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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:00.310] - John S. Berry
In today's world, a lot of people have testimonials out there, and we wonder, are they true? Are they accurate? So we want to ask that vendor before we hire them, who are your references? Tell us who is really happy with your product. But then the next thing you want to do is ask that vendor, tell me about the last three customers that fired you. Welcome to Veteran Lead. In today's episode, we are going to talk about your bench team. Now, you probably remember during training exercises or deployments that you had attachments and detachments to help you complete the mission. The reason why you had attachments and detachments is because you needed capabilities beyond your units' organic capabilities. That's where vendors come in. You, as an organization, usually do not have all of the capabilities that you need to do all the things that you need to do. Vendors can be a wonderful asset so long as they are correctly deployed and you have the right vendor. How do How do you know how to use your vendors? I think the first thing is in the selection process. If you understand what you're going to use the vendor for, then you have to decide whether their values are aligned and whether this is a partner you want to work with, whether this is someone you're going to collaborate with, Whether this is going to be someone who is going to help your team become even better or whether you have concerns that they may slow you down.
[00:01:22.300] - John S. Berry
Now, how do you know? Well, a lot of times you don't know until you start the fight, until you really start to deploy that vendor and see what they're capable of. Now, that being said, I look for alignment. Does this vendor believe in integrity the way we believe in integrity? At Barry law, integrity is doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. Now, some vendors do that, some don't. We also look for vendors who will actually live by their values. I can think of a great company we used. It was called CrispX. It was a consulting group, a coaching group. Mike McGill was the founder. He had a great vision for where he wanted his team to go. They always practiced what they preached. If they were going to talk about John Ruland's giftology, they would make sure that they were actually sending us gifts. And I can remember when I got married, it was during COVID, we said no gifts, but I did get a gift from Mike McGill, and it was a big box of Cutco knives. It was a whole butcher block of knives.
[00:02:18.300] - John S. Berry
You put the knives in the butcher block, and then on the butcher block was an engraved date, which was the wedding date. It didn't say crisp video. It didn't say from Mike McGill. But every day, those knives sat in my kitchen, and we used those knives every single day. Now, not only did we think about that company when we used the knives, but more importantly, it showed me that they practiced what they preached. It's funny that years later, when Michael found out about a betrayal, the story is all the time, it's either grace or betrayal, that I was betrayed by somebody, and Michael sent me a nice K-bar knife inscribed with my name. He was like, You just got stabbed in the back, but, hey, fight back. I always appreciated that, that he practiced what he preached. If they said that this marketing technique will work or we're advising you to do this, it was something their company had already done and had proven. Now, when it comes to consultants and picking those vendors to help. One of the best experiences I had was with Daniel Alrick, founder of Grunt Style. He was not your typical consultant.
[00:03:23.260] - John S. Berry
In fact, I don't think he had been a consultant up till that point. I had hired him for six months to help us change something with our branding, with our culture, and just with the organization as a whole, because he understood how to rapidly scale an organization. Now, when we started working with him, he was very clear and upfront. He said, Look, John, you think your consultants are going to work hard? Nobody is going to work as hard as you, the owner. Let me say it again. Nobody is going to work as hard as you, the owner. And he said, It's because it's your vision. It's your baby. And for everybody else, it's not that big of a deal, especially your consultants. But he said, Look, I understand where consultants have failed in the past, and I will tell you that I will work side by side with your team, shoulder to shoulder, to get us to the objective. And he did just that. And so I think it was that understanding. And it reminds me of that book by Frank Sluutmann. It was called Amp It Up. And I think this is about Snowflake software.
[00:04:15.700] - John S. Berry
And he said, A consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is, and then they keep your watch. And when I think about that quote, it's really important to think that through when you hire a vendor or a consultant or someone that you're going to give your data and your money to. Number one is when you hire that consultant, you're going to pay them, and they're going to take your money, and they're probably going to tell you things that were fairly obvious to you. They'll tell you some things that weren't obvious, and sometimes it's okay to hear the obvious things, but they're also going to get your data. And then they're going to probably use that data to become even better consultants to help the next company. And that's one of the things that we learned was that then the consultants would go help our competitors. So you need to decide. If you want to get good, you're going to have to make the sacrifice of sharing your data, sharing some your information. Or maybe you can have them sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement. But the point is this.
[00:05:05.970] - John S. Berry
The point is that you have to decide whether they're aligned and whether you believe that they're genuinely there to help you. Because if they are, it's going to be worth it, even if they do share your information later or use your information, develop their products and systems, even though they are going to borrow your watch to tell you what time it is and then keep it. But that's okay so long as it is worth the cost and worth the investment and worth the amount of time your team is going to put in. Now, that is alignment. If you're aligned, you do it. Now, the other thing to look at is the contracts. One thing I've noticed with vendors, you think, Okay, this is going to be my attachments, my detachments. These vendors are going to come in here and just do amazing things for us. But I have found some of those contracts to be predatory They're very one-sided. I remember I was reading one and it said that this was a mutually drafted contract. I'm thinking, We haven't even redlined this. So it's very important. If you're going to work with vendors, that you read their contracts.
[00:05:56.660] - John S. Berry
And what I found is the sales team who is signing you up, they They haven't read the contracts, at least most of them. And so a lot of them don't even know what's in there. They know what they're telling you, they know what they're promising you, but they don't even know what's in the contract. And so we've run in this time and time again, whether it's a marketing firm, an IT firm, software firm. And we start going through the contract and we've read line stuff and they've come back and said, Yeah, gee, we don't know why this was in there, or this needs to be updated. So it's really important that you look at the contract, look at the language. A lot of times, like I said, I call it predatory, when it's just so one-sided that if anything happens, that they're going to be able to just take your first born, but if they screw anything up, there's nothing you can do. That's not fair. You should never sign a contract like that. That's why we want to make sure that we get lawyers involved to review those contracts to make sure that they make sense.
[00:06:44.160] - John S. Berry
For us, We read every contract, and we're lawyers, but we get outside lawyers to review those vendor contracts because you don't know what you don't know. If you're getting into an area that you need a vendor to help you through, they may be the subject matter expert. You may not even know what deliverables to expect. It's worth having someone outside your organization review that contract. Now, the next thing we look for is references. In today's world, a lot of people have testimonials out there, and we wonder, are they true? Are they accurate? We want to ask that vendor before we hire them, who are your references? Tell us who's really happy with your product. We will then contact three or four references, talk about the experience, find out what bad experiences they had and why they agreed to give some type of testimonial. Sometimes there's financial incentives for it, and you want to know that. Usually that's disclosed, but sometimes it's not. So you want to dig and find out. But then the next thing you want to do is ask that vendor, Tell me about the last three customers that fired you. Look, any organization with experience has been fired.
[00:07:51.480] - John S. Berry
It's nothing to be embarrassed about. Not every contract goes as planned. And your seasoned vendors who have been there before are going to have been fired, and they're going to know why they were fired. And that's what I look for, is the inside. Do they know why they were fired? And what steps did they take to improve? Because if they said they've never been fired, then I wonder whether they've ever actually done a meaningful project. When it comes to references, don't get lazy. Call the positive references, ask for negative references for the people who fired them. Do your due diligence, do your homework, and don't just take the vendor's word from They are going to go with you on your mission. You have to know whether they are experienced enough and whether they're good enough. Because if they are good enough, they're probably going to be worth their weight in gold. But if they are horrible, they are going to suck your time, they are going to suck your cash, and most importantly, they will suck the motivation out of your team if your team is falling behind because you, as the leader, hired an incompetent vendor.
[00:08:55.780] - John S. Berry
Finally, and most importantly, you must be clear on your expectations, and you must articulate those expectations to the vendor. By the time you hire the vendor, you should have your own metrics, your own standards. How are you going to judge that vendor's performance? What objective metrics are you going to use so that at the end of six months, a year, two years, three years, you can say either this vendor was a success or they were a failure? Too many times, we just automatically renew with the vendor because it's easy, and we're not really tracking whether they're hitting their metrics, just like any other team member. This is your bench team. They're still part of your team. They still need to hit metrics. They still need to hit those objectives. If they don't, how are you holding them accountable? The answer is not... Look, I learned this the hard way. You don't hold them accountable by going after their team members and saying, My account manager is incompetent and going off on the account manager's subordinates, and they're not doing their job. No, don't do that. I've done that before, and that ended badly for me and my team.
[00:10:07.480] - John S. Berry
The reason why was because what I did was I put the senior leader in that position up against the wall. They had no where to go. And so all they did was fight back. And they had to stick up for their team because they're just tearing their team apart, telling them his team is incompetent, tell them they don't have integrity. And so he had no choice but to fight back. I've learned that the hard way. And so before you send out nasty email, telling the vendor that they've got incompetent people on their team, you want to take a breath. If you draft the email, fine, but don't send it. Take the time to get on the phone and talk with the leader on that team. Because if you send that email, and look, there's nothing wrong with holding them accountable, but if you send a really nasty email that challenges their leadership or puts them in a position where they have to fight back, they are going to fight back. Sometimes it's better just to be polite. I I love there's a quote by Dan Sullivan. When he talked about getting a nasty email and saying, I appreciate your first draft of the email.
[00:11:07.360] - John S. Berry
I look forward to the next draft. I think what that tells us is that when we reach a point where we are upset, we need to step back and take a breath. Look, with our vendors, there are going to be frustrations. You don't just show up automatically aligned. They're like attachments and detachments. New organizations who are temporarily joining your unit who may not be a great cultural fit immediately, but maybe they want to be, but it's going to take time before they can assimilate to your culture, before they can really understand how you operate. So you have to be patient there. And the worst thing you can do is attack the leader or attack the team in front of the leader because they're going to fight back, and it's just going to create tension you don't need. And once again, someone who made that mistake, it was just a lot of drama and a lot of wasted time and effort that didn't need to happen. Now, I also heard FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss talk about sending emails, and he brought up the talk shows of the '80s, the Jerry Springer's and the Oprah Winfrey.
[00:12:07.780] - John S. Berry
And so with Jerry Springer, it was always a big drama show where people would get a little bit, for lack of a better word, trashy on the show. And so in the Jerry Springer show, at least the legend was that you would show up in a limo at the studio, get the limo treatment, and then leave in a cab. But at the Oprah Winfrey show, Oprah demanded that you show up in a limo and you leave in a limo. And Chris Voss said, Look, when you're writing an email, and I don't mean to misquote, so maybe I'll get this wrong, but he said, If You are upset. You don't want to lead with that, and you don't want to end with that. It's better to have a very pleasant introduction email. Hey, Chris, great to see you again. I'm glad we're working together. This collaboration seems to be well. You start off with a nice compliment, and then in the middle is where you deliver the message that something is not the standard. However, I have to tell you that A, B, and C have been substandard, and I'd like to find a way to fix them, and we need to do this as soon as possible.
[00:13:20.390] - John S. Berry
Then in the third paragraph, once again, great to catch up with you, Chris. Looking forward to all the amazing things your team is going to do for us. Sincerely. What that does in that email. You're not immediately attacking them. In fact, it is a very pleasant-sounding email, but you are holding them accountable. As a lawyer, sometimes I think about those emails. I think about, what's this email going to look like when I put an Exhibit sticker on it and use it in court? I want you to understand it. You can send an email to hold someone accountable. It doesn't have to be nasty. It shouldn't be nasty. It should be professional. It should be polite. It should be courteous. But it needs to be clear about what the problem is If that vendor is not performing, to state that clearly and concisely and then end it pleasantly. Not only does, for purposes of litigation, a lot of times people think, I'm going to write something really nasty. Well, the whole point is we don't want things to go to litigation. We don't want to be in court. We just want the vendor to perform. To do that, we want to make sure that we have a great relationship with them.
[00:14:23.410] - John S. Berry
To do that, we need to deliver our message to them professionally and with a sense of class that gives them dignity, even when we have to correct them, even when we have to tell them they're not doing their job, even when we have to give them the knife hand and say, You are failing us. We are paying you a lot of money, and we are frustrated. They come in a limo, they leave in a limo. Start off nice. In the middle of the email, tell them what they need to know to hold them accountable. And in the end, Give them grace and dignity and tell them that this is still a workable situation. Because if you tell them that this is done, there's a chance they're going to stop working on the project. There's a chance they're just going to give up, or you're going to keep paying them, but they're going to check out, just like one of your team members. It's really important that the beginning of the email is pleasant and the end of the email is pleasant because we have a mission and we have to communicate. Now, that being said, the worst thing you can do is send no email where you're not holding the vendor accountable.
[00:15:30.050] - John S. Berry
There's no record of you complaining. If there is an issue, you need to hold them accountable. But that complaint should be more like a message from a leader who is trying to help the attachments and detachments become better team players than it is someone who is trying to pick a fight. But I want to go even deeper into the expectations, and you're going to go beyond just what the ROI is, the return on investment you expect to get from this vendor, how much money if you're going to pay them $100,000, are they going to bring you a million dollars worth of work or services or clients? You have to be clear on that, and you have to track that. But it goes beyond just the metrics. You have to be clear on whether this is a vendor who you expect to get you to the next level or whether you're at ground zero at this point, you are just using this type of vendor for the first time, whether maybe it's the first social media vendor that you've ever used. You've always done it in-house. Now you got to decide, What am I really going to get out of this?
[00:16:30.270] - John S. Berry
You're probably not going to get the measurable ROI out of it that you're thinking. But your goal may be instead, you want to learn. And you're hiring this vendor not because you think that it's a great you're going to get a great return on investment, but because you need to learn more about social media or the software that they're going to implement for you. The key is that you have that expectation up front and you have that conversation with the vendor and say, Look, we I've never done this before. We believe you are the experts. We're hiring you to be the experts, and we want to learn. And a lot of times when you do that, you can give the vendor more grace when they don't perform. And to compensate you, they will be a little bit more patient in teaching you what it is they're doing, and then you can learn how to hold them accountable. So a lot of times, if it's our first time contracting a specific service that we've never contracted before, we know it's going to be a learning process. We We know that it's not going to be hyper-efficient, and we know that we're going to be part of the problem because we just don't really know how to manage it yet until we get in.
[00:17:37.390] - John S. Berry
But here's the problem. You can't wait till you have all the information or all the knowledge. You do the best you can, you research, you find the best company, and then you have clear communication about your expectations and hold them accountable to answering all of your questions. Finally, when it comes to expectations, you need You need to make sure that you are the right size for that vendor. I've had this happen to me several times. I've been with the vendor for several years, and maybe they really thought that we were a great fit when we were, say, $100,000 company. We fit their model. Because keep in mind, the vendors are doing what you're trying to do. You're probably trying to scale your business. To make it scalable, you need a lot of processes, you need a lot of systems. You're expecting that that vendor is going to... That you're going to be a one-off. That's usually not the way it works. Usually, It's your part of their process, part of their system, and they don't want to make exceptions for you. They want to plug you in, plug and play. That reduces their workload. It makes it more profitable for them to service you.
[00:18:40.210] - John S. Berry
And so you have to come in with that expectation. And sometimes the person who's ideal or the team that's ideal to service a $100,000 company is a terrible service for a $10 million company. It's just too small of a service. And we've worked with companies for several years where maybe we started with them when we were $100,000 company. They were a perfect fit, but we eventually outgrew them. And we've had vendors tell us, they keep giving us the same answer. No, we're growing and they don't want to grow with us. Or we decided we're going to change something and we fail to communicate that to them. The point is, the vendor is going to have expectations, and you're going to have expectations. You as the leader, as the person who hires the vendor, you are the buyer. You set the expectations with the vendor. You don't have to go in and sign everything they tell you to sign. Ask questions. Figure out who their ideal customer is. What is that ideal revenue range? Because you may be way too big for them, or you may be so small that you don't matter to them. They're going to provide you the minimum services.
[00:19:45.580] - John S. Berry
You're getting the lowest-grade copper or bronze package, and they're going to discontinue that package next year because it's just too small for them. You're never going to establish a great relationship. Now, that being I said, with the right vendors, you can have long term relationships. The right vendors will not only help you find other vendors to help you achieve your mission. You may have a marketing vendor who knows an IT vendor, and that IT vendor may know someone in finance who can help solve your finance problem. But I have found the best vendors are those who are aligned with your mission, who want you to succeed, and are willing to go above and beyond their contract to provide you with information about services to help you grow your company. Now, why do they do this? They do this because they know the bigger you get, the more money you make, the more money you can pay them. So they want you to grow. They want you to get better. It's not much different than the military where we try to grow our team, we try to grow people and help them develop greater capabilities so that they can do more in the army, do more in the Air Force, do more in the Marine Corps, do more in the Navy.
[00:20:48.970] - John S. Berry
They can do more because they have more skills. Well, you're right, vendors want you to develop those skills. I can think back to it. There's this guy named Leif, and this is back in 2015, 10 years ago. And he was a person that, if he He said, You really need to go to Google New York. I'm going to set you up. There's a whole thing on legal tech and some of the stuff that they're doing there. I really think you need to go. And he said, Look, I know you're from Nebraska. The Royals are playing the Mets in the World Series. You got to get down there. And that vendor cared about our future. And that vendor would call me and say, Hey, look, I need to know some data points on this, this, and this. I didn't even know what data points were back then. And he would start asking me for information. And I found out that he was going above and beyond what was in his job. He was really trying to make it successful. Now, the downside of that was he was so good in his job that he was promoted again and again.
[00:21:37.970] - John S. Berry
And eventually, he said, Look, I can't help you guys anymore. I'm a senior manager. And then they would give him a replacement. Now, here's the thing about the replacement. The same company, but Leif's replacement wasn't as good as him. And we kept getting that person because we're like, No, we have these huge expectations, and we're willing to pay this amazing company because they've got Leif. But the truth is that after Leif left and took that promotion, we could never find anyone as good as him, and we eventually left that company to find someone who had similar skills to late. My point is this. Look, you need to come into those contracts with your vendors with expectations. You are the buyer. Set that expectation. Make it clear. To recap, when you are looking to bring on your attachments and detachments or vendors or collaborators, I suggest you look for four things. Number one, alignment. Are they aligned with your values, your mission, and the size of your organization, and the amount of money you want to spend? Number two, read the contract. If you are going to hire someone to perform a service for you, make sure you understand what the pitfalls are if they don't perform, and what are the pitfalls and jeopardies if you do something that might hurt their organization.
[00:22:53.940] - John S. Berry
What are their remedies? You want to make sure you understand so that you don't do something that violates the contract contract, but you also want to make sure that you don't commit to a partner who has a predatory contract that is going to lock you down into something that you don't want to be locked down into. Number three, get your references. Don't just get references from people who have positive things to say about the vendor. Find out who has fired that vendor and talk to those people as well. Finally, set clear expectations. Now, the vendor provides a specific service, and they may tell you that, Hey, this is the left and right limit. Limit, and that may be enough for you to move forward. But if they do not establish the left and right limit, you are the buyer, and it's your obligation and your imperative to set the left and right limit for the vendor so they understand what those expectations are, how they will meet them, and what will happen if they don't meet them. Once again, you cannot get to where you're going unless you have all the capabilities that you need to get there.
[00:23:55.520] - John S. Berry
You will probably never have all of them organically. You will have to have those attachments and detachments. Those are your vendors. But understand that you are responsible for holding them accountable. Some will be great, some will be horrible, some will provide you a huge return on investment, others will provide you a great education because they burned you. Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching at Veteran Led on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led. An Lead.