#189: Chas D. Withers (Dix & Eaton) — Running Towards the Fire

Chas Withers, chairman and CEO of Dix & Eaton, the storied Cleveland integrated communications firm, known for its specialization in marketing communications, Crisis management, and investor relations, which has partnered with its clients to drive impact and results in their public relations since 1952.

While Chas has led the firm as CEO since 2015, he’s overseen many aspects of the business prior serving as COO and leader of the marketing communications, technology, emerging growth and interactive services practices for about seven years.

Chas first worked at Dix & Eaton though as a senior account executive between 1995 and 1997 before joining Answerthink, a Miami-based international consulting firm, as managing director where he played a pivotal role in the Company’s IPO and oversaw over 1,500 employees.

Chas has also served as a director of media relations at Case Western Reserve University and held similar roles with Malone Public Relations and Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron.

This conversation is a masterclass on communications and the story of Dix and Eaton — Chas offers his perspective on running towards the fire and addressing thorny situations head-on, stewardship in high-stakes situations that span the multiples constituents of shareholders, employees, customers, legislators, communities, and the media, employee ownership, technology’s implications for communications and marketing, the significance of Cleveland in Dix & Eaton’s story, and a whole lot more.

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LINKS:
Connect with Chas Withers on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaswithers/
Dix & Eaton Website: https://www.dix-eaton.com/

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Chas Withers [00:00:00]:
Really do believe trust is kind of the currency of business and relationships. It requires work all the time. It's not given easily. But when you have that and an organization or an individual is really in a tough spot or is facing some kind of amazing opportunity, to be able to be there with them in that foxhole and to really help out and be a counselor is incredibly satisfying.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:27]:
Let's discover what people are building in the Greater Cleveland community. We are telling the stories of Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders, and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today, I had the real pleasure of speaking with Chaz Withers, chairman and CEO of Dixon Edin, the storied Cleveland integrated communications firm known for its specialization in marketing communications, crisis management, and investor relations, which has partnered with its clients to drive impact and results in their public relations since 1950 52. While Chaz has led the firm as CEO since 2015, he's overseen many aspects of the business prior, serving as chief operating officer and leader of the marketing communications, technology, emerging growth, and interactive services practice for about 7 years. Chaz first worked at Dixon Eden though as a senior account executive between 1995 1997, before he had had the opportunity to join AnswerThinck, a Miami based international consulting firm as managing director where he played a pivotal role in the company's IPO and oversaw over 1500 employees. Chaz has also served as a director of media relations at Case Western Reserve University and has held similar roles with Malone Public Relations and Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron. This conversation is a master class on communications and the story of Dixon Eden.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:59]:
Chaz offers his perspective on running towards the fire and addressing thorny situations head on, stewardship in high stakes situations that span multiple constituents of shareholders, of employees, of customers, of legislators, of communities, and of the media, employee ownership, technologies implications for communications and marketing, the significance of Cleveland and Dixon Edens story, and a whole lot more. So please enjoy this awesome conversation with Chaz Withers after a brief message from our sponsor. Lay of the Land is brought to you by John Carroll University's Boulder College of Business, widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the region. As we've heard time and time again from entrepreneurs here on Lay of the Land, many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University, success in this ever changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technologies and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen, all qualities nurtured through the Bohler College of Business. With 4 different MBA programs of study spanning professional, online, hybrid, and 1 year flexible, the Bohler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA track, including online, in person, hybrid, and asynchronous. All to offer the most effective options for you, including the ability to participate in an elective international study tour providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture. The career impact of a bowler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University's bowler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:50]:
The Buller College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a college of business can have. So for a long time now, I was hoping at some point to be able to memorialize a piece of the the Dixon Edens story here because I felt to have kind of a a true lay of the land and not chronicle the story and work that your firm has done both with so many other Cleveland institutions, but also as a such a long standing institution on its own, would be to miss a substantial piece of this this whole map that we're, you know, cartographers in through this podcast. So thank you for coming on, Chaz.

Chas Withers [00:04:37]:
My pleasure. And, I appreciate just those sentiments. We've been around for 71 years, so we do have roots here for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:43]:
So at at the highest level and, you know, we'll weave together a a few threads here as we make our way through the conversation. What is Dixon Eden? If you could take us back to, you know, the early 19 fifties at its inception and and help us understand, you know, the set of circumstances that led to its formation and and what really catalyzed the the founding of the organization. What what does that look like?

Chas Withers [00:05:09]:
Probably on about its 5th iteration, but to move through them pretty quickly, Henry Eaton and John Dicks were working somewhere and decided they didn't like their jobs anymore. So at great risk, they decided to leave and go start their own industrial marketing firm 71 years ago. And they found there was a captive need in the marketplace for what they wanted to offer, which was communications and marketing services across a number of different audiences. So how do you talk to your employees and associates? How do you talk to customers? How do you leverage the media and outside sources? How do you talk to your investors? How do you engage with the communities in which you operate? And they found they were really good at this, and there was a huge appetite and the firm grew and grew. And Henry, ultimately, John Dicks left the firm, so Henry really was the patriarch and became sort of a, I would say, a a scion of the community. He was the CEO whisperer, meaning he was behind the scenes, the conciliary or confidant of many of the most prominent CEOs around town, helping to solve both for the biggest professional challenges, and I think oftentimes also also playing the role of semi therapist or, helping people through challenging circumstances. We moved into the 19 nineties and Henry decided he wanted to begin selling the firm to employees, which he did. And ultimately, Scott Chacon became the 2nd CEO of the firm in the mid 19 nineties.

Chas Withers [00:06:44]:
The core focus of what we did had morphed somewhat during that time, but it was still a lot of investor relations, a lot of crisis communications, a lot of media relations, and a mark a lot of marketing communications. And we like to think doing the work that matters most and that oftentimes is the most complex. We talk a lot about we run towards the fire, not away from the fire, meaning the thornier and the more ornery a situation, I think oftentimes the more we can help. And that the firm continued to grow. I came to the firm first in 1995 and then left and came back in 2,000 and started our emerging growth practice, which at that time, this was sort of full dotcom era. And we started doing some things we had never done before, focusing on smaller enterprises, helping them grow, helping them with the funding process, and you know well all the things that go along with that. And then through the 19 nineties, continue to plug along, o eight, o nine arrives, and the bottom falls out of the financial world. And I would say, Dixon Eton went through a major change at that time.

Chas Withers [00:07:52]:
I I think the relationships we had with clients changed pretty significant way. It was a very difficult time and we got through that, came out the other side. I think it even resharpened some of the things that we do. And then in 2014, we made one of the biggest steps we've ever made in our history. We converted to an ESOP. So we had small set of employee owners. We decided to sell the entire firm to the employees. We became a 100 percent ESOP.

Chas Withers [00:08:24]:
There's different variations on it. So that was the probably the 2nd biggest transaction in our history, and that has continued to grow. And then last year, we did the biggest transaction in our history. We bought a firm in St. Louis called The Standing Partnership, whom we've known and worked with for about 15 years. And it has greatly expanded the scope of things that we do. But I would say at our root cause, we remain trusted advisers on communications and marketing issues that span just about anything you can think of.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:58]:
Amazing. And we'll we'll definitely take some time to to work through, you know, some of the the details and nuance of of those transactions in in the history of the firm. But I I would love to, as we we get to that, you know, set the stage a bit with how your personal journey begins to intersect with with that of the company. You know, what were your own set of motivations and interests and experiences that, you know, through your your study of of journalism, interest in in PR, led you down this path itself?

Chas Withers [00:09:29]:
I'm probably like most people. I feel like there are a few sliding door moments that have led me to Yeah. Career wise where I am today. And, you know, you think about how different things might have been if you had stepped through

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:42]:
some

Chas Withers [00:09:42]:
of those. The first of which was I was in school at Kent State. I really wanted to be a sports writer. It is what I'd wanted to do since I was really young. And I had a professor my junior year tell me, I think you should go do an internship in PR. And she said at the time, you know, you've got a lot of BS about you. I think you could do this well. I think that is I don't know whether that was a a backhanded compliment or an outright insult.

Chas Withers [00:10:09]:
But, her point being the the ability to tell stories in a variety of different formats, and that proved really a huge change for me. So I went and got an internship with a hospital. I really liked the work, and they ended up hiring me before I graduated from college. That was really my first job out of school. And fortuitously, and again, this is one of those one of the people that I worked with who was our outside partner was a guy that worked at Dixon Eton. And he started recruiting me a couple years later. And I joined the firm for the first time in 1995, and I loved it. I loved the people.

Chas Withers [00:10:49]:
I loved the pace of the work, how dynamic it was. I loved that there were a lot of bet the farm scenarios. You either you know, working in a organization like ours, I think, requires a mindset where variety has to be a priority for you. If you just wanna sit and do the same thing every day, that's not that's not gonna fit who we are. Pace is really incredibly fast, and there's a lot of iterative friction in the system. And again, either you like that or you don't like that. It suited me really well. So I stayed for a couple of years, and I got this unbelievable opportunity to leave.

Chas Withers [00:11:26]:
And Henry Eaton was still the CEO at that time, and this has stayed with me, like, so clearly to this day. I remember going to him, and I had so much respect for him. He was a huge mentor for me in my career, and I said, I've got this opportunity. And I was so scared he was just gonna start throwing stuff at me. And he listened as was the best thing he did. He was a phenomenal listener. And he looked at me and he said, you know, that's really interesting. I think you ought to go do that for a couple years and come back to us and you'll be even more valuable.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:58]:
Mhmm. And

Chas Withers [00:11:59]:
so it's exactly what I did. I left and came back to Dixon Eaton in 2000 and then have been really fortunate to play a number of roles at the firm over time, gradually moving into more senior leadership roles. And it's I'm the 3rd CEO in 71 years, so there's very much this don't screw it up. But more seriously, it's a responsibility that needs everything to me at my core to protect our people and our integrity, our brand, what we stand for. I consider myself very much a servant leader. I work for our team and try and do the best for them every day to provide them with opportunities and take care of our clients. So it's been an unbelievable ride. I can't believe it's coming up on 30 years.

Jeffrey Stern [00:12:45]:
Well, I I love how you kinda grounded all that at its beginning in, how it's all about storytelling because I I think that will probably be the theme of of what we talk about here today. It's certainly the most pervasive theme of this podcast is how entrepreneurs, CEOs think about storytelling. And so I I did also wanna ground the conversation in in storytelling. How what like, at the highest level, when you think about communications, public relations, you know, what are these concepts? How do you even think about them? How have they changed over time? And a bit of what the the market that you are operating in looks like tethered to to those concepts.

Chas Withers [00:13:28]:
Gosh. That is a really big complex question. I would say one thing that's bedrock to that entire equation is organizations work best when they build trust with their different audiences. So, again, if you if you click through your employees, your customers, communities, legislative bodies, the media, and having good relationships and trust based relationships across that spectrum is gonna serve you well in good times and in bad times. And I I feel like that's what we've always been focused on. And there's a, you know, there's a misnomer, I think, around the concept of public relations that you are you're trying to tell a false narrative, and that's something that I have never touched in my life. What we try and do is help organizations who oftentimes they're so close to their own knitting that they can't see what's really taking place or why it would matter to someone else. And your your question, Jeffrey, about why today, the trust factor in institutions is at all time historical lows.

Chas Withers [00:14:44]:
Yep. And to me, it's never ever, ever been more important for organizations. You know, what is your what's your big driving KPIs? What are the things that make your organization successful? 1st and foremost, it's often recruiting and retaining great talent. So you have to be able to tell a story about why they should care. And today, I think if you're talking about new hires or midstream hires, they've got a different set of criteria why they care than used to be, well, line up. Here's the salary. Here's the benefits. Come on aboard.

Chas Withers [00:15:17]:
They're asking a lot of different questions in that. For customers, it's not just good enough that, hey. You've been our customer 20 years. They it's constantly having to reinvent yourself, find new channels to connect, being innovative in the way that you talk about your products or services. And I think there there has to be a consistency. One of the things that I see most often with organizations, you know, change is just a constant. Everybody's going through it all the time. And so are you telling a consistent story and are you doing it with cadence and clarity, or are you leaving it to people to invent their own narrative? And to me, that's the biggest challenge and danger we face today is the media has been diminished so much in terms of its power and its impact.

Chas Withers [00:16:06]:
Yeah. We have so much earned or created content that is really designed only for audiences that kind of fit the bill for who they wanna reach. And so how do you really connect with people in a way that creates trust? And it's it's just it's dramatically different today than it was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And I I fully expect it's gonna continue to morph and be even more different just a few years from now.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:35]:
Yeah. The the whole problem space that you get to operate in, I I find particularly fascinating when you layer on, I think, just the whole set of of themes that you mentioned, kind of the the the waning trust in institutions, the exponential cost decline of content creation, and just kind of the overflow of of content are, like, shrinking attention spans. You know, how how more and more firms are are even going direct, trying to own their own audience, own the distribution, own the channels directly. I would love to understand, you know, kind of through that as well, how and and maybe to make it concrete in the form of, you know, some projects that the firm has done to paint a picture of this. But how do you help folks actually, you know, navigate these challenges? Like, what what is the the work to be done?

Chas Withers [00:17:23]:
If you look at just the concept of change and let's say you're a a large organization and you go through a massive m and a project, and we do several of these a year, you come out the other side of that, leadership may have changed, focus of the organization may have changed, you've created this much more diffused and delineated landscape of employees and associates, some of whom know the legacy organization, some of whom are familiar with their own organization. And if you're a leadership team, you're sitting there saying, we've gotta start getting traction with this as quickly as possible. We have to mitigate the questions that people are asking. We have to give them a picture of why they should care and why this is gonna be good. And we have to do it across innumerable channels. So how do we do that? And Yeah. I think being an expert at having asked all those questions about what are the things that are gonna matter, how are people gonna get their information, what resonates, what doesn't, What's the frequency of messages that starts to click for people? They want an answer, you know, and a lot of times these are these are not off the shelf solutions. This is this is gonna be unique to any situation.

Chas Withers [00:18:38]:
We recently just helped a long time client go through the biggest transaction they've ever had and acquiring a company that is very different than they are. And so they're they're right now just in the early stages of, okay, now we're one different organization. What does that mean? And all the messaging that goes underneath that, how you translate that via online media through video, through repeated managerial messaging. It's just it's and I find that stuff fascinating. You know, I I love the inside of change and how you navigate it and come out the other side of it having accelerated performance or having provided answers to people even before they answer them. I think one thing that stands out to me so clearly and more even important today than I think it used to be, in the absence of information or a vacuum of information, people will invent their own narrative. And so oftentimes it may or may not be rooted in any form of truth. So when companies ask us or organizations ask us sometimes, so why why should we do this? The answer is oftentimes, well, if you don't, someone else will or the people that matter most to you are just gonna come to their own conclusions.

Chas Withers [00:19:58]:
And I I think there's there is a enormous degree of truth to that. And the problem is if you if you just don't have a history of communications where that follow through or have that trust where people are gonna listen to you, you start getting this diffusion in your organization, and it really can eat away at you. It's insidious in terms of long term damage, and people just stop listening at a certain point.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:22]:
What have you learned about being in the fire? I love that concept of running towards it and operating in it in what most certainly is the environment where the tensions are the highest, the sense of of stability and clarity is the lowest, where it's probably the least familiar and highest risk, you know, situations that company CEOs, teams would find themselves in, and they come to you in a moment of crisis. What have you learned in your time helping folks navigate being in the fire and and getting out the other side?

Chas Withers [00:20:57]:
2 things immediately. 1, people never stop screwing up. So in some ways, it's a good thing for our business because bad decisions, bad behavior, things that just go sideways, and that's not including, you know, just a deal that goes bad or something. That happens all the time. But humans are humans, and they they do curious things at curious times that often then require a lot of cleanup in the aftermath. And some of that's horrible. Some of that is sort of unspeakable. But what has to happen then is you've you've gotta move forward and you gotta help an organization figure out, okay, so what's our next step, and what are we gonna say to people? I'm in the middle of something right now that's super confidential, but it is a it's a major change initiative.

Chas Withers [00:21:46]:
It's very thorny. It's going to have a long tail on it. It's incredibly complex, and it's very personal. And so you're sitting there trying to be a very objective arbiter to get the full landscape and the full consideration set of facts to then begin to formulate, so where do we go from here? What's the game plan? How do we do that? And I think one thing that you find with organizations like us that are in the middle of these things all the time, the first thing you can bring to an engagement that is welcome is calm. You can bring a reasoned perspective that immediately sort of dampens down the drama or just the personal emotion. And I see it I see it from CEOs of Fortune 100 companies all the way down to organizations. People get take things very personally. They get very emotionally invested.

Chas Withers [00:22:39]:
They get angry. They get frustrated, whatever it might be. And ultimately, you're trying to solve for a problem and figure out a path forward. And so being able to take a step back from that, be reasoned, get all the ideas and and facts on the table, and then figure out where you move forward from there, I think is something that we do really well. I've I've I enjoy it, but I enjoy it in, I would say, in spurts. If you if you live in that world all the time, it could be exhausting. That's for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:09]:
How often do leaders proactively come to you as a firm, as a as counsel versus, you know, something has gone catastrophically wrong and there's a bit of flailing? And through the work that you've done, the experience that you've had, been able to position yourself as kind of the soft landing for for folks. And how should CEOs think about the proactive nature of of any of this?

Chas Withers [00:23:37]:
You're never too early to call when something takes place. If you're if you're on the reactive side of things, the quicker you can begin to deal with it and move forward, the better off you're gonna be. But so often, we get brought in several days after something's transpired. I get outreach from a couple of CEOs a week on different issues that they think could get nasty or thorny or just have implications. And a lot of times that's just talking something through and seeing whether there's a reality to it or whether it's really something to pay attention to. And and I I think my relationship on the CEO level a lot of times is just to be a discussion partner and hear that out and see what the real risk might be. You know, there's lots of other things, Jeff. We've we've done a lot of work, unfortunately, in the aviation industry.

Chas Withers [00:24:26]:
So if a plane crashes or a helicopter crashes or

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:30]:
Mhmm.

Chas Withers [00:24:30]:
You're dealing with heavily regulated industries where there's a very specific next step. There's going to be an investigation. Having knowledge of how that entire process works and technical expertise is really valuable and important. Mining accidents, environmental accidents, all of those things when they transpire, you know, hopefully there is not loss of life, but there's always a lot to sort out on the other side of it. And, you know, we've just done a lot of that work, and and there's a real importance to finding somebody that can answer those questions for you quickly.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:03]:
What have you learned about building trust through all of this?

Chas Withers [00:25:08]:
Do are you familiar with the trust equation? I realize this is a podcast so I don't wanna get too off, but

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:12]:
No, I I am not, but you know

Chas Withers [00:25:14]:
Well, the trust

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:15]:
Help us visualize it.

Chas Withers [00:25:16]:
So the trust equation is a concept by a guy named David Maester who wrote a book called The Trusted Advisor, and it's rooted in actually some math. It's credibility, reliability, intimacy divided by self orientation. And by the way, I have found that this equation works in business. It works in life. It works with your spouse. It it works everywhere. Yeah. Reliability broken down is do you do what you say you're going to do when you're expected to do it? Do you carry through on your promises? Credibility is the things that you know that are valuable to someone else.

Chas Withers [00:25:54]:
Your unique knowledge or perspective that is going to help someone else solve an issue. The intimacy piece is do you genuinely and authentically care about the welfare and well-being of the person with whom you're working or counseling? Can't invent it, can't be postured, You've gotta really be invested in how they're doing and if if you can help them out. And then the self orientation denominator is if it starts with you, we're in a service oriented we're a client serving business. It can't be about you. It's gotta be about them. And you carry through on that and there's different variations. Some people are really high in credibility. Some people really connect on the intimacy side.

Chas Withers [00:26:36]:
The the self orientation piece, it just doesn't work in our business. If we hire someone and they're all about themselves, they don't last very long. But that trust equation means a lot of investment and time with people to get to know them, to really understand challenges they're facing. They're very much as a huge psychological component to our business. I mean, you gotta really care about how someone's doing. You've really gotta listen and ask thoughtful questions that are not just about you know, we talk a lot about the question below the question below the question below the question Because sometimes somebody's gonna tell you what is immediately on their mind, but that's not really what's bothering them. And you dig to the next level or you dig to the next level. And then trust.

Chas Withers [00:27:21]:
You know, if you're talking about investors or you're talking about the media or you're talking about your associates, it's about doing things with consistency, living a certain idea set of ideals, carrying through on that again and again and again because, you know, the there is such a truth about trust, and that is it does take a long time to build it up. And it takes, like, a split second for it to diminish significantly, and then you're trying to rebuild it. So I really do believe trust is kind of the currency of of business and relationships. It requires work all the time. It's not given easily. But when you have that and an organization or an individual is really in a tough spot or is facing some kind of amazing opportunity, to be able to be there with them in that foxhole and to really help out and be a counselor is incredibly satisfying. It's, those are good days. That's days when you get a lot of juice from just that relationship.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:26]:
Lay of the Land is brought to you by Impact Architects and by 90. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio, Impact Architects has helped 100 of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast, realize their own visions and build these great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love. If you 2 are trying to build great, Impact Architects is offering to sit down with you for a free consultation or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. If you're interested in learning more about partnering with Impact Architects or by leveraging 90 to power your own business, please go to ia.layoftheland.fm. The link will also be in our show notes. Now, so in in your role leading the the organization, I wanna kinda come to something you mentioned earlier from the perspective of, you know, a 3rd time CEO within the organization and this kinda don't screw it up, you know, framing of it. How do you balance this, you know, need to preserve the organization and the risk that was required to be taken to create it in the 1st place, and how you think about, you know, this tension between preservation and value creation within the firm.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:56]:
And perhaps that's, like, a good way to talk about how you've thought about, you know, this acquisition and just kind of the growth of the business and where it is today and how what your approach is to to Leading.

Chas Withers [00:30:07]:
Awesome question. And this, again, I think, has evolved in my time. I became president in 2009, so really at a very low point in terms of what was taking place on kind of the world macroeconomic stage.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:21]:
Yeah.

Chas Withers [00:30:21]:
And when we converted to an ESOP, my commitment had always been to help our people be as successful as possible. And that means being able to do great work, to be well compensated, to reaping the rewards of of being employees of the organization. That always meant a lot to me. That meant a lot to Henry. That meant a lot to Scott. So I had 2 mentors ahead of me that had really instilled those ideals. And one of the things that became increasingly apparent to me in the last 3 or 4 years, and this I think was exacerbated then by COVID, was there were real opportunities out there to grow inorganically in a way that maybe didn't exist before. So we had always resisted the idea of buying someone else because we felt we had a singular culture and approach and it would be hard to find somebody that would really match to that.

Chas Withers [00:31:14]:
And this firm in St. Louis owned by 2 women, both of whom I had known the principal there for, as I said, about 15 years. And they approached us about doing this. And I immediately said, oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. Yes. We'd like to talk about it.

Chas Withers [00:31:30]:
And the reason was, you know, Dixon Eton has existed on the Cleveland landscape. We've had offices in other places for a long period of time. But one of the things that's fundamentally changed about the landscape, Jeffrey, is, you know, Cleveland companies companies that were headquartered here, Cleveland used to mean everything to them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:49]:
Yep.

Chas Withers [00:31:50]:
And the world grew and business grew. And so we have companies that are still headquartered here, but their priorities are truly global in nature and us expanding our footprint and also expanding into areas that we hadn't been able to really greenfield on our own before. So Standing Partnership, the firm we acquired, has an incredibly strong business on lead generation, marketing automation, helping companies connect with customers in really unique and innovative ways. And we have a we have a strong Marcom business within Dixon Eton, but much more about kind of brand and top of the funnel. This is much more bottom of the funnel. And to me, that was this is a chance for us to grow things we're already doing and build on a strength from this firm that is rooted in they do a lot of work with really large tech tech companies, many of whom are headquartered out on the West Coast. There was a time that our client base was something like 65% in Northeast Ohio. I would say it's less than 40% in Northeast Ohio.

Chas Withers [00:33:03]:
And I don't say that as a good or bad thing. I think that's just endemic of a world that's changed. And the need for different kinds of work have become much more sort of geographically agnostic. This is the other biggest part of our business. We morphed into ESG, environmental, social, governance, sustainability. I think we were very early to market on it. So this started around 2014, 2015 for us. And we're one of the largest communications firms in the country focused on ESG now.

Chas Withers [00:33:36]:
And that work is completely diverse from a geography standpoint. Nobody cares where you're headquartered. They care that you can really help them solve issues in that space and that you've got technical expertise that's gonna translate to the kinds of opportunities and issues that they've got. So we're like all businesses. You know, you have to continue to evolve, change, be focused on getting better every day. To me, that always starts with our people, investing in our people, helping them grow. Professional development is really big for us and also hiring the kind of people that we know can thrive in our enterprise because it's it's not for

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:16]:
everybody. So now as as one of the the largest, you know, 100% employee owned communication firms, you know, in in the country, I always have been drawn to a Charlie Munger quote about, you know, show me the incentives. I'll show you the outcome. I would love to understand, you know, from in your reflection of employee stock ownership plans, ESOPs, in implementation, in practice now with, you know, a bunch of years with it in place, what have been the the outcomes? And how how have the incentives driven that that behavior?

Chas Withers [00:34:50]:
We're 10 years into it, and I would say we're still in not infancy, but early adolescent stage with it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:58]:
Yeah. And part

Chas Withers [00:34:59]:
of the reason for that is it it takes some time for it to to take root. It's a pretty complex financial tool to explain to people how it works. But the baseline to it is if you perform, you're gonna get shares every year. They're gonna get valued every year. And if you're performing, they're gonna go up in valuation every year. And for that, as an employee, you don't do anything except show up. It's an extraordinary benefit. It's also, it it's a retirement benefit.

Chas Withers [00:35:31]:
So the idea of trying to explain that to someone who is in their twenties or thirties is a different conversation than someone who may be later stage in their career. But this idea that you're creating this pool of growing wealth for being an employee, to me it's centrally tied to everyone. And we talk a lot about all of us being employee owners. It means you're invested every day in our success. And I think that's a different day to day for different individuals. You know, you don't make all of your decisions rooted in that. But it is a North Star for us as an enterprise, this idea that we are all working together towards one goal. Because when we perform and our stock price goes up $4 at the end of the year, and then you layer on new shares and the value of your account doubles in 1 year, which happened 2 years ago and then last year went up by about a 3rd, You know, those steps and you start seeing, oh, wow.

Chas Withers [00:36:31]:
In a few years, this is really gonna be something truly meaningful for me. So it it's been I think it was an an awesome transaction for us. Before we did it, I went and talked to a number of companies that have been through it. Yep. It will take some time. I think we've just entered into the period where our people not only really get it, but they rally around it. They talk about it a lot. We have a ESOP day every year that's one of our biggest celebrations.

Chas Withers [00:36:58]:
And I think it means something to our team in terms of it's a through line to the organization that binds us all together.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:05]:
You mentioned earlier a motivation of, you know, working in in the benefit of of other success, both within the company and and without. I'm curious how you think about success more generally and the impact that you hope to have looking back in retrospect personally and within the the organization?

Chas Withers [00:37:25]:
I would you know, my success, how I would define it is the success of our organization and our people. And that sounds it may either sound Pollyannish or trite, and it's not. My good days are defined by our people's happiness and satisfaction. And it takes the form of lots of different things. When you run an organization and you're in the CEO chair, you get a get a very different sense of what's going on with people. And I will tell you that, you know, we're a large enough organization that we're pretty broad and diverse, but I also I know virtually everyone on some kind of one to one basis. And so helping somebody deal with the loss of a parent, which is something that just transpired over the the weekend, and giving them the freedom to deal with that and pay attention to the things that are most important, to me, that's that's success. Watching somebody get promoted and grow from one level to a next level and just seeing the confidence that comes with that is a huge validation of success for me.

Chas Withers [00:38:31]:
Being able to reward someone for really go above and beyond exceptional contributions, you know, when they've gotten a platform and they've just delivered on it, That that sends me home in a really happy mood. And, you know, when Scott asked me to take over as CEO in 2015, the success of our organization sat very heavily on my shoulders because I had been at the firm for a long period of time, and I realized I was the 3rd CEO. And I had known Henry, and I knew what the firm meant to him, and I knew what it meant to Scott. So, you know, that kind of service servant leadership, I don't I've seen a lot of different successful leaders. It takes lots of different forms. And for me, it's about just constantly remaining focused on what can I do for our organizations that is gonna help our people be successful? That's that's how I define that for us and for me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:28]:
How do you think about the the future of of the business itself and where you would like to take it and and, you know, what what is exciting to you looking forward?

Chas Withers [00:39:36]:
This acquisition, you know, we're 9 to 10 months into integration at this point, has been amazing. And I think that the opportunities we're opening up across both client bases we have very aligned cultures, and we also have real distinct differences in the way that we do certain things. And as an example, you know, we have we do a lot of ESG reports. And these are oftentimes Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 ESG reports. They can be really detailed and they take months to do. They can take 5, 6 months to do these reports. A lot of the work that Standing does on the technology side, the turnaround is hours. It is, here's the next deliverable.

Chas Withers [00:40:16]:
What does it look like? How are we going? So there are the, you know, there's even differences in sort of how you think about time. You know, we basically doubled the size of the company in terms of revenue, greatly increased our our capability for profitability over the long term, which has enormous impact then on the value of the ESOP. That makes me really excited because that is long term wealth building for every person in the organization through us taking a pretty bold swing with this acquisition. I think the the other thing that's exciting to me and dawning at the same time is the business is changing so quickly. And the impact of technology, AI, it would be faulty not to mention just its potential.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:02]:
I was certainly gonna ask about it.

Chas Withers [00:41:04]:
From a content standpoint and a creative standpoint, how do you factor those things and still stay a step ahead? Because I I think the ability to counsel people and organizations around smart communications and marketing, how to handle big opportunities and big challenges, is gonna remain there. And I don't think that's going away. But the way that you do that for sure, is gonna continue to to really evolve and, I think, change very, very quickly.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. When I when I was thinking about it in kind of preparation for our conversation, I was reminded of the, you know, Bezos framework of, you know, banking on the things that won't change in 20 years. And I feel pretty confident that the the human nature part of this, that people are gonna continue to make mistakes, that change is the only constant. You know, those are things you can count on. But it it does feel like the implications of technology in your space specifically are really interesting and how you try and stay ahead of it because we're just not wired to, I think, cope and change at this rate that AI and and the kind of exponential nature of technology at the moment and where we are on the whole inflection curve of it and the, you know, the kinds of mistakes maybe that even are being made? Like, how do you deal with the deep fakes and, you know, just, like, the whole set of new kinds of problems that have implications from a communications, public relations, crisis management standpoint?

Chas Withers [00:42:33]:
I wish I had an awesome answer to this, Jeffrey. It is it's a little bit at a time. But we've already seen so to me, I'm a big believer in the power of AI and how it can be applied in our business. I do not see it as a threat. I see it as an accelerator and a way to do things better. I also think I do that with the proviso or caveat that you're gonna have to be very careful about how you do some of those things. And I'll give a specific example. We do a lot of work in investor relations.

Chas Withers [00:43:03]:
So helping companies with either quarterly earnings or how they're translating their results to end user markets, which are oftentimes investors, analysts, etcetera, or The Street, so regulatory bodies. And if you decided to take something and say, hey. AI, give me a script for this or tell me how you would tell this story, I could guarantee you that it would it would be about 80% there, and you would have potentially several things in there that could get you in immediate legal trouble.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:37]:
Right.

Chas Withers [00:43:39]:
The ESG realm is highly technical when you're talking about materiality or sustainability testing or, you know, there there's so much data involved there that has to be translated. If you're gonna ask a tool to do that, it's not gonna be the veracity of that right now, I would not trust. Now where that is 2 to 3 years from now, I think that's those are the interesting questions to me. And, again, I I've encouraged our people. I'm like, if you're gonna look at AI and say, oh my gosh. This is, you know, ultimately, this is gonna take over everything. Your jobs are gonna be replaced. I don't see that world at all.

Chas Withers [00:44:15]:
I think the the role we play in terms of intelligent translation, counseling strategy would be very, very hard to replicate or duplicate. But being better informed or getting you to a solution quicker to me is a really that's a really attractive scenario. We have clients that are all over the map about this right now, by the way. So we have clients that are early adopters, and we have clients that this is strictly forbidden at any level. What I don't think is realistic, and I I know I see this with our associates, if you're coming up new to the organization, but you're just graduating from college and you've used AI again and again and again for a variety of different things, you're gonna continue to try and leverage it. And the idea that you're gonna tell somebody, no. You can't do that, I'd be much more in favor of saying, here's some guardrails. We wanna let you experiment or try this, but you have to recognize we have a very high standard for what that final deliverable is gonna be.

Chas Withers [00:45:16]:
I I'm curious to see where we are in 2 years, I mean, more than anything else.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:20]:
I I certainly share that curiosity. I don't love asking just kind of for broad counsel and advice because it it kind of, I think, loses its, impact without being tethered to something specific. But with that said, I do wanna ask in your experience, like, what the lowest hanging fruit is, you know, from a a CEO's perspective with regards to communication? What do you wish more people understood about the work you're doing and things that they could be doing to better their situation?

Chas Withers [00:45:53]:
So I've talked a lot about change and really complex landscapes. You got a million things taking place at once, and you're trying to figure out how to move an organization forward as quickly as possible. Yeah. I think AI can play a meaningful role to help begin to establish what a straw man or a framework might be. That's not a final solution. That's just a it's an architecture that can help you then begin to fill that out. And I don't I don't see that as cheating any kind of system. I think that that's you're gonna have to do all the thought process, all the translation, all the filling in the blanks on that from a human standpoint.

Chas Withers [00:46:33]:
But if that can help you get to a framework quicker, that's a useful thing. We're also seeing it a lot in monitoring or tracking. So when something's taking place, for example, in the aviation industry, crash takes place, There is aftermath. There could be an NTSB investigation, and you wanna find out what's happened in similar incidents like this. Can you give me a translation of the top 5 to 7 comparable things that have transpired in the last couple of years? I think AI can get you down that path quicker. It can it can help to give you a framework for consideration. So for me, it was interesting your comment just now. I think I think we're gonna have a next generation of people that are gonna be much better schooled in what prompting really means to get to the best answer quicker and have a much better understanding of how the iterative process of AI can be accelerated to get you to a place where you're learning something in a shorter time frame that's really gonna be meaningful for what you're trying to provide.

Chas Withers [00:47:45]:
I know there's schools all over the country that are actually now have programs that are just specifically on how to do prompts, and we're gonna be hiring people in the next few years. I I would think that that's gonna be an important tool to have in the toolkit.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:00]:
I had enjoyed kind of hearing about the the origins of Dixon Edin kinda grounded in this, you know, role as a CEO whisperer confidant consigliere, which I think kind of, to me, echoes in this reality that you often will hear that being CEO is the loneliest job. You know, who who does the CEO get to talk to? And so I'm curious in that kind of meta framing of it, how do you think about that for yourself personally as the CEO of the CEO Whisperer Organization? Who who who do you seek counsel from? How do you, you know, kind of who do you turn to to help navigate, you know, the difficult situations that that you encounter?

Chas Withers [00:48:40]:
The truth is if I think you're doing the CEO job really well, it is both lonely, and hopefully you're also surrounded by people that are aligned to your perspective and the things that you care about and your values. So I have incredible compatriots with me in terms of teammates, colleagues that I've worked with for a long period of time who I rely on a lot. The CEO role, I think one of the things you have to accept is ultimately there is no other behind you. And there are gonna be decisions made. Somebody has to craft a vision based on what you know. That's the CEO's job. You have to be comfortable doing that. And I've heard a lot of people that I've worked with over time say, you know, I think I wanna be the CEO.

Chas Withers [00:49:29]:
And I'm like, I'm not sure you really wanna be the CEO. Because when you sit in that chair and you you have to face and there's a lot of good things, then there's a lot of really tough things. And, you know, very, very difficult conversations, making very hard decisions sometimes, those are not for everybody. I think having people you know, I have other CEOs or just friends that are discussion partners for me when I wanna talk something through or chop it up a little bit. But I think ultimately there is there also has to be a kind of a comfort level of I'm the the last person standing in this and I have belief in my beliefs. I think judgment matters a lot. And, you know, one of the things that I have just learned over time is don't react, respond. I try to really digest information And I can make a decision quickly, but I I have learned I want a full consideration set before I jump to any kind of conclusion on things.

Chas Withers [00:50:31]:
And then understand all the different ripples and effects that come from big decisions because not thinking those things through can lead you down past that you don't wanna go down. So it's a great job for somebody that wants to have kind of unique impact, but you are sort of operating without a net a lot of the time.

Jeffrey Stern [00:50:50]:
Yeah. How do you cultivate better judgment?

Chas Withers [00:50:54]:
Listening, learning. I'm an extraordinarily curious person. I'd like to think I have a sense of what I think a solution can be. I am always interested in hearing from others about what they think it could be. And back to the trust equation, if if your self orientation is such and again, I've seen a lot of different kind of CEO leaders that are really successful. So this isn't judgmental. My style has always just been I wanna hear from people and I wanna listen to things from a lot of different vantage points, not just a business standpoint, but what's the human implications of anything. And from a judgment standpoint, I think there's Henry trusted Scott in terms of judgment, and Scott learned to trust me in terms of judgment.

Chas Withers [00:51:39]:
And part of that was seeing with repetition decisions made that stayed true to the organization, whether somebody was watching or not or whether it ultimately was good for the individual or not. And, again, I think part of being a good CEO, there's gonna be times that you're gonna do things that aren't necessarily good for you, but it's the right thing for the organization. And you gotta believe in that. You gotta believe in all the way down to your core.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Before our closing question, I always like to leave a little space for the unsaid. You know, something you wish I had asked about that that I didn't, something that you wanted to, you know, call attention to that we didn't get to. Is there anything that that comes to mind in reflection on your journey, on Dixon Eden, on the the history, the path forward, what you're thinking about?

Chas Withers [00:52:32]:
One thing that has been incredibly powerful and really satisfying for me from a very early age, there was a guy who you may know of, Jeffrey. This Dick Pogue is his father was one of the founders of Jones Day, Reavis and Pogue, one of the largest law firms in the country. Dick is either 93 or 94 years old. He still serves on a bunch of boards. Yeah. He was one of Henry Eaton's best friends. And Dick worked at Dixon Eaton for a number of years. And he was the first person to say, get involved in the community, get on boards, find ways to give back and be participatory in the environment around you.

Chas Withers [00:53:13]:
And, you know, time is a challenge for everyone. But from an early age, he encouraged me to do that, and I got very involved in working with different kinds of organizations. And I've I think over time, I've ended up serving on more than 20 boards. And what it has taught me is just, you know, back to judgment and decision making, seeing how other organizations have to translate really complex situations. I love learning the inside, the guts of organizations in terms of how they work, what they do, how they treat their people, how they do certain things. And, you know, I always talk to our team about if you wanna get involved in an outside organization, whether it's a board member, volunteer, whatever it might be, you're gonna learn so much that's gonna help you when you come back to this organization because you're gonna broaden your perspective. And I I just feel so it was a huge benefit to me to go learn and see lots of other different ways of doing things. And the relationships that I built through that, to me, kinda steward me through so many different things because I they're people that I've continued to be really close to in kind of all levels of life.

Chas Withers [00:54:28]:
So get involved. Get out there. It doesn't have to be this many. Just, you

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:34]:
know, pick up.

Chas Withers [00:54:34]:
It's something I'm really passionate about and get involved in it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:38]:
Yeah. Well well, with that, that that could be a a great segue to to talk about our closing question, which is, grounded in in Cleveland, but it's for hidden gems in the area. Some things that other folks may not know about, but perhaps they should.

Chas Withers [00:54:54]:
During COVID, my wife and I, who just retired after 35 years as a public school teacher go go teachers.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:02]:
Go teachers. Yeah.

Chas Withers [00:55:04]:
We did, like many people did, we did a lot of hiking and walking. And I live in Lakewood. I love Lakewood. But we found all these amazing trails in the Lorain County Metropark system. Huge I'm a massive fan of Cleveland Metroparks, spend a ton of time, across that spectrum. But I found all of these hidden gems out in Lorain County, Sheffley Gardens, and Black River Reservation that are just amazing, and they're half an hour away. The other thing that I would just say, I originally grew up in Texas. It would be hard to approximate how much I love Mexican food.

Chas Withers [00:55:43]:
I could eat it 5 days a week, no problem. And I've, I've got a few hidden gems, but the the place if you really wanted to find me, there's a place on a 117th called El Jalapeno that, I've gotten to know the family well. It's always the best meal I have. It's the most relaxing atmosphere, and they take care of me. So those are big things. And then, I guess lastly, I would just say get out and about in this community. There's there's so many different things to see. It's funny when I people are like, yeah.

Chas Withers [00:56:17]:
I don't know what to do in Cleveland this weekend. I'm like, just ask. I'll give you a list of 25 different things that could go on your list. It's a remarkable place. I'm trying to recruit my daughter back here from Scottsdale. I love to see how much construction is taking place in terms of residential with people moving back downtown or to the near entering suburbs. I just think our community has so much to offer and so many unique attributes that love being here.

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:45]:
Yeah. Certainly share that sentiment. Yeah. Couple chat with

Chas Withers [00:56:49]:
that. You came from New York. Right?

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:51]:
That's right. Yeah. Here on my own volition. Well, I just wanna thank you for taking the time for sharing your perspective. This was a lot of fun for me. Really a fascinating conversation.

Chas Withers [00:57:04]:
Me too. Me too. And it's been great to meet you, Jeffrey. Just appreciate what you're doing, storytelling across our community, central theme to what we just talked about, and learning so much from different people. You're a great questioner, great steward of the conversation, and it's really just interesting to see where people go. So I've enjoyed this.

Jeffrey Stern [00:57:24]:
So I I do appreciate that. If folks had anything they wanted to follow-up with you about outside of, you know, trying to meet you at your local Mexican institution.

Chas Withers [00:57:36]:
I would be I would, by all means, make my email and phone number available to people. I I love meeting new people. I'm a little careful with that just because time

Jeffrey Stern [00:57:48]:
Yes. Time.

Chas Withers [00:57:49]:
Is challenging. But anybody that had questions or wanted to talk something through, I'm always more than amenable to do that. I I feel like something else that didn't come up today. I've always stayed open to people who just say, hey. I just wanna meet or get some perspective on things. I get I get easily as much out of that as anybody probably gets from me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:58:09]:
So I love it. Awesome. Well, thank you again, Chaz. Really appreciate

Chas Withers [00:58:12]:
it. Jeffrey.

Jeffrey Stern [00:58:13]:
Be Be well, man. That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.f m, or find us on Twitter at podlayofthelandor@sternfa, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land.

Jeffrey Stern [00:58:54]:
The Lay of the Land podcast was developed in collaboration with the UP Company, LLC. At the time of this recording, unless otherwise indicated, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the company which appear on the show. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week.