill Lynch, cold call, cold call. Back to this generational shift. So I think you're leading the pack in that is what I can tell.
Scott Eckart (00:57:33):
I was called a unicorn the other day.
Bryan Neale (00:57:34):
Brilliant.
Scott Eckart (00:57:35):
Brilliant. I hope it was a compliment. Yeah.
Bryan Neale (00:57:37):
But what is it about you that makes you the unicorn, do you think?
Scott Eckart (00:57:41):
I guess I've lived by a maxim that if I focus on what you value and not just the value of what you own, we're going to get a lot further because if I don't know what you care about, if I don't know what you want to do, and a lot of that is as business owner, right, that's what matters to you and you want to make a difference. And it really is, we're talking legacy to your point earlier, that generation and a half. When I am gone, did it matter? And that's really what I want to talk about. And so engaging at that level, no one's doing that. And some people just don't want to talk about it, and then I'm not a good fit for them, and that's fine too.
Stephanie Neale (00:58:17):
Well, the approach that you're taking with the ... I mean, the way that you helped us look at our business a few years ago, I don't see many advisors looking at the personal business as much of them as an asset as you do and putting definition around it, as well as making sure that our portfolio, so to speak, is well balanced between the business and the rest of our investments. So I feel like that makes you forward thinking.
Scott Eckart (00:58:40):
So a big thank you to my two zebras here, Bryan and Stephanie Neale means so much that you could spend some time with me today in the studio. And I know that people are going to really benefit from getting to hear from both of you. So thank you both.
Stephanie Neale (00:58:54):
We really appreciate it. I'm very honored to be on the first season and just honored to be your friend and very excited for you. We appreciate it.
Bryan Neale (00:59:01):
Me too. And you're putting good in the world and anyone who doesn't know you needs to know you for any reason, whether you're going to advise them or not or just be a light in the world, you're that kind of person. And kudos to you for taking action and here you are, you're in your podcast. And it was just an idea last time we talked. Just fantastic. Bravo.
Scott Eckart (00:59:17):
Thank you both.
Bryan Neale (00:59:17):
Thank you.
Scott Eckart (00:59:18):
After my conversation with Bryan and Stephanie today, three things really stand out. They encourage us to create an operating system for life, meaning don't take too many things home after work, have an operating system for your business. Make sure you have clear roles and responsibilities for who does what. And number three, make sure that you protect the relationship. Make sure that marriage comes first. Head to the show notes of this episode to find links to connect with Bryan and Stephanie and Blind Zebra. And remember, the future is bright. I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening today. If you like what you've heard, Please join us in the Velocity Network and sign up at www.vilocoaches.com, which is a gathering of entrepreneurs, business owners, and people who desire to learn more about running and owning a business. Also, you can subscribe to FutureProof on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.