A CEO's Two Modes of Operation: Seduction & Destruction

Sean Weisbrot: Jeffrey Hayzlett is the chairman and CEO of C-Suite Network, home of the world's most trusted network of C-Suite leaders. He sits on the board of over 14 companies, several of which are publicly listed companies. He's the former Fortune 100 CMO, the author of four bestselling business books, and a globally sought after speaker. He has also been a primetime television host. And he is also the host of a business podcast. Jeffrey is frequently cited in Forbes success, Mashable Marketing Week Chief Executive among many others. He is often on Bloomberg M-S-N-B-C, Fox Business and C-Suite tv. He is a former Bloomberg contributing editor and primetime host, and has appeared as a guest celebrity judge on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump for three seasons. In this episode, we talked about his journey, his mentors. The hardest thing about being a publicly listed company board member, the best thing about running with companies that are publicly listed and many more. So, I hope you enjoy this episode with Jeffrey because I know I did. Thank you very much. What got you interested in entrepreneurship to begin with?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Oh, I like making money, but I like solving people's problems, and I think that's really what you're about. You know, I think the key thing is when you sit down and you're an entrepreneur or running any business, the first question you probably should ask yourself is, what problem are we solving? And that's the way I look at things. So when I, you know, get started. But I, I love, I love doing things. I just love starting new things. In fact, quite frankly, I, I lose attention span after a couple of years. You know, it, it, it's hard for me to stick with something. Right now, the longest thing I've ever stayed with is the C-Suite network, but that's because we're building other businesses all the time. We're using our. Platform to be able to help people to scale their businesses and make money while they're sleeping. So we're pretty excited and that may, that's been a lot of fun for me.

Sean Weisbrot: But what actually got you started on this journey? Was there someone in your, like your father or mother or grandparents who were entrepreneurial? Was there someone that gave you that kind of like jolt?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: No. Nope. My dad was in the United States Air Force. He was a sergeant all of his career. Served a couple tours in Nam and, uh, spent time. My mother was a bookkeeper. I later became in later life after I was an adult, she became a real estate agent, but that's what she did. Um, you know, I just, I just found early on, uh, you know, I moved outta the house when I was 16, so I was on my own, you know, and I was selling everything from Amway door to door, to working at McDonald's, whatever I could do to, you know, survive or eat. So. Maybe that was part of it, but I just always knew that I was gonna do business. I was always gonna do something big or felt I was always gonna do something big, and I just kept doing it. So I kept swinging away. I. And then, you know, in my twenties, I, I said, no, I'm gonna, I started a business, you know, I was working for, uh, as a lobbyist and, you know, doing political campaigns. And then I went to work for the American Diabetes Association, and then I basically, I was getting fired. So I started up a PR firm and, um, and then the rest was history. You know, I started, I remember one time somebody called me this, this fun Sean. They, they, somebody called me and I was, the music was really loud. And my business name was Halo and Associates. That was my first week and, and my first client called me right when the music was playing in the background. It was really loud and I, I said, Hey, hang on just a second. I went and ran, turned down the stereo, and he came back. He goes, is that your associates? You know? So, you know, that was his way of saying Halo. I know you got nobody working for you. It's just you. But that was funny.

Sean Weisbrot: So how did that person find you and how did you close them?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: That was a, it was a medical school, so I was doing some work on the side, you know, as when I was a lobbyist and doing stuff for American Diabetes Association nationwide. And I was back in South Dakota and I had some good friends and they, they were working on the medical school in South Dakota and thinking about closing it down. And if you know anything about. You know, like in the rural area, if they don't have doctors, they don't have, you know, medical facilities, you know, or people to be able to serve 'em. And it's not very good for the community. So South Dakota invested early on to start its own medical school and it was a struggling thing and, and here I was, you know, um. I was, I was well known for running political campaigns, well known for running a lot of, you know, marketing kinds of things, even at a young age. And so I was a hustler. And so a friend of mine introduced me to him and that they became, my very first customer was the, you know, you know, university of South Dakota Medical School. And my job was to keep 'em from closing, which we did. And that school of medicine's going well now, but in the early years, you know. Um, you see a lot of competition, you know, when you, when you have new doctors coming into an area. Some of the old doctors don't, didn't want that. Uh, just a few of those, but they, and they used political power to try to shut it down at one point, and my job was to make sure that didn't occur. And so we raised the. Raised the value of, of the perception of the value of the medical school we raised. Its, uh, it, its, you know, how it was satisfying a real need, especially in rural, rural areas of the state, even though the whole state was fairly rural and, um, we were bringing specialties to the state that were madly needed for. By the number of people, whether it's, you know, um, you know, all the different specialties you could possibly internal medicine and, uh, various, various others that you could think of. And that's what my job was, you know, was to do that. And, you know, and, and basically all my life, whether it's a box of sea, a box of soap, a a political candidate, a medical school, or you know, a, a widget or a service, I've been selling stuff ever since.

Sean Weisbrot: I think a lot of people listening might still be on that first PR agency, marketing agency, software company.

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: How long did you run that company for? Did you shut it down? Did you sell it? What, what was the, the end result with that company?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: I bought, so I, I, every time I, every time I've gone in between companies, I always go back to starting that kind of consulting company. So the Hazel. Group, the Hazel Associates, the Hazlet company has always been in and out. You know, I've bought and sold over 250 businesses in my career, about 25 billion in transactions, you know, leading up to where I'm at today. And, um, I ran that PR firm for about. I'm gonna say six or eight years. And then I started another, you know, during that time I started a cellular phone company. When it was first getting started, I started a television station, got a license for a television station, which eventually became the Fox Network here in, uh, this area. And then I decided, you know, what I was doing in South Dakota. Geez, I could do that in Iowa and then I could do that across the country. And oh my gosh. I could do that in Japan, I could do that in China, I could do that in London. I could do that everywhere. And so I just learned that, you know what I was doing, you know, I bought a printing company, turned that printing company into a multimillion dollar business and, and then I went out and started representing printers. I. You know, and, and you know, doing a lot of different work. So I always had the, the PR company on one side and then my other businesses on the other, and many of them complimented each other. 'cause imagine the printing business. I started an association management company where we managed associations like a hundred different associations. Well, they need printing. Uh, they need, they need events. So I started an event company, and so that was part of the services that we did. I bought the equipment from the who, the band, the who, and uh, if you needed staging lighting, boom, you could call me. And, and, and I, and I rented the, those semi trucks out for, you know, for concerts, for different groups and stuff. So all, you know, somewhat related and. And, you know, I even started a pheasant farm one time and I tried to corner the market on pheasants till I realized there wasn't one. Right. So, you know, I, I, I got some successes and I got some, some failures in there. Uh, but you know, for me it's always been that journey. Eventually I sold the PR firm to my employee, uh, because I became, uh, eventually the chief marketing officer of Eastman Kodak, and they wouldn't let me have a lot of outside interest. So I sold, I. Um, that, well, actually I sold it the first time, uh, the first time to, uh, my employee and I started, I went to a, what became a public and other publicly traded business called Color Star. Color Bus. It was a raster image. Processors, I. A company in the mid nineties that I, we sold. And so we had, and we took that company in multi-millions of dollars and I became the head of marketing and sales for that company and then left that company and it was bought by Sheldon Adelson, one of the richest men in the world. Sheldon. We managed all of his tech investments and he owned Convict, so we helped him sell convicts for 968 million and he got 968 million and I gotta watch. So, you know, the things you, things you'll learn as you go through these processes. Right.

Sean Weisbrot: Did you have a mentor that helped you through any of this when you were younger and getting started? Or how did you figure your way through it?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: I. Well, we all have mentors. I don't know if we always call them mentors, but people that we look up to. You know, it wasn't somebody that, Hey, will you be my mentor? There's more of that today than ever before, which is awesome. But back then I had, yeah, I had guy like, uh, you know, Harold Jones back in my, I. Early teens. He was a former marine gunner on a, on a, on a helicopter, uh, during Vietnam. And he moved us to Georgia where I was living. My dad was gone, parents got divorced and he, he became my surrogate kind of father, big brother, whatever you want to call it. Call it. He was one. There was a guy named Fred PE who ran a plumbing company who. Hired me as a, a, you know, to, to do odd jobs, you know, when I was about 15, 16 and, and you know, I used to dig ditches and crawl under buildings and, uh, unclog sewer pipes and do all that kind of stuff. But he taught me the value of, of real hard work, you know, just like my parents did as well. And then I. There were later in life, there were people like Michael O'Connor. Uh, Michael owned a print shop and I bought that printing business and he taught me the value of, of how to check the Z out every day. You don't even know what the Z out is, but it's a Z out. It was on the cash register and you turn the key to Z and it would total up your total for the day. I. And, uh, and, you know, put it in different categories. That's how we used to look at stuff. We didn't have software. We didn't have QuickBooks, you know, and so you had to do all that stuff manually. He taught me, he said, what's your Z out? And I go, what the hell are you talking about? What's a Z out? And he, he said, I have to teach you everything. Yeah, you do Mike. I bought this place from, you gotta teach me, man. I don't know anything about this stuff. Um, but I, you know, here I was doing, you know, he had had a business about 600,000. I was doing half his business. Because my association management firm was bringing all that business. And I thought, well man, I should buy him. And he said, yeah, you should. I should sell it to you. And so I bought his business. You know, I made money my first year. I owned that business, lost money the next two, and made money the fourth year. And it was like, you know, that's what, you know, you learn through that. And then there was another guy named John, Tim. John was an insurance agent and um, and he was a state legislator and. He, he was a very principled man and just a great man. And, uh, and so, you know, these are people that, you know, you wouldn't know. No one would know, but they meant a lot to me. And, um, and then growing up, you know, they kept me honest and kept me on, you know, narrow, you know, narrow path of saying, you know. Focus on the things that were important in life. And, and I was lucky enough to have them in my life. And, and there are others that I, that I see every day. Sean, I'm, I'm mentored, you know, in my community, I lead a group of CEOs. I, I lead a group of thought leaders. Um, you know, we have podcasters. I, I learn from everybody every day, something new. You know, and I think that's the unique thing that that's important for everybody is that is I go through life as I'm not aware of what I'm not aware of. Right. I, I don't know. And it's okay to be a beginner if you're gonna, you know, to be a maestro, you gotta learn to play a lot of bad notes. And it's important for you to be able to, I. To find those other people that can teach you those things that you didn't know, you know? And so I do my very best to do that every day.

Sean Weisbrot: I like to think of the Japanese sword makers, how they may have a master that they study under for like 30 years, and it's not until they're in their almost sixties that they start to be their own. Like they're on their own making swords and having their own apprentices. It's like they spend the, the best years of their life learning how to do the job. That they're gonna spend the rest of their life doing well, and I, I like to think of the podcast as something like that as well, because I, I like you. I feel like I, I, there's so much I don't know. And so I, I, while I did have a formal mentor once before, that was a long time ago, I feel like my podcast guests are almost like mentors to me, even if it's only for an hour at a time.

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Oh, without question. And you know, people always ask me say, what's your biggest mistake? I say, and I always say, I don't know. I haven't done it yet. Which, which means I've, I've had some doozies, I mean like the pheasant farm and others. I mean, I've had some real doozies that I've done. But what I mean is we're always gonna make mistakes and they're always gonna be big, and I always hope they're big. Because that means you're gonna do something bigger that's more successful. And that's just the nature of, you know, the nature of learning. And yeah, every day you, you typically, or you learn how people do it the way they do it. And sometimes the learning is, nah, I don't wanna do it that way. You know, uh, that's okay too. And, and I think that's, that's what you also get from, you know, like a mentor from other people like. You, you find your, you find where you're solid at, you know, in terms of like, this is how I do it. And, and I'm, I'm that way. I, you know, I try to be as, uh, centered and you're speaking of Japanese, like, like a keto, it's a great example. And have, having practiced that for a number of years. You, you learn to be centered. And I think that's important in, in, in who you are and what you are. And that way, if people come to you with this or that, you can, you know, like there are people sometimes that say, Jeff, I wanna do business with you. Well, I don't wanna do business with you. Why? Well, I just don't like you. I. You know, it's, and it is okay to be, you know, to say that, to do that, to be who you wanna be because you know what your personal conditions of satisfaction are. And I think a lot of people don't spend time, especially, you know, as we're talking about entrepreneurs, I don't think they spend enough time talking about that or thinking about what it is they really want. Out of that business or out of their life, or out of their personal life or their spiritual life. You know, I think those are the four key areas that you've gotta concentrate on. And, and the more time you spend saying, Hey, what is it that I would like to get out of those, the better it is. And I find myself, when I stray from that, that's when things don't go well. Um, you know, I, I, you know, I like I right now I feel like I'm back in my zone. That I wasn't in the zone over the last couple of years, and right now I feel like I'm, I don't know if it's because we're out of COVID or I just finally, you know, got my ass kicked and, or, you know, I'm kicking myself, uh, in the ass or whatever. But I feel like, wow, where have I been? I'm so excited, and not that I wasn't being successful before, but I wasn't being what I could be. And I think that's important for us, uh, sometimes to answer our, ask ourselves, are we happy with what we're doing the way we want? Are we're doing it today? And if you're not, then change it because you can't.

Sean Weisbrot: I think COVID definitely had something to do with it. I think the last few years were a bit off for me, but there was something about like, when January came around this year, I was like, you know, there's something about 2023. It's gonna be different. It's gonna be like, great. And so far it's been pretty good. But the last few years were pretty tough. I don't know what it's like for you, but

Jeffrey Hayzlett: they stuck. No, I don't wanna ever go through it again. And then no one should. And by the way, I was talking to a, a, a booking agent, uh, in, in Paris today. And we were talking about that because Paris had a huge lockdown. This is an American who's living in Paris and then booking speakers like me. And you know, I said, I don't think we'll ever go through that again Now. We will have pandemics again, there's no doubt about it. I mean, we're gonna face that, that's the nature of it. We're inventing stuff in labs we shouldn't be inventing, and we're, you know, and, and just, uh, stuff is progressing, you know, call it Darwinism, whatever you want, but just stuff happens and they go, they go in waves and we've been able to stop 'em, and we'll be able to stop some in the future, but some we won't. Whatever. It'll be the nature that's, that's the way human life evolves. But I don't think we'll lock down people. I don't think people will stand for that. Um, you know, in South Dakota we never shut down. Now a lot of people give our governor credit for it, but she gets too much credit for it because, you know, we've been practicing physical distancing since 1889, so it's not like it's a big deal. So, you know, my nearest neighbor is, you know, way down the road, right? So the chances of me, you know, getting it or having it, or, you know, long as I'm, you know, staying away from people, but I just don't think we'll go through that. And it, and the toll that it took on business, that it was just unfair. And we can't do that to people Again. We can't, and not to mention what it costs us $14 trillion in, in, in bailouts of, you know, different companies. And, and it didn't, it wasn't fair to everybody. I mean, there were a lot of people who didn't get, get their, their fair share of whatever that was. I just, it's just wrong.

Sean Weisbrot: So I'm currently running this business. We live to build and I am invested in two other businesses that are active and I am advising another. Business for equity that's active and it's a lot for me. It's difficult for me to manage the energy from all of it. How? How do you do it? Are you an active investor or are you kind of, kind of like, here's, here's my money, here's some connections, have fun, you know, let me know if there's, if you need to exit or something. Like how do you handle all of that?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: I think you, I think you get a good sense. I'm pretty much in charge of the things I want to be in charge of the way I want. I mean, that's just who I am. I'm a driver. If you go back to the personality types, I'm, I don't even know what it is on the, on, you know, a couple of those, what do you call it? Um, the, the. Personality types. I can't remember what it is, but the, you know, I'm a driver. Yeah. Whatever. I'm a driver. Look, I'm in your face. I have two modes of operation. I'm either seducing you or killing you. That's, I'm overpowering you. That's just the nature of that's, that's who I am. Got it. That's it. I, you know, I don't make any excuses for it. That's the way it goes. I serve on 14 corporate boards today. Uh, four of those are publicly traded companies. The balance of 'em are, are private. Uh, half of those I own. The other half I invest in and in those boards that, let's say if I were investing in your company, I get very active. I help you raise money. I help you succeed because I got a piece of that action and I'm, I'm a, I'm, I can help make a difference. And I, and I'm very active on the boards I meet every week with the CEOs of those companies. Just say, Hey, what do we got on our agenda or every two weeks? And I'm acting as a mentor for them. I'm making conduits in terms of, uh, for, uh, being a conduit for introductions on what, on a whole host of things, whether it's. Investors, new, new customers, partners, channels, you know, all kinds of things. Talent in some cases, because in, as, as you know, in many startups, we need great talent and to find people. And of course, I've got a network of people, you know, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm tapped out at 35,000 on LinkedIn, but yet I got, you know, um, another bunch of that more that follow me, 500,000 on Twitter. And so forth and so on. So I use that network very well to help those companies as much as I possibly can. And of course then my platform on the C-Suite network with podcast shows and TV shows and, and you know, and helping them to accelerate or hyperscale number one thing that I try to do.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of work and every week we bring you a new guest and a new story. And what we do requires so much love so that we can bring you something amazing. And every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve. Our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much and we'll take you back to the show now. How many hours a night do you sleep? Because there's this, there's this argument in society now about how much people should sleep. And there's people like Gary Vaynerchuk that's like, you shouldn't sleep, you should work yourself to death. And then there's other people that disagree with that. And so I'm just curious where you fall in that.

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Gary's young, Gary's young. You know, when you get older, you start to learn, you know? Yeah. I, I was like that. I mean, I would pull all-nighters and do that, and I, you know, I'd still do that and occasionally I might do that if it's really, really important. I get literally, uh, 68 hours every night, you know? Um, but I also, I'm very organized and I go to bed early and I get up early. I use those early hours. In fact, you know, I started at four this morning and I'm ahead before everybody else is, and, and by the time I hit the office by 7 7 30, I. Um, you know, most people don't get in till nine. I'm still ahead of them and I still can't keep up because I'm so excited. I, I go to bed at night hoping I hurry up and sleep so I can get going the next day. That's how excited I am about stuff and doing stuff. Um, so that, you know, but again, I'm very organized. I use things like, you know, like I love monday.com. Uh, you, I'm sure there, there are other programs out there. That's the one I started using. I love that. I, you know, I even have shopping lists with my wife on there that we keep track of stuff and it helps me organize. I meet every morning with my executive assistant. I went without an executive assistant for a number of years. I'll never do that again. You know, I thought, well, I can do it myself, you know, if COVID I'll save money. And so, uh, and then I stopped before, right before COVID, and now I'm much more efficient, much more effect. And every day we go through. The list of all the things that we've got. What's my, what's on my to-do things, you know, like I got like 60 items today. I can't get to 60 items, but I have to focus in on what are the five key ones that are gonna get me where I need to go today. And then I'll move the, I'll move the ones I never get done to the next day. Big deal. No one died, you know? Or I try to live by Sean, automate, delegate, eliminate. So I look at everything on my plate that day. What do I need to automate or delegate or eliminate? And that's what I do every day. And I put that, that's one of my items every day that pops up on my to-do list. Automate, delegate, eliminate, and then sales. And my certain, you know, certain sales that I want to do, and then all the other projects and everything else, but very organized. You know, I got the. Board for every, you know, I got a, a Monday board for every board that I'm on. I've got a Monday board for campaigns that I'm overseeing with the marketing team. Um, you know, different project. I'm looking over here, my ma I run some masterminds. I run my, the, my brand, uh, the team and I meet with them. And then, and then again all the boards that I'm on. So, you know, I'm always focused on the boards for whether it's I flip Patriots, apex, I mean, I can go right on down the list and making sure I'm doing the things that we need to do.

Sean Weisbrot: I. So I want to go back to the executive assistant real fast. I have what I call an executive assistant for myself. There's things that I've trained her to do, tasks that I used to do, but from what I understand the best, executive assistants aren't ones that are really being told what to do. They're the ones kind of telling you what you need to be doing, or do you, do you disagree or is it a mix of both?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: No, I totally agree. I mean, when I was a chief market officer at Fortune, uh, you know, 100 company, I had a couple people, someone worked on my schedule and you know, 'cause you can imagine your schedule is just nuts. You know, I used to have, you know, imagine what it's like when you're at that level. Fortune, fortune 100 officers, 500 O, there's 500 of those five at each company roughly is 500. That's the most elite group. There are more people. There are more people playing professional football than there are Fortune 1000 officers, just to give you that. So it's a very elite group when you think about it. And so, I mean, when I go to a trade show, I mean, they beat me at my door at seven o'clock. There'd be three or four people. Someone's handing me an egg sandwich and a diet mountain de and I used to drink Diamond Mountain de back then. And then, uh, they, then, then someone would start telling me my schedules were walking toward the elevator. Someone's already moved up ahead of us so they can press the elevator button so that the, you know, the, the door's open before I get there because they don't wanna waste your time. I know it's a bunch of bullshit, but to, to some extent. 'cause like, you know, sometimes when Mr. Hazel, do I need to show you the bathroom? No, I think I can go to the fricking bathroom by myself. Okay. I don't need you for that. All right. But they would've pre walked the route that we're about to take. So that, I mean, so that we're not wasting time. I mean, that's the kind they would shuffle in through back doors, all that. So that's the, that's the world. That I, uh, I got used to. Right? And then, you know, it's like, it's like Jim Bakker once said, who was a former Secretary of State for Ronald Reagan. He goes, you know, one day you're being driven around and, and with security and uh, and a private li is bulletproof on Meine to the next day. You got a cab driver who speaks s Farsi, right. So when you go from a corporate job like that to your own, then you're on your own. You gotta rebuild all these things. And, but one of the best things that I have is, you know, like somebody says, Hey, send me your scheduler for a meeting. I said, yeah, I'll send that link to you. Her name is Marilyn. And Marilyn will schedule, you know, because I used to have like Calendly or something like that, which are great tools by the way, except that they don't prioritize your time. Right. And if there's an open time and it right before something else. You might not want to have that meeting then, and you might wanna allot an hour rather than half an hour or the 40 minutes that you only allow people to take. Right. So, so you know, I have somebody like Marilyn who, who sets in on meetings with me. I. And then she knows what I'm thinking, what the strategy is, where I need to go. And so she's thinking like that, that's what I need. So she's making decisions for me. Right. And, and like, so if, 'cause if I have to make those decisions, I, I just said it, I ago because I said like, for this interview, is it a video or audio? And she goes, well, it's video. I said, well, why didn't you guys put it up there so I can get. I can look nice for the, for the video interview. And, and, and I said, if I have to ask those questions, what do I need you for? And it's not derogatory, it's not trying to be mean, but that's what I'm expecting from the team, right? My job as a CEO or um, a senior leader or chairman of the company is to hit a mark. Just like, you know, as a podcast, that's your job. Everybody in the business's job is to make sure I hit that mark. All right, and all the things leading up to it, they, they should be taken care of. My job is to do what I'm supposed to do and do well. All right? And, and that's what I, I really spend a lot of time with the team. Now, it takes time to train people to, to set expectations, to talk about conditions of satisfaction. It's not being mean when we say, Hey, what the hell? Why am I doing this right? You know, um, and, but I do say those things 'cause if I, if I don't, I'm not setting the right proper conditions of satisfaction and you're not living up to your potential of, of what you promised me you could do. And by doing that, you know, I look, I could cut my own grass, but, you know, is that the best use of my time? Given what I can do, right? I could, you know, sometimes I'll, I'll ask somebody, Hey, go get me lunch or something because you know, and I try to bring lunch whenever possible 'cause I'm trying to eat healthy and all that. But again, what is it the things that you could do for me that could take it off my plate? I don't have to do I. Uh, and we, and that's what those morning meetings are for me every day. That's what I spend time, you know, at least half an hour every day. Now, today we skipped it because yesterday we spent about an hour and we're too busy getting stuff done tomorrow. We won't miss that because, we'll, we'll see where we're at with all the things that we have to do and what's important. 'cause we got a lot of things that are important this week to get done.

Sean Weisbrot: And is she in your office or is she working remote or?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: She's right there. She's listening to this conversation right now. She's right over there. Okay. So, yeah, uh, I, where I, you know, but I, I probably see her four days out of the month. Maybe, maybe, uh, three, four days out of the month. I. Physically together the rest of the time. Never. I mean, you know, and I'm okay with that. I'm used to that. Um, and, but Zoom, you know, zoom is obviously a great, you know, um, or any video I do, we, I do video calls, video call, video call, video call. That's all I do. I hardly ever do phone calls, almost always video calls. I wanna see people, I wanna, you know, and when I'm talking to the CEO. And I'm the chairman of the board or whatever, or on the board. I wanna see people, I wanna see what you're doing, what you look like, you know, you know, uh, I'm on one board where it's a finance company and I was talking to the CEO and he is, you know, wearing a baseball cap and a. You know, a hoodie. I said, dude, you're representing a financial company. Look like I want to give you my money. You know, don't look like Mark Zuckerberg when he first showed up at Wall Street to go take his company public. And finally they told him, Hey, put on a fricking shirt with a collar and a jacket for God's sakes. You know, you don't have to wear a tie. Well, you know, you're, you're in somebody else's house. Right. So, you know, things like that. It's good. But I, I, but we, but that's, you know, when I was the chief marketing officer at Kodak, for instance. The executive team, like the four op top officers we met, you know, um, literally every week or two weeks, uh, every two weeks we met as a, a senior executive team. And, but we own, we did 'em almost all remote. 'cause I was usually in Germany or I was in Israel, or I was in China and the other one was in Italy. And, you know, we were all over the world. Um, and we, I might have saw my CEO maybe once or twice a month face to face maybe. So just to give you an I you, because you're supposed to do your job. Right. And that's, you know, at that level we're doing our jobs and if I don't know what my job is, I got a real problem. And, but with Maryland, you know, we meet every, every typically the same time every morning. Try to do that or thereabouts. And, but we do go a few days when we don't meet from time to time, but we, we communicate a lot by text and phone all the time.

Sean Weisbrot: So how do you make sure being on a board of a company that the company is moving in a favorable direction for shareholders?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: So you always wanna focus in. On. First of all, what's the problem we're solving? That's number one. So what is it that we're solving? What's our, what's the key vision, mission, goal that we're doing? Then what are the goals, which are statements of direction? So what are those? And then you want to get into objectives, the measurable outcomes of that. So those have to be established for every single company. 'cause if you don't know that, you don't know where you're going, then, then what will be the things that drive that? So in our last board meeting with this one company, you know, we went through about seven things that said great to Mr. CEO. Now those are the seven things, but you also mentioned these. So let's just call them our top 10. Now, can we, each month that we meet from now on, you give us an idea of what those are. Plus give me an idea of what, what is our, what is our adoption rate? What's our cagr? What's it costing us to gain? Gain those clients. And then we have three different ways that we're measuring those clients. Big, huge whales, institutional or or individual accounts. And then those individual accounts are broken down by three. Can you can give that report? Yes. Yes. Mr. Hazel, we can do, we can do that. You know, uh, Jeff, we can do that. Great. That's, that's what we're gonna measure. And if we, you get what you measure. And so, so we, I, so I really try to get us down to understanding what is it we're gonna measure? How are we gonna measure success? And then each month we need to look at that. Now, if we need to alter it, change it, that's not the right thing. And usually over a couple months it takes you a little bit of oh, muscle memory to get that muscle memory. A little bit of aches and pains to get there. But once you get that, that's what you should be looking at and measuring, right? That's, that's what you look at every single day. And so you have to really outline what are those conditions of satisfaction, and then, you know, put that on the agenda and make sure that that's what you're doing. And if it doesn't bring it up, be transparent in the conversation. It's not being, again, some people say, oh, you're throwing people under the bus or doing, no, come on, you knew the bus was there. I mean, so, you know, let's have a discussion about it. I'm not here to blame anybody. I'm here to get to where we need to go. We're, we're always gonna make mistakes. We're always gonna have lots of mistakes that everybody just talks about, fail fast. So that's bullshit. How about we win fast? I'd rather win fast. And so that's what we try to do is like, if that's where we're going, then let's figure out how we measure it and let's make sure that's what we're talking about all the time.

Sean Weisbrot: What would it take for you to insist on firing A CEO and have you ever had to fire a CEO?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Yeah. All the above. Yeah. Yes, I have. Typically, it's because they, they are, um, they're not delivering on conditions of satisfaction or they violated values of the company. You know, uh, and I've been in big fights. I've been in fights on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. I'll give a good example. RMG, which, uh, which was a, a company based in Dallas and the CEOA chairman of that company, he wasn't the CEO, the chairman of that company tried to take the company over and buy it publicly traded company. Well, great. He could do it. His name was Greg. I said, Greg, you can do that all for you if that's what you wanna do. There were five members of the board of directors. I was the only independent, which means it was him and then three of his buddies, friends, people that used to work for him. And then I was the independent and they acquired the, the company, RMG, and I stayed. I was the only board of director that stayed on the board of the new company. I. Okay, and here he is now he wants to take over the company and basically take it private. Well, when you do that in a company, it requires you certain fiduciary responsibilities by the board to get a fair price for that company, for the shareholders. And he was trying to do it in a way that maybe it didn't quite do that now, maybe could, maybe not. But you see, you have to follow certain kinds of. Uh, things or you get sued. Well, we ended up getting sued. He got sued. The board got sued. Everybody gets sued, and if you're on a publicly traded company, you're gonna be sued all the time. Constantly being sued. And you know, once my wife said, why are you doing this? I said, it's 'cause what good people do. Because in that particular case, I'm in the front page of the Wall Street Journals. SEC starts looking at it and we were in the right and I got two of the board of directors, two of his buddies friends to join, to say, no, no, no, no, no. We have to go out and, and look for other bids for the company. Could be that you're gonna win, but we're gonna take it. This is a responsibility. Well, it's gonna cost us a million bucks to do it. Well that's the cost of doing business. I. And if you're, you know, if you're a bid successful, then you, yep, you're gonna eat that cost. Or just like, these other guys might eat the cost and you, you get to win. Great. But we're gonna do it right. And that was a good example of where I would've fired that guy in a heartbeat, uh, because of the way in which he violated those. Values. And you know, it's just a, you know, do I still see 'em today? Yeah. Am I cordial to 'em? Absolutely. Would I serve on a board for 'em? Very doubtful, you know, but, um, but you know, that's the things you have to, you know, learn. And by the way, during that period, I lost my entire investment in that company, okay. And I got sued. And, you know, had to turn over all kinds of stuff to the SEC and stuff like that, which I gladly did because, you know, we were in the right, uh, on that particular thing. And, um, and again, like my wife said, why are you doing this? You're not getting paid. You're getting sued. This is a pain. And I said it's because that's what good people do. And if good people don't stand up and do that kind of stuff, that's, that's not, that's just not right.

Sean Weisbrot: I was going to ask earlier, so you've given me a good segue into it. What's one of the hardest things about being part of a public listed company? Is it being sued all the time? Or is there something that's worse than that?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Uh, well, I, I think, I think it's the, the biggest thing I think about being a, that's one of 'em. Are you? And just to understand, that's just the nature of it. You just think that's the case. And I've been on lots of boards, big boards, taking companies public. 21 billion, uh, was one of the biggest ones we did. But, but the, um, probably it's the, it's the government oversight that believes all businesses are bad. And, and so you're paying the price. Of bad companies, good companies pay the price of bad companies and the Sarbanes Oxley stuff, things like that. I mean, you're signed, you when you, when you sign a document, I mean, I remember when I was at Kodak and I had to sign documents as an officer of that company that basically said that this is wrong. You're going to jail. You know, and so, you know, those are the things like you gotta really make sure you trust your team there. You know that the CFO is, the CFO knows what he's doing, which by the way, we had one of the best CFOs I've ever had in my entire career. He was one of the few that I actually really liked, you know, because most CFOs just say no. He would say nobody. He'd give you a reason for it and you'd have a discussion and you were able to negotiate a little bit, you know, in terms of, okay, what problem, you know, Frank was his name. He was really good. Frank was just awesome and, and, um, again, one of the best I've ever worked with. I. And, and I say work with, because we work together, he is one of the few CFOs I work together. Like he would come to me and say, Jeff, we have to trim 10, you know, 10% out of the overall budget. And I say, okay, let's do it. And he goes, Jeff, you're the only officer in the company said, let's go do it. I said, Frank, you, you said we had to go do it. And if we have to go do it, I'm, I'm trusting you, you know what we do now, I don't know if it's 10% for mine or it's, or maybe we gotta put 20% for my budget, or it's gotta be 20 from somebody else, but let's sit down and figure this out, you know? And I said, that's what we gotta do. That's what we gotta do. I said, it's a business. You gotta run the business. Now what's, but at the same time, I used to go to Frank and say, okay, Frank, let's, I'm gonna trim the 10%, but let's also look at the, the revenue that's gonna come down. He goes, what do you mean? And I go, well, if I take advertising and marketing down, then sales are gonna come down, dude, that they're, they're connected. So let me show you where. You know, those two are connected, so we're gonna need, you know, 15% from this side and 20% from this side if we're gonna take this revenue down. So, you know, he, he, he, he and I started investing in certain things. We, we look at things and, and change the narrative, but, but, uh, beginning back to the, what's the negative things? I think that's the biggest thing. The other thing is the, I don't like sometimes the, the, um. The, the rigor that you have to go through, sometimes you have to operate a little bit, you know, more, uh, formal. And I, I don't always care for that sometimes.

Sean Weisbrot: What's one of the best things about being part of a public listed company?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Well, the ability to get capital. I mean, that's what it's for. You know, people think going public is, that's your cash out, right? No, not always. It's, it's, it's, it going public is in a very expensive activity and a lot of scrutiny is coming your way. But the real mechanism for going public isn't for you and the officers and the founders to cash out the original shareholders. It's really about raising capital in order to be able to sustain the growth of the company and to, you know, hyperscale, hopefully hyperscale it. That's the real purpose for it. So as a mechanism for raising capital, that's where it's very good. I, it also then I think, also raises the bar in terms of your legitimacy of a company. You're in a very elite group and you just like north, let's just take North America, there's 28 million businesses in North America. How many of those are publicly traded companies? 15,000. I mean, I mean, that's that, that's it. Out of 28 million, 15,000. That's a pretty heady group. That's, that's phenomenal when you think of it, you know? Um, so that's, wow. I mean, just, it blows my mind when you think about that. Um, you know, and how many of those are, you know, and then out of the 23 million, how many are billion dollar companies? A billion or greater? Seven. 7,000. That's it. So it's, and I mean this is a very, it's, you know, that that group is a very elite group and, and you know, having served on it or been in one of those companies, which I have both and still am, um, yeah, it's pretty, pretty special. I.

Sean Weisbrot: What's something you're excited about?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Well, personally, my grandkids. I mean, that's that. I mean, if you look at the things that are really things that mean something in your life, it's, you know, it's your, it's to, for me, it's that that's the most important thing is to watch them and, and to, and to do I imprint and imprint them as much as I can me on them, you know? So, so, you know, and I got three granddaughters and I got, uh, a what they, eight, six, and now a, a three week old. And so, and the eight and six, you know, I was like reflecting on this the other day. We went out to, we went out to dinner and I had the 6-year-old sign for the bill. You know, I take my credit card. She, she asked for the bill and I teach her how to do that. You know, I, the 8-year-old already knows the six year old's her turn. And, and then she's gotta sign the check. Now I can't wait to start using her credit card, but that, that, that's a different, that's later on in life. But, but, you know, but that's empowering them and doing that, to me that's exciting is to be able to, you know, especially young girls and to give them more confidence, more sas, more whatever, um, more, uh, aggressiveness to be able to, uh, to be real, to really succeed. The way they, that I hope that they're gonna succeed.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. It's really important for kids to have that. I, I majored in psychology and I spent a good bit of that time looking at how the brain develops in early childhood and therefore, you know, at what age does, is a child able to do what and, and these kinds of things. And um, I noticed that a lot of people typically just ignore kids when they're around adults. And so I make it an effort to. Like, like look at them and talk to them and engage them and have them, and, and not just be like, Hey, how are you? But like, actually, you know, communicate with them so that they have an opportunity and it's so important. And I always,

Jeffrey Hayzlett: yeah, my, my favorite. My favorite. Absolutely. Sean, my favorite question is, what'd you learn in today? What'd you learn today? That's usually my first question. What'd you learn in school today? I wanna know what you learned. Well, what'd you do? Uh, no. Come on. You're gonna answer that. Que I really drive that question. You know, my daughter is my oldest, uh, you know, she hated, she hated when she was younger. We'd go to a restaurant and they would ask me what they wanted. Her and her brother. They would ask me, well, what the children want? And I would say, ask them, you know, and I, and I, today, even when I take my granddaughters out to dinner like we did the other day, I, they order themselves more. They're gonna go hungry. And, and so, you know, because I'm not, you know, I'll work with 'em on the menu and things like that, but they know besides mac and cheese, you know, what else would you like to have? Oh, and no chicken tenders. Okay, what else would you like to have? And that's usually because I try to steer 'em on eating something different than on the menu. You know, try, try something that's different, you know, whether it be, you know, like a anyway, more than chicken tenders and mac and cheese. But, but to do that I think helps a lot of people. And the same thing. In business do the same thing. Like I have a new cup, I got a new CEO of the company and everybody says, Jeff, what do you wanna do? I said, I don't know. Ask Tricia. So I got a cup that says hash a hashtag. Just ask Tricia. She's the CEO from now on. That's what I hold up. You don't ask me those questions. Ask the CEOI. As a marketing question, don't ask me, ask the cmo, ask Tyler, go. You know, those are the things we should be doing and, and it's easy for the chairman or for the CEO, depending on your leadership structure to answer those questions for everybody else.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I agree. I think it's important for people to be able to do that. And I tried when, in my last business, when I was a lot younger, I tried to answer as many of the questions as I could, but found very quickly, I had no idea what I was talking about. And so I would often get into arguments with my COO 'cause he'd be like, that you have no data to prove what you've just said. He's like, you can't back up. He's like, you're, you're expressing an opinion or you're expressing something that's hearsay. Like, give me something that makes me like be able to know that this actually has weight to it rather than you just saying it. And so he would force me to like, go back and actually find things. And then he would challenge me based on the data sources and like, okay, fine. You just do it yourself. Like I just. I give up. You just do it.

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Yeah. Well, if it, if it, no, but if it was easy, everybody could do it. Right. And, and by the way, there's a, that's one of the cool things I think about thought leaders and I work a lot with thought leaders, you know, coaches, trainers, authors, speakers, and, and CEOs who are thought leaders as well. We have a couple groups of those in the C-Suite network. And every, anybody can give you an opinion. Anyone can give you advice. But advice is usually given by people who've never done it before. Thought leaders, you know, give you counsel and counsel and that's what the CEO was asking for. He's asking for counsel. He is not asking for, Hey, you know, pop this off, pop that off. No, why I'm asking. And counsel is usually given by people who have done it before, who really know the facts and knows what it like and say, I can say, well, here's how I've done it in the past, or Here's how so and so did it. And that's a very valuable, that's valuable. And that's what CEOs are doing. Most CEOs, you come to me or CMO, any C-suite executive. Our job isn't to be the smartest people in the room. It's to be the most strategic. And everyone comes to me with problems. That's all they do all day. How about you? Be unique and come to me with a fricking solution. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for clock change. I'm looking for people who come with solutions. And by the way, those are few and far between. 'cause everybody shows up with a problem. Hey, did you know? Of course I know. What am I an idiot? You know, of course. So think I call it Tyco. Thank you, captain. Obvious.

Sean Weisbrot: Fair enough. What's the most important thing you've learned to date in your life?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: That I don't know What I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. And I think that's one of the most important things that most of us, my job isn't to change you. My job is just to understand. And so my job is to try to understand as much as possible. So I don't know everything, so, uh, I know some things and I know what I've done, but that doesn't mean it's gonna hold for the future. And that's what I don't know.